Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote:
> Joseph Green <[email protected]> wrote:
> > The question you raised remains. It surprised you that the neo-liberal
> > s.o.b. Mankiw wrote what you seemed to you a half-decent view about what
> > should be done about the environment. My point is that his views on the
> > carbon tax and cap and trade aren't really so surprising -- what he is
> > advocating is a neoliberal solution; it won't work for the environment, but
> > it will work for the capitalists.
>
> yup. But he showed unusual intelligence and integrity compared to his
> normal standards. That was my only point in the original missive in
> this thread.
The key point is what is the significance of Mankiw backing the carbon
tax, and I think it was quite thought-provoking that you brought up Mankiw's
stand Now you say that all you see in this is that Mankiw "showed unusual
intelligence and integrity compared to his normal standards". But one
should be very careful about assuming that Mankiw is going against his
general economic presumptions. I think Mankiw's stand shows that it no longer
means much to simply talk about the environmental problem. The fight is over
what type of measures will really help the environment.
>
> Joseph, earlier:
> >> > * It won't sufficiently affect carbon emissions.
>
> me:
> >> can't it be increased in magnitude?
>
> > I dealt with this question in my article on the carbon tax. But, for
> > one thing, there is every reason to believe that by the time the carbon tax
> > got high enough to eliminate certain sources of carbon emissions, it would
> > have dramatically upset the economy. Look at the results from a short stint
> > at $4 gallon gas in the US -- major pain while the effect on carbon
> > emissions
> > was minor.
>
> well, don't you think that bringing in socialism would also "upset the
> economy"? Which is more likely to happen before global warming hits in
> a big way, socialism or a carbon tax?
>
Ahem, you just evaded the point that one can't just raise the carbon tax
as high as necessary to get the result one wants.
That aside, you do raise an important issue. It seems to me that you
are dismissing the criticisms of the carbon tax because it seems to you to be
something useful, as opposed to waiting around for socialism. But the
question which I would raise is, and the question which I think is raised by
Mankiw's views, is *not* that we should replace the carbon tax with just
twiddling our thumbs waiting for socialism. It's whether there has to be a
class struggle now, today, over what type of measures should be taken to deal
with the environment. The question is whether we should take Mankiw's views
as a warning, about what the "intelligent" neo-liberal opposition to serious
measures to deal with the environment is like.
In my opinion, to believe that the carbon tax or other marketplace
measures are the main things we can advocate is like saying that it's private
health insurance or nothing -- forgetting about single-payer and national
health services; or charter schools or nothing, forgetting about public
schools; toll roads or nothing, abandoning public roads; etc.
Neoliberal environmentalism developed as a reaction against environmental
regulations that had been implemented under capitalism in the late 60s and
70s, and against the fear of additional such regulations. That's the origin
of cap and trade and carbon tax schemes. To forget that there is another way
of carrying out environmental protection aside from creating artificial death
markets means to leave oneself trapped inside free-market economics.
True, we can't simply go back to the old regulations of the past.
Dealing effectively with the environmental crisis today would involve major
changes in production; it would involve more than just limiting carbon
emissions, but dealing with a number of environmental challenges; there is
also the prospect of having to deal with large numbers of environmental
refugees; there are going to be major changes to deal with preserving
agriculture, sources of fresh waters, etc. in a period of climactic change.
Thus regulation and a certain type of planning will be forced on capitalist
governments -- as it has been during, say, serious wars: if the governments
don't do it before we reach climactic disaster, then they will be forced to
it afterwards to deal with the horrible consequences of climactic disaster.
But for now the bourgeoisie is still marking time with marketplace
solutions. This is a real and current danger, and Mankiw is part of this.
And there has to be a fight, now, against this policy.
The naturalist Timothy Flannery, when he became convinced of the reality
of the threat of global warming, wrote a useful book, "The Weather Makers".
In it, he points out that such planning might be forced on governments. But,
burdened with the current fashionable market conceptions, he is scared of
this. He has the nightmare of a "carbon dictatorship", and instead promotes
what he describes as "in some ways . . . an ultrademocratic variant of the
Kyoto Protocol".
The grain of truth in Flannery's worries about the frightful "carbon
dictatorship" is that capitalist planning is planning that is designed for
capitalist profit and to keep the masses down. (And never is this seen as
sharply as during war-time planning!) It would be a gigantic mistake to call
capitalist planning and regulation "socialism". No doubt "Newsweek", which
blathered "we're all socialists now" because of the provision of trillions of
dollars to the banks, will shout that such planning is socialism. But it is
not.socialism.
Thus workers will have to be suspicious of what the governments do, and
try to influence it into a direction which really deals both with the
environment and with mass needs. Here I am *not* going to try to give a
summary "in 20 words or less" of the overall program I have put forward in
some detail in several articles. But there needs to be a trend of workers'
environmentalism that will fight the neoliberal environmentalists in order
-- that an effective environmental enforcement against the capitalists is set
up
-- that mass welfare be regarded as an essential part of environmental work,
and not as an afterthought
-- that the agencies be transparent, so the masses can provide pressure on
them,
-- that the powerful corporate interests that ravage the environment be
curbed,
etc.
This cannot be accomplished by marketplace incentives, but requires mass
involvement to be, at least to some extent, the eyes and ears of
environmental enforcement.
Naturally only part of this can be achieved under capitalism. And
whatever is achieved will be unstable and constantly subject to being taken
away. But it will be vital to fight for such a regulatory regime and system
of overall environmental planning, rather than putting faith in amendments to
market mechanisms in the hope of making them work right. And in the fight
over this, the masses will come to their own view on whether capitalism is
viable.
From this point of view, I find the conception that the critics of
marketplace measures can only be advocates of waiting passively until the
revolution to be a wooden and mechanical one. It's certainly not the
conception which I and others have stood up for, and you could not have
gotten this from reading my articles on this issue.
But I think that there is a form of radicalism that does fall into this
error. A good deal of Trotskyist environmentalism, for example, exposes the
capitalist ravaging of the environment, but essentially counterposes nothing
to it but eventual socialism. This is also a problem in a couple of works by
the Monthly Review's John Bellamy Foster that I have read. So in that sense,
I see why you, Jim, just assume -- presumably from the assumption that there
is nothing new in the world -- that I must be advocating the same thing as
these others.
But my conception, and that of the comrades I work with, is quite
different. I have pointed out sharply that "the environmental crisis is upon
us now, while capitalism still exists. Major steps will have to be taken
soon, while the present capitalist ruling classes are still in power." This
statement, for example, appears in the following passage in the article "The
coming of the environmental crisis, the failure of the free market, and the
fear of a carbon dictatorship":
* * * * *
"The environmental crisis calls urgently for the direct regulation of
production. What source of energy is used for manufacturing and
transportation, whether a forest is cut down or preserved, whether the oceans
are overfished, and whether raw materials are economized or wasted, can no
longer be left to the whims of the capitalists and the bottom lines of their
corporations. This, however, goes against the 'invisible hand' of the free
market, which cares nothing about long-run costs and benefits to humanity,
but focuses only on short-run profits and the immediate expansion of
capitalist wealth. Even if a few CEOs and pro-business politicians should
care about the environment and write books and fund foundations to care for
the environment, the 'invisible hand' will ensure that this has little or no
effect on the overall workings of a market economy. Economic decisions with a
major affect on the environment must be made on the basis of the overall
interests of the world's population. So preserving a livable environment will
require greater and greater violations of the free market, and it can only be
carried out truly effectively in a socialist economy which eliminates the
private ownership of the means of production. Thus no matter what
environmentalists may imagine now, the struggle over the environment will
eventually provide a powerful impetus for the socialist organization of the
working masses.
"But the environmental crisis is upon us now, while capitalism still
exists. Major steps will have to be taken soon, while the present capitalist
ruling classes are still in power. As the failure of carbon emission markets
to solve the problem becomes evident, they may take steps to implement carbon
taxes; and as the failure of carbon taxes becomes evident, they will have to
move to some type of regulation of production. True, the capitalists will
likely wait until their hands are forced by a series of spectacular
environmental disasters, and by then the situation will be quite desperate.
But the time is coming closer when the capitalists will have to abandon neo-
liberal orthodoxy, and move towards a regulated capitalism.
"But this will not mean that the capitalist governments will have become
socialist. Neo-liberal market fundamentalism is not the only form of
capitalism: capitalism has always oscillated back and forth between periods
of greater and lesser regulation, and even now different capitalist countries
have varying amounts of regulation and social programs. The planning that the
capitalist governments introduce will be done by capitalist agencies, and
indeed the world economy will be subject to imperialist agencies and the
strongest imperialist powers. Capitalist planning will seek to have the
masses pay for the continued profits of the corporations in the name of
planning, just as now it makes the masses pay in the name of the free market.
It will be up to the masses to fight to ensure that not only does the
planning truly address the environmental problems, but that the well-being of
the masses is protected.
"So workers and environmental activists must not only press for government
action to deal with the environmental crisis, but for recognition that this
crisis has been brought about by the free market, and that the solution
requires the direct regulation of production."
* * * * *
>
> I don't believe that the Invisible Hand works all the time, but if the
> government has the power and willingness to tax something, it almost
> always discourages its purchase and/or it manufacture. Look at the
> taxing of cigarettes, for example. It's true that its encouraged the
> nicotine purveyors to go global, but it has encouraged young people in
> the US to avoid getting addicted. By making others more sensitive to
> the smell of the smoke (as smoking became rarer), it's helped build up
> political support for stronger strictures, at least here in
> California.
That's your model of how to deal with carbon emissions? Oh please!
Regards,
Joseph Green
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