Idk, I don’t think it matters who we blame. The problem isn’t the multinational corporations that do this, it’s the system that lets them. We need a better system.

Which is the system at fault here? Capitalism?

Captialism (as implemented in many Western countries) can deal with these things, it just doesn't by default. We successfully solved ozone depletion, we made significant progress with acid rain, we got rid of leaded gasoline, our rivers are reasonably clean, ...

Reasonable legislation that sets the right incentives works. But it's difficult to get passed when entrenched interests are against it. The problem isn't capitalism, the problem is the industry influence on politics that prevents reasonable legislation.

I don't think he intended for it to be named. It's just a system. E.g., The system that lets companies pump water out of aquifers from states in drought and sell it back to people marked up 1000x while seeding misinformation that all tap water is evil. That's the system that is at fault: the deliberate exploitation of both consumers and natural resources for extreme wealth.

Capitalism is just an idea. The actually existing system is a complex self-contradicting hydra that is hard to describe. But yes as another commenter said it comes down to governance. How do we as people want to govern human action? I am way more in favor of decentralized governance. I’d say that a lot of our problems come from having a powerful centralized government that can be influenced by the wealthy. That’s not “capitalism” in a libertarian sense at all. It’s more like an oligarchy in practice. Tho many tend to refer to our system as capitalism, which can lead us down all manner of arguments over terminology. What I really care about is power and how it is distributed. I believe in more directly democratic systems. I think oligarchy tends to lead to problems like plastic waste because the wealthy rulers can basically insulate themselves from any problems they cause, while the rest of us have the choice of buying plastic trash or spending more resources to avoid plastic. The third option of zero waste grocery stores (food as one example) could lead to a life without extra burden on the more conscious consumers and without excess plastic trash. These are common in some other countries, but a country flooded by the plastic producers’ public relations machine, US consumers are all to happy to buy more and more plastic trash. A big question on my mind lately is why we allow public relations to manipulate us in to believing these falsehoods. We’ve surrounded ourselves with megaphones of corporate endorsed pseudoscience, as happened with disposable plastics. Sociologists know public relations works, but we’ve allowed the public relations industry to convince us it’s benign. I think we need to think hard about who that industry serves.

By the way, Noam Chomsky uses the phrase “really existing capitalism today” to talk about the system we’ve ended up with.

https://youtu.be/_uuYjUxf6Uk

"Economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit" no not capitalism, governance.

Not sure that presenting a definition of capitalism gets it off the hook here.

When you don't have a remote third party (the capitalist) involved in your transactions, things are simpler.

You can just ask: is the person I'm doing business with creating more problems than they solve? And then not do business with them if the answer is yes.

If you acknowledge property rights that justify the involvement of capitalists in your transaction, you now have to also ask the same question of them and weigh those answers against the first. It's much harder to figure out who's agenda you're furthering with your money--so most people just don't bother. Both parties blame this abstraction that hangs over their business and neither takes responsibility for its consequences.

The invisible hand ends up being a scapegoat and nothing changes.

Yeah everyone does, which is why those big oil companies are causing global warming but not me.

You can't cause any real harm to nature without help from corps. But they can, by just setting up an oil drill leaking into the ocean.

They would drill for oil nobody wants? I don’t buy that. It’s a two way transaction between supply and demand.

You're greatly underestimating what people can manage on their own. Even ancient peoples managed plenty of harm to nature. Deforested whole regions, wiped out species, damaged farmland with irrigation, etc.

Now there are vastly more of us, and we have a lot better tools to do damage with.

But they wouldn't be setting up oil drills if there wasn't consumer demand.

Well, you didn’t wage a massive climate change denial / disinformation campaign for decades, did you?

I don’t have any options with regard to how I get to and from work nor how I hear and cool my home.

Is that directly your fault, or am I right to place a fair chunk of the blame on the source of that denial?

In this case, it’s the secret third option; the state. This problem can only be solved by regulation; no market force is going to make it go away.

No single raindrop believes it is to be blamed for the flood

This analogy highlights where the problem lies.

Floods are prevented, or mitigated, not by single raindrops, but by chaotic systems on a much larger scale, and / or infrastructure projects raindrops have little to no ability to action.

Humans need leaders to rally behind, and what we’ve had for too long, and likely will have for longer still, is wet dishcloths masquerading as leaders.

You're not given the option, though.

I also love the 'But you can 'vote' with your dollar!' crowd

We have glass bottles, we have compostable plastic, a company is not incentivized to lose profit by switching to more expensive alternatives until it becomes illegal to not do so and they have more lobbying power than any of us.