Agree with most of this. I don't want to though - I find it inherently depressing that we simply can't or won't do better. I want my kids to have a half decent life. We seem destined to keep right on trucking until we drive right off the cliff of collapse.
I don't agree it has to be the way of capitalism though, it's a problem of unfettered capitalism. We have more than enough history to know. Post war we were happy to constrain and limit capitalism to give an unprecedented period of rising standards with rising regulation, services and low inequality. Neoliberalism broke it. Rowing back the excess power and politicisation of unions was one thing - removing them as a usable concept for two generations entirely another. If negative externalities can be ignored, then regulate until they can't, even if it has to be an entirely arbitrary tax on plastic, emissions or whatever.
No country seems willing to go first, so we're stuck with the lowest common denominator of international agreements. Agreements where one or two derail any chance of global action and the rest won't get on without unanimity. Which starts to look insane.
I don't mean it has to be the way of capitalism, but I've become pretty cynical about how long the kind of capitalism we'd prefer can last, precisely because capitalism (which is actually superbly poorly defined wherever it's used and you and I likely aren't even referring to the same thing in the end) seems to inherently enable concentrations of wealth and power.
That said, I recognize that I don't know what the right alternative should be.
I don't agree it has to be the way of capitalism though, it's a problem of unfettered capitalism. We have more than enough history to know. Post war we were happy to constrain and limit capitalism to give an unprecedented period of rising standards with rising regulation, services and low inequality. Neoliberalism broke it. Rowing back the excess power and politicisation of unions was one thing - removing them as a usable concept for two generations entirely another. If negative externalities can be ignored, then regulate until they can't, even if it has to be an entirely arbitrary tax on plastic, emissions or whatever.
No country seems willing to go first, so we're stuck with the lowest common denominator of international agreements. Agreements where one or two derail any chance of global action and the rest won't get on without unanimity. Which starts to look insane.
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