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A comment on Greed and Excess Drive the Climate Crisis, So Why Aren’t They Being Questioned?. Parent comment

Re:Greed and Excess Drive the Climate Crisis, So Why Aren’t ... by simple-thoughts on Sunday July 30, 2023 @07:49PM (#36937262)
The idea that capitalism should go to a point and then be stopped is a pretty standard one from Marx. He greatly admired capitalism but believed once it made people rich it would no longer be needed and the workers would naturally take over through revolution. That’s not to say you’re wrong just because you agree with Marx, but rather you should consider why you are so attached to this idea. Marx’s ideas are a type of religion dressed up to look scientific via “historical materialism”. It’s appealing to believe that time is under humanity’s control rather than something outside of humanity, but there’s strong reasons to believe that is false (the universe will last much longer than humans will).
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Re:Greed and Excess Drive the Climate Crisis, So Why Aren’t ... by javajosh on Sunday July 30, 2023 @07:59PM (#36937355)
I think you need to re-read Marx, then. I'm not a Marxist, at all, mainly because of the empirical evidence that hardcore redistribution of wealth goes very, very poorly. Frankly it annoys me and worries me that some people associate literally any limit on capitalism with socialism. Adam Smith's invisible hand was driven not by self-interest, but enlightened self-interest.

Putting a hard, generous upper limit on wealth accumulation is not even close to Marxism.

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Re:Greed and Excess Drive the Climate Crisis, So Why Aren’t ... by simple-thoughts on Sunday July 30, 2023 @08:10PM (#36937439)
Admittedly Marx is more generous than you- he didn’t want a hard upper limit in wealth and rather thought wealth would increase further after the transition. So yes you do differ from Marx in that you’re a bit harder on people.
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Re:Greed and Excess Drive the Climate Crisis, So Why Aren’t ... by javajosh on Sunday July 30, 2023 @08:36PM (#36937615)
You're arguing in favor of unbounded personal greed. You're arguing in favor of cancer, which is any cell that ceases to regulate it's own growth to the detriment of the organism. The unreasonable effectiveness of tools means that the old days of "natural regulation" of human growth has been eliminated, and something needs to replace it. Asking people to stop once they have Enough is just about the least bad option we have to stem the tide.
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Re:Greed and Excess Drive the Climate Crisis, So Why Aren’t ... by jacquesm on Monday July 31, 2023 @05:26AM (#36940331)
That works as long as there are no limits to the system in which you are working. But the real world is very much a closed system and you can't externalize the results of unbounded growth of wealth within that system. There is nothing to externalize to! So unbounded growth equals unbounded pollution, unbounded resource depletion and ultimately the crash when the boundaries of the system start making themselves be noticed.
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Re:Greed and Excess Drive the Climate Crisis, So Why Aren’t ... by simple-thoughts on Monday July 31, 2023 @06:06AM (#36940560)
Resource intensity of gdp in developed economies has been decreasing over time. That’s because wealth is not a zero sum game that necessarily requires an exterior to take the negative side of the equation. Rather wealth is created when better options are made available- when actors within the system have superior choices to what they had before. That’s why you see some entertainment media produce outsize returns while others end up failing; it’s not a matter of how much resources are consumed but rather how they’re put together to make a better story (better from the consumer perspective versus their alternatives).
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Re:Greed and Excess Drive the Climate Crisis, So Why Aren’t ... by jacquesm on Monday July 31, 2023 @06:10AM (#36940593)
That's true but it's a quantitative element that won't make a qualitative difference in the long run, in other words the outcome will be exactly the same, but maybe a bit later.
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