Couldn't it be viewed as unbridled Communism, uncontrolled dumping in
the commons? Actually, I'm not sure should be called communism,
since theoretical communism is more rule-based than this.
Cap and trade is a capitalist solution, turning the commons into
private property. Of course cap and trade is criticized as
government regulation, but all private property exists only by virtue
of govenment regulation in the form of deeds, patents, courts, the
police.
On Feb 15, 11:44 am, "Eric Swanson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Michael,
>
> Your thoughts have been bandied about in the world of ecological
> economics for decades, as you know. I generally agree with what you
> say, except that the so-called "capitalistic" system is just a form of
> institutionalized greed. You may recall the famous line from the
> movie Wall Street: "Greed is Good." I think that other approaches to
> economics, such as Socialism or it's extreme, Marxism, were originally
> attempts to solve some of the excesses of unbridled Capitalism. As I
> recall, Karl Marx drew his concepts from the excesses seen in the
> world of the first major industrial power, England. That these
> concepts took root in feudal societies such as Russia and China has
> always been a source of confusion regarding the reasoning behind
> Marxism.
>
> The environmental concerns, of which climate change is only one, have
> been the results of that basic notion that mankind has some basic
> right to use the Earth for what ever purpose deemed worthy. That we
> have increased our knowledge of science and applied it's findings
> toward ever greater use of the Earth's various resources is not
> something limited to capitalism. As history has shown us, the
> incentive of greed is a powerful motivator toward ever greater use of
> those resources. Our economic genius' have provided a rational for
> this process, one which they think of as a science, yet, their efforts
> ignore many of the other results of scientific analysis. Growth, both
> in population and consumption per capita, is seen as the most
> desirable goal of economics, while the environmental sciences show us
> that this is ultimately a losing proposition.
>
> Our exploitation of fossil fuels have made it seem to most people
> (especially in the U.S.) that growth will continue inspite of the
> obvious limits. Our economic system has so much built in inertia that
> changing it in the short term will be next to impossible. Perhaps the
> worst result of the climate change debate would be the development of
> large quantities of worry free energy, thus allowing the other areas
> of economic activity to continue as before. You speak of "wealth" and
> one form might be the ownership of second (or third) homes in
> different areas by individuals. That would likely require a continued
> increase in transportation fuels, road building, housing development,
> etc. I just learned on this morning's news that Google is planning a
> new data center in a nearby location. The Sate and local governments
> are providing tax breaks on the order of $200 million to entice the
> company to build out here in the country. Many similar stories have
> appeared of companies building new plants in rural areas, taking the
> most productive flat productive agricultural land as a result.
> Ultimately, society is solar powered and agriculture is the source of
> that solar energy required to produce the food we eat and the fiber we
> use. Have you noticed that the price of food has taken a big jump as
> the corn crop is being diverted to produce ethanol? That's only the
> beginning, as more ethanol production is set to go online.
>
> To the economist, growth is the solution, while to the
> environmentalist, growth is the problem. What I'd like to know is
> this: Where (and how) does it stop?
>
> E. S.
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