anne dashiell writes: >(Quoting Paige) >> As an economist, I believe what drives us to behaviours which are >> ultimately environmentally destructive, is everybody trying to >> satisfy their wants/desires etc... which is what a market system >> encourages. Where we probably agree is that I do believe people >i dont think theres a thing wrong with everyone tryiong to satisfy their >wants and desires. the problem is that capitalism tells us that we want >things that we dont really need. if we were truly in touch with the world >around us we would not tolerate capitalism and we wouldnt want things >that were destructive to ourselves to our environment. I have to respectfully disagree with the analysis of human nature implicit in these comments. Market systems and capitalism don't make people want things they don't need. People are just like that. I lived for a year on a kibbutz in Israel, in a completely socialist environment, and observed that people still wanted things they didn't need, such as electronic equipment, movies, cars, nice clothes, etc. In countries operating under state-run socialism, such as in Eastern Europe, people still want things, they just can't get them. Meanwhile, the environmental record there is much worse than under capitalism. A colleague of mine returned recently from Shenyang, in the Peoples Republic of China, reporting that the pollution was so bad that the place was unlivable. Capitalism has unleashed tremendous productive forces, which can, if not properly managed, have deleterious environmental effects. The goal should be to produce enough of what people want and need, and at the same time protect the environment. The more productive we are, the more we can afford to protect the environment. One of the great mistakes of authoritarian socialism is to think that someone ought to have the power to determine what is a need, and what is a mere *want*. In Romania under Ceaucescu, each family was allowed to have one 40 watt light bulb. Is that all a person needs? Who is to decide? For that matter, who says we really *need* a pristine environment? We may want it, but we can survive an awful lot of environmental damage without jeopardizing the survival of the human species. What capitalism has done is to allow the common person to determine his or her own needs and wants, rather than have them determined by the State Bureau of Important Needs. The problem is not capitalism, but rather that some people don't want what environmentalists want. Our job is to convince them they should want a healthy environment. H. Ellis
