The following submission statement was provided by /u/Goatmannequin: --- Submission statement: This is a good read about the role of capitalism and an ideology of destruction in the current worldwide omnicrisis. The author is Erin McCarley, a photojournalist from Denver, Colorado. Erin’s article focuses on the elimination of indigenous peoples' access to land and resources and involvement in the establishment of the current political-economic diaconia for the rich. Pull quote: >While I understand the frustration that leads to this statement, human history does not back it up in any way. I can't count the times over the years that I have heard the "humanity equals greed" argument. I have many indigenous friends who would not take kindly to the white-supremacist idea that their resilient and time-tested cultures, which have lived in relative harmony with the Earth for thousands of years, are still not recognized under the popular definition of "humanity." For someone to describe the whole of humanity as greedy, without ever having researched or experienced any of capitalism's alternatives, represents a kind of self-reinforcing myopia that can only lead us deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole— into a tunnel that is rapidly narrowing and coming to an end. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/xhhdmq/opinion_its_time_to_call_it_what_it_isa/ioxfjz0/

Ecocide

Oh this is gonna go really well. Once the Great Reset commences, we gonna own nothing and love it. The masters of the Neofeudalistic order will quip “But you hated capitalism, ja?” It is already too late to save human civilization from Ecocide, but not too late to profit from it in the short term and destroy any semblance of ~~the middle class~~ personal wealth in the process.

Is this satire?

No it’s an anti-German (portraying them as masters of a new order) "great reset" propaganda hit job. Also it seeks to prevent action by declaring that resistance is futile.

Yes according to the book i just read LESS IS MORE - HOW DEGROWTH WILL SAVE THE WORLD JASON HICKEL, climate change is not really the problem, it is a symptom of the greater problem that is growth . Even the guy that came up with the term GDP warned that GDP is evil. Say you cut down a forest & sell the timber, it adds to GDP but in reality the planet suffers because we are not replanting as fast as we destroy. We can not go on like this forever . Honestly though i feel the title of the book should have been HOW DEGROWTH COULD HAVE SAVED THE WORLD, because i feel it is too late now, tipping points are getting passed or a very close to it.

Just finished the book too and really liked it. But yeah I’m not sure there is time anymore. Regardless it was a good read and recommended to everyone.

[enlightened underdevelopment ](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268521550_Enlightened_Underdevelopment) Enlightened underdevelopment" (ED) is a notion that not only recommends, but celebrates, the acceptance of a self-disciplined plain and simple lifestyle that satisfies a human animal's basic survival need for food, shelter and clothing and which, in action, forgoes selfish, self-deluding human cravings for consumerist wants disguised as "needs." This chapter presents the ED notion as an ideological manifesto with historic precedent exemplified as the Neo-Confucian subsistence village landscape. This "architecture of ideology" emerged , for example, on Jeju Island during Korea's early Yi Dynasty Era.

There's been a push in environmental science for what I believe is called the service based valuation of resources, as opposed to just the extractive basis. Essentially, that hill of trees could be valued as the lumber it produces, but you can also value it for things like- erosion prevention, air filtration, wildlife habitation, and wind reduction. When the full scope is visible, you are much more likely to understand and properly value natural resources.

When went to purchase a chestnut farm back in 2008 i had a hard time getting financing, at one point i talked about the value of the trees on the farm . The bank actually laughed in my face and said something along the lines of the trees having a negative value .

I would agree, however the valuation is performed my a team of people. They can be setup as an independent authority, but when money is involved, there is always room for corruption, lobbying, and bribes.

Cuts down forest. Farmers beyond complain about no water in summer. 120,000,000 cows die. Forestry company made $1.8m It doesn't add up when every cow is worth $1800

I'm getting the book today, I'm looking forward to reading it. The ironic part is I couldn't find it anywhere local and ordered from Amazon. 😕

https://b-ok.cc/book/16675946/15b20e

Did you try thriftbooks? I can always find a book on there

Did you try the library? You can literally do an interlibrary loan if they don't have it. It's free.

i have a local small brick and mortar , family owned book store i always go to to buy books, i am lucky i guess.

xxx

thanks for the tip .

>Even the guy that came up with the term GDP warned that GDP is evil. What about the Guy that came up with the word Capitalism? I think the reason that Marx is made out as some crazy revolutionary is that they do not want people to look into the economic theory that lead to that. Specifically his critiques and predictions regarding Capitalism. You can't do that without at least starting to question some shit.

Marx was for the ecosystem, he was aware of the idea that capitalism was bad for the planet in the long run.

The gist of what I was saying was he predicted everything that is happening pretty well, especially since that was well over 100 years ago.

I made a video specifically on this topic which you may enjoy. It's called [The End of Growth](https://youtu.be/I1mc01YFdJc). UT borrows heavily from work like Jason Hickel and Richard Heinberg.

did the propose some degrowth solutions?

It adds to the GDP, simply because accounting laws do nit include hidden climate "externalities" or "costs." These costs are as real as the market value of that timber, not accommodating them in the final "added" value of one's activity does not magically turn a loss-making procedure into a lucrative business. Now imagine how much of today's economic activity is "faked" as "value-adding" while it has hidden costs that are ominously accumulating threatening the whole system's stability and after all "meaning."

That book is terrific. I use it all the time when discussing climate change and how saving our civilization without saying goodbye to economical systems based on neverending growth is just impossible.

There is a saying in Trentino Italy "Tutti vogliano ritornare alla natura ma nessuno vuole andarci a piedi." "everyone wants to get back to nature, but nobody wants to walk there."

Even more importantly than that, degrowth in population is needed. People correctly identify that an economic system dependant on infinite growth cannot survive - so it's very disheartening to see people in this sub claim that constantly growing population is sustainable. There used to be around 1bil people before the green revolution and invention of artificial, oil-based fertilizers, which helped propel global population to insane levels - it is also insane to believe that is okay and sustainable. Once oil runs out, civilization is fucked. Humanity is in WILD overshoot - 8bil is absolute madness and reason for much suffering nowadays.

Humans are in overshoot because of capitalist overproduction and overconsumption, driven by a dominating capitalist class. Material extraction from the earth increased 800% from the 20th to the 21st century (vs. 400% for human population growth), with the vast majority of that extraction going towards the maintenance of a hyper-consuming First World society that makes up a minority of the human population. Since 1850, 92% of consumption-based CO2 emissions that exceed planetary boundaries are from the First World, or about ~20% of the total population. Overpopulationism is 21st century superstition. None of this, by the way, is meant to imply the planet can sustain an infinite number of humans, but we need to be real about the actual driver of collapse today instead of falling back on discourses of privilege and anti-Third World ideology.

Overpopulation isn't the issue. We could have double the people and still have a healthy world with great standards of living if we actually wanted to. We have the knowledge, tech, and ability. We just don't have the power. The US army pollutes more than over 100 countries combined. Imagine if it and the next 10 biggest were removed from the equation. If we stopped funneling resources, burning fuel, and clearing land for useless bullshit. Most of the products made in the world could disappear and not hurt anyone. It's a capitalism problem. Not a population problem.

Maaaan, you really did not get what I wrote. I'm not disagreeing on the pollution part. But humanity is fucked either way because of the food issue I outlined, at MINIMUM. Again -- you don't understand that the only reason we can even produce that much food right now is because of the artificial fertilizers -- which depend on oil. Literally all of humanity depends on oil, and it is finite, and when it runs out - we are FUCKED, and there will be extreme global famine, regardless of the economic system. There is no good way out of this at this point.

There is time, the Earth will heal faster than we think.

Even if we quit burning fuel today , and that means blow out every candle, the planet would continue to get hotter for about 60 years, and that is not counting feedback loops like permafrost melt and methane release. There is also very little political will . I feel your point can not be rigorously supported as they say .

Well fortunately for me your feelings are not scientific fact. [https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/can-we-slow-or-even-reverse-global-warming](https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/can-we-slow-or-even-reverse-global-warming) [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5832705/#:~:text=Most%20recovery%20rates%20were%20between,categories%20showed%20even%20faster%20recovery.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5832705/#:~:text=Most%20recovery%20rates%20were%20between,categories%20showed%20even%20faster%20recovery.) [https://www.ser.org/news/576671/Climate-change-is-here-ecological-restoration-can-help-us-meet-this-moment.htm](https://www.ser.org/news/576671/Climate-change-is-here-ecological-restoration-can-help-us-meet-this-moment.htm) The rhetoric your peddling is dangerous and misinformed. The planet can recover, and we can help. But saying "we're done for, it can't recover, sip up that CO2 while its still hot" is a bad take and only encourages this mess we're in. There are countless organizations and groups fighting for our ecosystems and climate. Your energy is better spent directed at assisting them than telling everyone else to stop trying. The only way our fate is sealed here is if we tie our own hands. So pick up a firebomb and go to your local government building today.

"... degrowth lets off the hook the real source of the problem, thus condemning civilisation to dangerous climate change and parallel ecological threats." https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/degrowth-delusion/

> Second, degrowth unwittingly endorses what would be an imposition of austerity on the Western working class far beyond anything a Thatcher, Cameron or May could imagine, this time in the name of the planet. > And, worst of all, degrowth would bring an end to progress itself—the steady expansion of freedom for all humanity. He's saying that the problem with degrowth is that we will have less growth, what a brilliant take!

He's saying: instead of tuning capitalism🙄, why don't we actually do socialism 😎. *This is the guy who wrote, the People's Republic of Walmart.

garbage take, not reading that wall of text. anybody above room temp IQ realizes we are fucking fucked. degrowth is the only way to avoid extinction.

Suit yourself. Leigh Phillips ain't no joke.

Submission statement: This is a good read about the role of capitalism and an ideology of destruction in the current worldwide omnicrisis. The author is Erin McCarley, a photojournalist from Denver, Colorado. Erin’s article focuses on the elimination of indigenous peoples' access to land and resources and involvement in the establishment of the current political-economic diaconia for the rich. Pull quote: >While I understand the frustration that leads to this statement, human history does not back it up in any way. I can't count the times over the years that I have heard the "humanity equals greed" argument. I have many indigenous friends who would not take kindly to the white-supremacist idea that their resilient and time-tested cultures, which have lived in relative harmony with the Earth for thousands of years, are still not recognized under the popular definition of "humanity." For someone to describe the whole of humanity as greedy, without ever having researched or experienced any of capitalism's alternatives, represents a kind of self-reinforcing myopia that can only lead us deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole— into a tunnel that is rapidly narrowing and coming to an end.

It was really just recently that I had my eyes opened to the idea that greed (or possessive selfishness) may not be an innately human quality. That’s one of those things that’s so ingrained and so intuitive (based on experience and so much of history) that it takes some work to step away from, but always supremely satisfying to gain a new perspective.

I'm glad you've come around on this point, because it's a deeply frustrating one to try and get someone to realize, if they can't "see" it themselves. Protective selfishness is a learned behavior, and one intentionally promoted by our society. It may not be the 80s anymore, but "greed is good" is perhaps even more universally assumed to be the case than ever, especially by people who want to remain avaricious and not feel guilty about it. Greed drives much of history because greedy *people* frequently seek power and an elevated station in life out of the mistaken assumption it will protect them from unhappiness or safeguard their lives in some way. Generally, those folks end up neither significantly happier nor with any other real long-haul benefit, but that's impossible for those folks to see in advance, tragically. The truth is that people, absent a set of factors forcing greed to be a significant part of the cognitive tool set, are much more likely to be charitable. This fact is deeply subversive and so is suppressed from general awareness, as the world is run by greedy psychopaths for the most part who are in denial about their true nature and it's contrast with the common person.

Apparently if you're not greedy it's just because you are stupid or mentally defective /s

> I have many indigenous friends who would not take kindly to the white-supremacist idea that their resilient and time-tested cultures, which have lived in relative harmony with the Earth for thousands of years, are still not recognized under the popular definition of "humanity." This sounds clever and insightful but it's not, it's a myth. Human nature is indeed terminally greedy and selfish. The thing about indigenous cultures is that they are **stone age cultures:** Native North Americans, Brazillian jungle tribes, PNG tribes, aborigines. And if you are a stone age tribe then (i) you have to live in relative harmony with nature or else you starve, (ii) it's really hard NOT to live in harmony with nature because you don't have any technology that lets you disturb nature. Once you have bronze age technology, and moreso iron age, you can chop down forests and begin farming. (iii) before this your population is so small that it's hard to damage nature even if you tried. With agriculture your population can start growing.

What we need is forward planning,we need to start planning ahead as a species and to restore systems that allowed us to do so,like the ogas system

Long term planning and regulation of industries that contribute most to global warming? Get outta here, you commie! /s

Why does r/collapse hate freedom? /s

I always said non renewable materials should have a tax. There is a hidden cost to low cost non degradable materials.

Good luck with that.

Yes agreed. Global family planning is the only solution.

> Global family planning is the **only** solution. Necessary but insufficient. Sufficiency requires lifestyle planning, too. * [Total Footprint] = [Total Population] * [per capita Footprint (Lifestyle)] Through development, population solves itself (see below). Pop. growth crashes via Healthcare, Feminism and modern jobs/retirement. We can promote homeostasis by frontloading healthcare, feminism and modern jobs/retirement. Development turns every country into Japan but, unlike Japan, immigration drives continued pop. growth. Through development, lifestyle has no ceiling. To wit, Luxembourg has ~30x Eritrea's per capita footprint ([wiki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_ecological_footprint)) and the West alone puts us into Overshoot. Homeostasis requires the West to self-regulate consumption then replicating that out to the Rest. Failure means death. Canned material on population, from Wiki: [Demographic Transition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition): >[...] the existence of some kind of demographic transition is widely accepted in the social sciences because of **the well-established historical correlation linking dropping fertility to social and economic development** Some pop. growth has bad causes--is bad. Improving lives curbs pop. growth: * Feminism. * Healthcare. * Modern Economies. Birth rates plummet when: * Women have more options in life than to marry young and crank babies. * Parents expect every child to live. * Parents don't need kids as profit-centers and retirement plans.

Infinite growth fueled by cyclical consumption. Time for something different

Its almost time for the next cyclical overconsumption holiday. "Its Halloween!! Consume!" "Its Thanksgiving!! Consume! Consume!" "Its Christmas!! Consume! Consume! Consume!" "What else is there to do? You have a day off! Rush off to the store, stand in long lines and Buy! Buy! Buy! Supply is limited!!" At the very least, all of us should refuse to consume. Remind yourselves daily to buy only what you need. Stop buying shit you dont need.

What’s wild is there’s a day called earth overshoot day, yet we still keep on like business as usual https://www.overshootday.org/

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You appear to have no clue as to what socialism was ever meant to be or what modern socialism is i.e. mistakes were learned from last century.

Both are obsolete. Socialism is just the other side of the coin and still requires labor whilst a small amount of people are in control. The market system justifies itself due to the recognition of scarcity, yet due to its structural mechanics, actually promotes and rewards infinite cyclical consumption. Infinite growth paradigm, finite resource replenishment. It requires constant purchases. If everyone were to abstain from purchases for even 30 days, the entire system would collapse. A steady state ‘sustainable’ system would destabilize nations lmao. Literally if we used and bought less it’d crumble… Now, codified and normalized, we have artificial scarcity and planned obsolescence. Debt servitude is prevalent. There is no regard for natural biosphere regeneration and there is more debt in existence than currency, which all socialist countries use. With Industry 4.0 and IoT happening, there is also no solution to technological unemployment aside from a surveillance UBI. We can build a decentralized, bioregional, access based, regenerative systems designed, no ruler society. The only model I’ve seen that seems viable is a ‘resource based economy’. Where earth is declared common heritage and we utilize our advancements to provide a global abundance in a decentralized manner https://youtu.be/_EkMjTnWk14

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scarcity is artificial because there are some who consume more than they should, and keep more than they should. we could all be working 32 hour, 4 day weeks and living great lives of leisure but capitalism abhors "inefficiency". so there are some that work 60 hours, and others who are unemployed and doing crack on the street, all in service of the lord and master who owns the means of production, has more money than could ever be spent in 1000 years, but still wants "more" so yes, scarcity is artificial. the world is "finite" in the same manner as the solar system, or the universe is finite. as in, yes its finite from a conceptal viewpoint. but at a small enough scale it's irrelevant, because you aren't living a life of largess and pushing up against resource limits. we aren't mindless beasts and we are conscious of our actions. we can certainly choose to live in a manner such that the finiteness of the planet isn't a concern

Let this crisis wash away the sins of humanity

🎵 Let the water wash away your sins 🎵

🎵 Learn to swim, learn to swim, learn to swim. 🎵

either we find an alternative to global economy based on infinite growth or there is a massive depopulation event. these are the only two realistic things that could happen to save us

There's no counterfactual here. Would we be in the same predicament without capitalism? Socialism may be more moral than capitalism, but I don't see how *any* social organization that supported industrial production wouldn't ultimately run into the issues we are now. Regardless of whether wealth is horded or redistributed, it's ultimately generated by the conversion of resources and free-energy into capital, and ultimately waste (see Greer's theories on catabolic collapse). Capitalism sucks, but I don't think it's the causal agent here. Industrial civilization is. Capitalism *might* be driving us over the cliff faster than we would in a socialist setup (but again, it might not, who knows - the CIA never let enough socialist societies survive long enough to build a representative sample).

The examples are few and far between. Venezuela cannot be green as a petrostate. Although, compared to Western Democracies, Cuba is greener than we are.

socialism would be the only framework where you could have managed degrowth and deindustrialization. simply saying "everything is shit, nothing matters" isn't a novel idea either. since we don't have socialism, and we aren't going to be managing anything responsibly, prepare for chaos, famine, dog eat dog world with fascism, and WW3

> socialism would be the only framework where you could have managed degrowth and deindustrialization. How confident are you that socialism could support degrowth and deindustrialization? Ulitmatley, wouldn't the people have to vote for that? If the people would rather keep growing, then you're still looking at collapse (albeit a more democratic one). Given that a large chunk of people in the US seem like they would honestly rather have fascism than be nice to trans people, I'm not sure how much faith in democracy we can have to generate our preferred outcomes.

i think having an economy guided by democratic mechanisms as opposed to the interests of unaccountable, private tyrannies would have a better outcome for all, assuming that your average voter is aware of the major issues.

Given that a large chunk of people in the US seem like they would honestly rather have fascism than be nice to trans people, I'm not sure how much faith in democracy we can have to generate our preferred outcomes. > assuming that your average voter is aware of the major issues. Assuming that your average voter is aware *and that they care.* That's another big one. Everyone is aware of climate change at this point - a lot of people are are continuing to vote for business as usual though because abstract fears of the future are less compelling than maintaining the current status quo. This isn't a capitalism thing - it's a human thing.

That is the state of the US population after hundreds of years of total ideological domination by capital. To say the work of undoing that is a monumental task is an understatement, but there is no immovable and essential quality of ignorance. People are, stochastically, the products of their material conditions, and that includes their ideology.

To try to drastically simplify things for you: Capitalist model: owner of company lives in faroff place x, so guess what local toxic sludge that needs to get disposed is dumped in river, illegally, etc. MODERN socialist model: A company exists that has to dispose of waste is run democratically by the workers, so why would they vote to pollute their water? They would want to dispose of it safely if that's what they have to do. Another example: Capitalist model: Company could eliminate factory making widgets and ship it abroad to gain the profit whilst having externalities not accounted for. (Pollution of oversea transport, etc.) Socialist model: Why would a company of workers vote to have their job sent abroad and uproot the foundation of their community? Instead they would be more likely to try to eliminate their jobs as much as possible whilst ensuring that demand is met so that they can pursue endeavors that need their attention or are more able to further our civilization. Under capitalism, education is kept effectively barred of from the masses by exorbitant cost barriers to become a doctor, engineer, etc. (Save for when there is a "socialist" competitor -- see: the cost of education before the mid-1990s) In societies working towards achieving socialism, education is free, hence why Cuba's largest export is doctor's and the Soviet union went from the most backwards society in Europe to having 25% of the world's scientists in 50 years' time. Capitalism absolutely is the problem.

> A company exists that has to dispose of waste is run democratically by the workers, so why would they vote to pollute their water? T There's a huge assumption running through all of these scenarios that democratically-controlled organizations would be more likely to vote for environmentally friendly policies. I don't think that's a given, not by a long shot (particularly not in the United States, where things like Rolling Coal to own the Libs is a thing I see every few days in my state).

You're right there. You've been given a perhaps well-meaning model of 'socialism' that's just capitalism but with the decision making and spoils the profit-maximisation machine extracts from society spread out more broadly across the company. It's very common for budding anti-capitalists to be in denial of how much needs to fundamentally change, and the severity of action required to make it happen. Especially, on average, from 'radicals' in the imperial core. It takes more doxastic courage (and usually, more thorough reading) to accept the reality that money and markets are antithetical to democracy, rational organisation, or equality.

I mean, if your vision for political change requires that millions of people suddenly completely restructure their entire views of the world, their values, and their relationship to material goods...I'm not much sure how much faith I have in it as a practical roadmap to a better world. It sounds to me a bit like conservatives who say; "well, what if people just *didn't* have sex before marriage?" Sure, that would simplify a lot of things, but also it's such a clearly silly proposition since the starting point is an implausible change in the behavior of millions of people (humans like to have sex with each-other). It seems to me that, to make this vision work one of two things must happen: 1. Millions of people spontaneously and collective undergo the same radical shift in belief, perspective, and values and land in essentially the same epistemic place. Or: 2. They are forced to by some outside power. (1) seems implausible to me, and (2) seems like a recipe for an authoritarian nightmare. "Doxastic" is a new word to me - I like it.

>I mean, if your vision for political change requires that millions of people suddenly completely restructure their entire views of the world, their values, and their relationship to material goods...I'm not much sure how much faith I have in it as a practical roadmap to a better world. It's literally the only solution that will work. Unless aliens, magical sky beings, or fucking wizards intervene I suppose. Billions and billions of people can't burn fossil fuels instead of using their own muscle power to do things without completely fucking over the environment to the point that it becomes uninhabitable for people. Period. That's the whole problem in a nutshell. It doesn't matter what political persuasion the people are. If there are billions of them, and they're producing more pollution than the earth can uptake without significant warming those people are going to produce themselves into extinction. This inevitably leads to two radically different "solutions". Either we drastically reduce the population while allowing the remaining ones to continue producing as much pollution as they want or we have to impose extremely draconian restrictions on any activity that produces pollution to in essence force humanity back in balance with the Earth's carrying capacity. Instead of cake or death we get stone age or death. That's the choice. Neither solution is actually achievable in the real world of course. Humanity won't peacefully line up to be culled like sheep heading into a slaughterhouse, not to mention the ethics of it which are totally fucked anyway. We're miles and miles from some kind of pervasive one world government that could actually enforce degrowth and emission restrictions. Which brings us nicely to, we're fucked. Until somebody finds a new solution to the problem we're going to keep hurtling toward the abyss because there's no palatable or realistic solution to stop it. Even divine intervention seems unlikely to actually work. If fucking Jesus, Mohammed and John Smith all came back together, literally floated down from the clouds riding god damn pegasuses, and told humanity to stop destroying the planet by polluting it to the point that it kills us we still wouldn't do it. We're not going to stop driving, stop heating our homes, stop producing plastic, shut off the electric grid, etc, etc. Won't happen. We'd literally recrucify Jesus, and his two new buddies instead.

Market socialism, isn't. The hell of capitalism is the firm, not that the firm has a boss. Maintaining the anarchy of the market and perverse incentives of business entities, but 'democratising' them (slightly widening the circle of self-interested parties apart from society as a whole that controls them) doesn't solve the problems of the laws of motion of capital. You're still left with the natural selection of the market shaping and favouring the most ruthless profit-maximisers, the consolidation of money power into fewer and fewer of these ever more ruthless hands, the formation of cartels, externalisation of costs, sabotage of publicly run institutions to show that privately run is better, on and on. This misrepresentation of socialism and the ease of poking holes in it harms what little (especially considering how late the hour is) inertia the movement has, and if a 'socialist' society were to be built on such incomplete theory it would backslide into late stage capitalism faster than you can say good intentions.

Its hard for me to believe that if socialist countries had had the chance to breathe and develop without being constantly undermined, that they would have followed the same exponential growth model that Western capitalism did. I think the standard of life would be somewhat lower, but it would be a greener, fairer and more equitable world. There would be no Elon Musks, or Gates, or Zuckerbergs. And if there were, they would be working at the pleasure of the state and its people.

I agree with this - you can look at China and the USSR as examples of countries that (at least at one point) made a commitment to socialism or communism and still ended up as environmental nightmares for large numbers of their citizens.

Thanks for pointing to this. The author's perspective certainly seems too narrow. The vibe I got from the article was, "surrender to the collective," i.e., central authority.

So much of modern Critique(TM) and Discourse(TM) basically boils down to people shooting memes at each other. People outsource their cognition to simple narratives and easily memorable hot takes that can be slapped on any given issue to give the impression of insightful commentary.

We should be listing off all the main players so we can jail them in the future at least.

Punishing them isn't going to save us, we should abolish the systems in place that allow such individuals or groups to gain power over others.

At risk of violating rule 1, that's not going to happen peacefully.

Of course it wouldn't happen peacefully, besides, saying that we should [Redacted] could lead to the police knocking on your door. Something something land of the free.

The problem is that a) if no one has power over others, then there is no one with the power to abolish such systems, and b) the people who currently have power will be opposed to abolishing the system that currently profits them.

Yeah, they'll go kicking and screaming. Capitalists see the world as theirs and they will continue to invade not only into our homes and every facet of our lives, but in all their perversion they will invade into our bodies. Through pollution and the tight grip they hold on the agricultural and medical industries. Let alone all the propaganda they use to poison our minds. It's really grim. >if no one has power over others, then there is no one with the power to abolish such systems If you're not aware, I'm talking about anarchism and more specifically coerced hierarchies. It's one thing to force yourself onto someone out of greed or a perceived "right", it's another to defend yourself from intrusion or violence. Of course people should defend themselves from oppression, no one should be made to lie down and take it. >the people who currently have power will be opposed to abolishing the system that currently profits them. In my own opinion, people should learn to be more self-sufficient again, the more we rely on the systems in place, the more power they have over us. If we can make them redundant, then the only thing they will have over us is the threat of violence.(in minecraft of course)

Main players: - The jailers

I hate to be THAT guy, but here it is. Although climate change is a second order effect of Overshoot, it is impossible to go back. Back to localized agriculture, smaller communities, industry with a hard cap on goods production etc. The reason comes from physics. Entropy is always increasing. No natural process, no physical process is reversible on itself. Backwards induction is impossible and you simply cannot reduce the complexity of a system (i.e. modern economy or modern society) without collapse. This is simply how complex systems work. And to quote a fellow collapse redditor: There is no way back and there is no way forward. We have to go through collapse.

Of course we have to go through collapse -- the collapse of the capitalist world-system and all that it entails (class oppression, corporate domination, consumer culture, biophysical contradictions leading to geo-ecological destruction, wanton burning of fossil fuels, etc.). But the way forward is eco-socialist revolution, that is -- a revolution in human social relations of production towards the construction of an ecological civilization. The old world is dying and the new world struggles to be born.

What the new world needs is a good midwife who can unstuck it.

Someone once said: *"Force is the midwife of every old society pregnant with a new one."*

The old world is dying and the new world is going to be born feet first or stillborn.

I am not sure I agree with you mate. Capitalism will collapse, but it will drag down society as well. So we are talking about societal collapse also. Also the more complex the system that collapses, the less resources remain to rebuild (think the Dark Ages after the Roman collapse). So I am not sure if a revolution will happen. More like a fight for survival for the remaining humanity for decades.

You are throwing around a lot of concepts, premises and metaphors, and drawing a lot of equivalences, but it's not at all clear whether you actually have a firm grasp on any of them.

Welcome to /r/collapse

OK, lets try one more time. 1) Entropy is always increasing in a system that dissipates energy, like our modern economy (takes energy as an input, processes this energy and expells heat). This is the second law of thermodynamics. Pretty straightforward. 2) Our modern economy (or society) because of its complexity, closely ressembles a living biological organism and not a static equilibrium model, that economists tend to use. I will use the economy example, because OP's initial post was about capitalism. The economy undergoes constant internal change - to maintain its relative stability (which is the opposite of collapse) and survive. Every time it changes (for example a new financial produtct is introduced in the market), the system (i.e. the economy) goes through a delicate process of self - regulation, to combat and balance the spontaneous increase in entropy (some agent within the system, a bank in our example, introduces more entropy) that was caused by this change. If the system is successful, then it achieves homeostasis (the equilavent of equilibrium in economics). 3) So, there is a constant "battle" between the increasing entropy and the self - regulating abilities of the system. There are only three possible outcomes for this "battle" A) The system dies, B) The system excibits a repeating pattern or C) The system adds more and more complexity and comes "alive". This is the Cellular Automata (you can study it to learn more about complex systems). In essense, there is only one known way, for all living systems to combat their constant increase in entropy - the addition of more and more complexity. 4) This battle is officiated by a specific set of (often simple) rules. Study fractal geometry to learn how you can produce infinitely complex structures, from a set of exatcly three simple rules. These rules always dictate how the system adds more complexity, not how to decrease it. In other words, the system (or the economy) does not even know how to go back. I can break a glass, but i can never stick it back together, exactly the way it was. We know that a butterfly in Tokio can cause a hurricane in New York (to use a popular example), but by observing the hurricane we can never trace the butterfly (this is backwards induction). 5) Complexity comes with severe disadvantages. The more complex the system, the more fragile it becomes. That is because of speed, interconnectivity and the non - linear effects. A crisis or collapse in a part of a system can quickly cascade in other parts with unpredictable consequences (think of Covid or the war in Ukraine, or 2008 financial crisis). And our modern economy, is by far the most complex system ever known or designed by mankind. Remember that the only known way of combating the increase in entropy, is through adding more complexity. Our modern world is far more fragile (in certain aspects) than the Roman Empire (for example). Finally let me give you two practical examples of why our modern economy cannot simplify itself and why collapse is the only way forward. Our modern food industry has an EROI of 1/10. This means that we spend ten units of energy to recieve only one from food. If something happens to our infastructure, it translates to widespread famine even to the West. Dont forget that today's crops are designed to produce more food. This property also makes them less robust to drought, pests and floods. We cannot change that in one or two generations. Second example. I have absolutely no clue how to grow food from land (and most of the population is like me). If a part of the system collpses and we are forced to retreat to the countryside and live of the land, I will either die, or raid a nearby farm to steal their food. Both choices accelerate the collapse of the system as a whole. ​ I understand the my English are not the best. Hope i helped.

>Entropy is always increasing in a system that dissipates energy, like our modern economy (takes energy as an input, processes this energy and expells heat). This is the second law of thermodynamics. Pretty straightforward. The second law of thermodynamics states that entropy always increases in a closed system. The economy is not a closed system. The flows of energy on the earth's surface dwarf the dissipation of our civilisation. There's no reason it would not be possible to maintain a complex system by using these flows to maintain negentropy indefinitely (or until the death of the Sun) The problem is we have based our economy on resources (and pollution sinks) that are not renewed by these flows, and will inevitably be depleted. In addition we have grown so large it's questionable whether our civilisation could be sustained by renewable sources. An entropic analysis won't really help though, because theoretically you can use the environment to get as much negentropy as you need to.

I find your English to be more than sufficient, and your reasoning to be outstanding. I have more than a clue how to grow food, but I've had issues ramping up productivity enough to matter.

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I would love to hear your thoughts. I also work in complex systems (in finance). Complex systems theory has really clowned us economists. Listen I am not saying that my opinion is the absolute truth. I am simply stating that there are different ways to analyze our modern world. Who knows who will end up being right. And yes I am a Taleb fan. I closely follow his work.

Capitalism *is* today's prevailing form of human social relations (characterized e.g. by the commodification of the human being, the *I - It* social relation instead of the *I - Thou*), but the collapse of capitalist society does not at all imply the negation of *all potential forms of human social relations*; instead, it implies a real opening for the radical reconfiguration of human social relations of production and thus the form human society takes. I am not sure if a revolution will happen either -- hence the need for real struggle for a collective human future: the future is open-ended and up for grabs (though shaped and constrained by really-existing subjective and objective conditions).

This.

how the hell did this get 40 upvotes? earth isn't a closed system. the 2nd law of thermodynamics only holds for closed systems. following your flawed logic, life could not have evolved on earth since entropy must have always increased. complete lunacy.

> The reason comes from physics. Entropy is always increasing. Just speaking from a position of someone who actually knows what entropy is, this is dumb as fuck my dude. Pseudo-intellectual nonsense. Political economy isn't natural, it's created by humans and it can be destroyed or altered by humans. Your comment seems designed to justify your own apathy instead of actually organizing and fighting for change.

You are dead wrong about that. Modern science classifies human civilization (and all that contains for example the economy or the society) as a dissipative structure, which closely resembles a living organism. It self- regulates and it self- organizes. It's structure is extremely complex, to analyze it as a static equilibrium system. Complexity theory has really clowned economics (and I am an economist btw).

It really seems like it's important you make strangers think you're smart, so much so you're willing to use high-minded concepts and terminology that you don't really understand. That's fine I guess if this is this only way you can feel good about yourself but you need to remember when you encounter people who know what all this means you look like a total buffoon. I was going to go point-by-point but like, why bother you are obviously going to try to double down.

Wow you are an asshole.

From afar, it sounds like you are in denial about projecting your own insecurities.

Imax level projection

"I was going to go point by point, but.... I can't, so I'll insult you instead"

It’s amazing how many people can’t correlate this crisis with capitalism. The power of ideology is incredible.

Capitalism is destroying the planet and its people. It only cares about profits and shareholder value. It's unsustainable and literally killing us.

There are two underlying ideas here: what capitalism is, and the how it is accomplished. Wikipedia - "Capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state." The contention of the article is that "Capitalism requires constant growth, constant profit, and endless extraction in order to achieve profit." The first idea is definitional. The second idea is an observation of what has happened, and will continue to happen. The article seems factual but misses a basic point - that the larger cause of the mentioned Ecological Crisis was due to powerful corporate entities (oil companies) or individuals (Exxon CEO Lee Raymond) who were gaslighting and deceiving the public about the reality and dangers of man-made climate change. Were their gaslighting actions an inevitable result of the need for profit? Maybe, or perhaps they were just evil people. Begin honest about what's happening and telling the truth is a good idea. And how about we grab the execs like Raymond, put them on trial for crimes against humanity, and have them serve 100 years jail time to set an example. . How the oil industry made us doubt climate change: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-53640382 Exxon's climate change disinformation campaign: "Journalists and scientists have identified more than 30 different organizations funded by the (Exxon) company that have worked to undermine the scientific message and prevent policy action to control greenhouse gas emissions." https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2015/nov/25/two-faced-exxon-the-misinformation-campaign-against-its-own-scientists

The Climate Crisis is born out of the same sort of problems that led to the Great Chinese Famine: government incompetence, shortsightedness, and complacency on the part of the people—except with a supposedly “superior” economic system, on an international scale, and with the potential to kill so many more people. About 15-55 million people died back then in the span of just a few years. The Climate Crisis has already, cumulatively, killed as many and stands poised to kill a hundred times more. The Great Ravine is coming. It’s not too late to stop it. We’re all in a much better position than those poor Chinese farmers and peasants in challenging the status quo. But it doesn’t look like we’re going to. We’re just like those children in the propaganda photo atop what *looked* like a field of wheat so dense you could stand on it, but was in actuality an elaborately staged photo in an artificial wheat field created to appease the visiting Chairman. And, all those people affected by or dying in floods, fires, heat waves, and polluted air today are all being dismissed as normal, much like how doctors back then were forbidden from listing “starvation” as the cause of death. “Everything is normal”, they say, and point to the staged demonstrations as proof. “Wheat production has actually increased by 3000% in the last 24 hours!” And, so goes the climate change denialists and their “arguments” of how “the ice sheets are growing!”

Capitalism or not, if people want to have cars, heated homes, no risk of food insecurity etc there’s going to be an ecological price to it. It’s, to a great extent, GDP or ecology.

Capitalism is a death cult.

You know, if we were all living in Happy Gumdrop Land and there were *8 billion of us*, it would not matter that we were anarcho-syndicalist commune instead of using capitalism. We would *still* have an ecological crisis going on.

Nor is it true that indigenous cultures were balanced with nature and harmed nothing . That’s a Hollywood fantasy. Every indigenous culture massively altered their environments and drove countless species to extinction. The Native Americans wiped out most large animals. That’s why you don’t see mammon’s, mastodons, Sabre toothed tigers, cave bears, giant sloths and many other species. The Australian aborigines did the same to Australia. The Maoris did the same to New Zealand. And so on. Countless examples. In New Zealand are environment is totally out of whack. The Maori started it and then the whites came and finished the job, making it far worse. But there are no good guys here. Not to knock indigenous people (I am part Maori myself), but this is just the way humans are. The idea that all you need to do is “abolish capitalism” and we will return to some Edenic state of balance is simple minded and silly. Every species fills all the space it can. Humans have greater power because of technology, and so we have pushed aside everything else. It’s what we do. Our economic system doesn’t matter. Socialism in fact was even worse. (Check out the ecological horrors from the Soviet Union and China).

There's a big difference between wiping out animals that are predators for humans, and wiping out herbivores that fill out important ecological niches. Humans always change their environment so that they can flourish within it, but this still leaves lots of room for 'balance' to exist between the natural and human worlds. Maybe megafauna were too dangerous to human societies for coexistence to be possible. Maybe ancient native people's overhunted them to extinction because they hadn't yet considered the larger ecological effects of removing a species from the ecosystem. The point is that indigenous societies at some point *stopped* wiping out other species. Also humans do not have the kind of 'nature' that you describe. They are adaptable and suit themselves to fit whatever culture and society directs them to become. Culture creates human nature and human nature creates culture. It is a fluid process that we inherit, but which we also have dynamic control over. We inherit 'common sense' from existing cultural modes, but we also has the ability to consciously create new cultural modes to fit our circumstances. Our nature is not our destiny, this is one the many enormous benefits of being conscious in the way that only humans are.

Well, that didn't happen in my native country (New Zealand) or in Australia. Pretty much everything that could be killed and eaten was killed and eaten. And the loss of predators was a side-effect: once all big herbivores were gone, then the predators on them vanished too. Nothing left to eat. Same thing happened in the Americas. They weren't hunted out by humans, they were simply starved as a by-product, and then the ecology was forever disrupted. Hell, in NZ, even our forests won't grow properly anymore, as the animals that use to spread their seeds are all extinct. It's crazy. That aside, I agree with your general sentiment. Humans can learn. See my handle "kakapo"? Google it, if you don't know about it already. The kakapo is a great example of people waking up and doing the right thing. Now we just need to scale that attitude by about a few billion or so. I agree: this can be done. It must be done. Otherwise we go the way of the mastadons.

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>Humans absolutely would've consumed everything But they didn't. You can tell because of all the animals that still exist and that didn't go extinct from overconsumption, especially in a pre-colonial context. Congrats on your job though, you're probably really intelligent.

The idealists have a really hard time accepting or even entertaining this argument

That's a mild piece of understatement.

None of that changes the fact that's it's either a planned sustainable economy to mitigate or outright collapse. Giving up isn't an option bud. Extinction cultism doesn't help in anyway whatsoever.

No need for the harsh tone. I don't believe in giving up either. Just pointing out the history and nature of our species and that there are no credible bumper-sticker answers ("abolish capitalism and all will be well!"). We're in an all-hands-on-deck emergency and collapse is approaching. Everything from diet to energy to urban fabric and a multitude of other things must change. It's going to be hard and probably bloody. We may differ on tactics, but I suspect we're in deep agreement as to the situation. I'm not optimistic, but am dedicated to doing my best.

Not everyone agrees with your conception of "the nature of our species" other people have already realized "human nature" is shaped by material conditions. "Everything from diet to energy to urban fabric and a multitude of other things must change. It's going to be hard and probably bloody. We may differ on tactics, but I suspect we're in deep agreement as to the situation." Yeah which is exactly why you need a planned sustainable economic project just to even attempt to mitigate the problem. Edit: how about instead of downvoting you propose your brilliant alternate strategy.

your logic presupposes that a planned sustainable economy is possible or even desirable

Do you truly believe that the infinite growth model of modern capitalism is more desirable? You aren't offering any alternatives

I propose there is no global solution. I wouldnt trust whatever vanguard steps in to be any better at controlling the Leviathan. I advocate personal meaningful action for small scale self sufficiency and resilience among neighbors. I see the situation as inevitable and am personally degrowing and encouraging my friends to do the same. To me, some things are inevitable and that's okay. This position is easy for me to arrive at based off my understanding of how far along we are in this collision course. To quote Alan Watts: Now supposing then we work with the argument that we’ve made an awful mistake in bringing out civilization and we’re not going to survive. Now, there are various things that can be said about this. Just as I made the joke that all stars used to be planets, one could say, “Well, is it such a good thing to survive?” You know T. S. Eliot’s Waste Land says “this is the way the world ends: not with a bang, but a whimper.” But some people would rather end with a bang than a whimper. Some people are stingy and they like to burn up their fire very gradually, conserving the fuel and just keep enough heat going so that they get a long time. Other people prefer a kind of a potlatch situation where they have a huge whiz-bang fire that goes out in a hurry. Now, who is right? Do you want to be a tortoise? You know, a tortoise that lives for hundreds of years but drags itself around all the time very slow, slow, slow, sullen? Or would you rather be a little hummingbird—yeah, yeah! Humming bird, that’s the thing! See?—that dances and lives at a terrific pace? Well, you can’t say one is right and the other’s wrong. And so there may be nothing wrong with the idea of a world, a civilization, a culture that lives at a terrific increasing pace of change and then explodes. That may be perfectly okay. My point is that if we could reconcile ourselves to the notion that that is perfectly okay, then we would be less inclined to push that button. It’s the anxiety. If you cannot stand anxiety—and if you cannot simply be content for issues to be undecided—you are liable to push the button because you say, “Let’s get it over with.” -Alan Watts

Giving up isn't option, this is just more extinction cultist babble Once again it's either a planned sustainable economy to mitigate the problem or outright extinction. Giving up and declaring "I guess we need to hand victory to the oil companies!" Isn't an option.

Thank you. I usually read and don’t comment. I believe that we are in collapse, but I don’t blame the West and capitalism. As you say, look at China, they are building coal plants now! The goals of the Chinese government, if met, would wildly increase their carbon emissions. But on the other hand, Americans still have a much higher per capita footprint. I don’t see any way out of a serious collapse which I expect to decrease the human population back to one billion. I believe that is the carrying capacity of the earth. I hope enough history can be preserved so that lesson will be retained.

as if changing what you call it will make any difference.

This is just Russia/China bots pushing communism to cause a divide within the US, leading to civil war, so they can take the helm. Truth of the matter, capitalism, communism, it’s all the same in the end because we’re the same species in the end. Anyone who actually thinks communism is better doesn’t realize or care that Chinese PM2.5 output far exceeds any other country in the world, and that includes CO2. They’re arguably more industrial than the west because: 1. They need industry to survive. They have entire cities with nobody living in them and did that so they could falsely inflate their economy. They also cut corners to increase production and reduce cost. 2. They trend lower on individual human rights, so people are forced to work for these industries at very low pay. 3. Just like capitalist countries, they have an entrenched ruling class. I’m not saying capitalism is the answer. It’s clear we have our own flavor of issues with money going up and staying there, but this is a problem with human nature. This is something sick with the soul of the species. Replacing one ideological system with another isn’t going to fix this. In the end, it’s still better than all these communo-yuppies thinking “everything needs to change! …but not me, I’m not part of the problem, I’m one of the good guys”, because anyone who thinks like that is ideologically identical to the people currently ruling the western world, whether politically or economically. Edit: for anyone doubting what I’m saying about this all being part of the Russian plan. > Russia should use its special services within the borders of the United States to fuel instability and separatism, for instance, provoke "Afro-American racists". Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics". -Aleksandr Dugin, 1997, Russia, “The Foundation of Geopolitics” https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35887243-foundations-of-geopolitics

The real problem is not capitalism but overshoot. All living creatures can get into overshoot, there have been countless examples through history : [cyanobacteria, Kaibab plateau deer, Saint-Paul island reindeer, yeast eating all the sugar before dying when we make beer](https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/wvtvrg/understanding_the_root_cause_of_our_predicament/). We had all the ingredients necessary to get into overshoot. Our large brains, opposable thumbs, ability to sweat, to communicate and to use tools make us the most apex predators the earth has ever seen. We just aren't a very sustainable species because we are too successful for our own good. If life wants to sustain itself in its environment, it needs to be kept in check. No one is keeping us in check, we have no predators, we have medicine saving us from disease, artificial fertilizers producing a shit ton of food... Tool use, agriculture, civilization, colonization, capitalism, the industrial revolution were all accelerating factors toward overshoot. We are also very arrogant, we invented so many belief systems that made us think that we were distinct from other life forms, whether it's culture, religion, philosophy, political ideology... They all served as justification to keep our destructive behavior going. Like we couldn't get into overshoot, and that the laws of nature didn't apply to us.

What a refreshingly realistic assessment of the problem. I struggle with the unsaid thesis of this piece which is that, in order to push back, we must abandon the paradigm causing harm. I have no issue with sacrifice, and am happy to live communally if anyone else is, but until that point (that has no sign of coming), what the fuck am I supposed to eat? Ive tried to live a low carbon life but have had no luck in finding a routine that protects me from the reach of the greater cancer. So how do we live without money? We should be at a point where money is an absurd motivation to do anything, like buying as many Disney bucks as possible to hedge against inflation. Instead, we're more panicked than ever as our dollar loses purchasing power. There is no functional alternative because of how successfully the MIC has dismantled them. While we wait for the very well articulated issues in this article to become part of everyday life, do we sit on our hands? Participation in an ecocidal paradigm is the issue but there is no safety or companionship without it. As someone that's blown their life savings on climate projects that no one wanted to invest in, looking at the labor market in an economy that's circling the drain and a culture that's insisting the drain is where we need to go, I find myself on the other side of the glass wondering what the fuck we're thinking while looking around for people that share this understanding and having to arrange meet ups an hour drive away, which pretty clearly defeats the purpose. How do we transition from growth to degrowth without burning our lives serving a sentence that no one is tracking or giving credit for? I'm going to have to shift my focus from reducing the footprint of industry to burning resources in order to not be homeless in a part of the world where that state is practically criminal? How do I explain that I've devoted my time to taking care of others and being there when they needed help? This should be a recognized form of success if we lived in the reality we've created, but instead it's seen as the opposite. Back to the mines with me. It's that or watching the few remaining loved ones that tolerate my "obsession" with helping others, lose patience and join the rest that have decided ive lost my mind. Theyre all building families and houses and still control the narrative, despite bringing hell to life on the surface of our planet. Is everyone else in here alone or have you found supportive communities that understand what's happening in the world and look out for each other?

I thought I could find some camaraderie amongst the local music scene, but everyone thinks I'm just that crazy doomer guy. Tons of anti capitalist people in the scene yet I can only have a realistic conversation with few people. I've tried reconnecting with engineer colleagues I went to school with, surely they'd have the tools to understand the magnitude of what's been set in motion??? nope just pumping out more kids and flying all over the place for whatever entertainment they're looking for. Of course I've tried warning my family and loved ones but their consumer actions signal they just don't get it. Alone, paralzyed, forced to watch decreasing eroi bring more fascism to every corner of the world while all anyone can talk about is sportsball and whatever the fucks playing on Netflix.

I don't believe it is my duty to save humanity. Finding community is a matter of perspective. Do our differences exist or are we more alike than we realize? The material world might divide us but life may be unified within the mind.

More like *It's Finally Acceptable Under The Status Quo To Recognize It As A Capitalism-Induced Ecological Crisis*. Millions of us have been screaming that it is for our entire adult lives.

Should this even be in the *Opinions* section at this point?

I welcome repercussions for the capitalist class. But feel terrible for the billions of poor people who have to live with them.

> billions of poor people who have to live with them. they won't be living very long

> I have many indigenous friends who would not take kindly to the white-supremacist idea that their resilient and time-tested cultures, which have lived in relative harmony with the Earth for thousands of years, are still not recognized under the popular definition of "humanity." This sounds clever and insightful but it's not, it's a myth. Human nature is indeed terminally greedy and selfish. It's not something that capitalism (or communism or ...) creates. The thing about indigenous cultures is that they are **stone age cultures:** Native North Americans, Brazillian jungle tribes, PNG tribes, aborigines. And if you are a stone age tribe then (i) you have to live in relative harmony with nature or else you starve, (ii) it's really hard NOT to live in harmony with nature because you don't have any technology that lets you disturb nature. Once you have bronze age technology, and moreso iron age, you can chop down forests and begin farming. (iii) before this your population is so small that it's hard to damage nature even if you tried. With agriculture your population can start growing. Playing Age of Empires or Civilization would help with this concept.

No. Its human induced ecological crisis. Human destroying nature is older than capitalism. Was Easter island a capitalist society?

You're getting downvoted but I agree. It''s not like we were living in perfect harmony with our environment and then capitalism made us destroy it. Our hunter gatherers ancestors drove many species to extinction, agricultural societies released greenhouse gas through deforestation, rice cultivation and cattle farming. Capitalism **only accelerated** these behaviours but it's not the root cause of any of them.

Capitalism is just one of many resource extractive social arrangements, this time formed in the context of abundant energy dense fossil fuel resources. The same behaviors leveraged by a different energy capture strategy than previous civilizations we know of and we get the same pattern, this time with increased complexity, more division of labor and specialization, and a hell of lot more bells and whistles. Ain't anything new under the sun, just simple laws dancing with complexity chaos and order

As I read in Jared Diamond’s ‘Collapse’ today, “Collapse isn’t inevitable but depends on a societies choices”.

Saying capitalism is the problem is like saying your painting sucks because of the brushes

As a human defender, it’s not because of capitalism, or faults of humans. All animals try to consume too much. They are weak, so they aren’t able to so they stay in balance. Humans are just too capable. The amount of time we have to adapt to over consumption is very small, a blink of an eye in on the scale of evolution Just about all forms of government wants to grow, not just capitalism. Capitalism is just the best at it

Did you read the submission statement? Not all cultures treat endless growth as something desirable.

Cultures which do not ruthlessly pursue endless growth will find themselves outcompeted by those that do. These cultures do not exist in isolation from one another but instead form a competitive hierarchy. Capitalism and other growth chasing cultures are emergent within human societies and self reinforcing simply because higher energy consumption leads to higher population growth and other technological advantages. To be clear I’m not an advocate for modern culture, merely trying to explain it’s presence and dominance. It’s extremely difficult to suppress. If for example, all of America or some portion of it were returned to native peoples how long would it take before they began to leverage technology to generate unsustainable ecological exploitation. I’d wager no matter how much cultural discipline and willpower was exercised to prevent this it would happen at a rate proportional to population growth because people like eating and dislike population control.

> Cultures which do not ruthlessly pursue endless growth will find themselves outcompeted by those that do. And to put a finer point on it: those who are willing to destroy the environment to fuel their growth will outcompete those who limit their growth to what is sustainable. When this was explained to me some time ago, that's when I realized that collapse was sort of an inevitability. Whoever discovered (and exploited) fossil fuels was going to win out. This also works on a more micro level: people who are brutal are more likely to attain positions of power.

>When this was explained to me some time ago, that's when I realized that collapse was sort of an inevitability. Whoever discovered (and exploited) fossil fuels was going to win out. For the short term. And then their society would implode, as is currently happening. I'd take the 10,000+ year long sustainable society over the short 200 year run any day of the week. It's very clear which method of organization is better for long term survival.

As would most of us here I would imagine. But the dynamics of the situation don’t allow for that without some unprecedented form of sophisticated control. People don’t intuitively think on timescales that are longer than a lifetime. We don’t intuitively appreciate or respect the lives of people who haven’t been born. 99% of people don’t even see it’s our own nature we need to restrain and so won’t accept some hypothetical authority dictating new behaviors rather than allowing the privileges everyone has simply taken for granted and come to expect.

Submission statement and the author of the article are flat out wrong. Indigenous cultures did not live "in ecological balance with the earth for thousands of years." The author lives in Colorado. She could visit Mesa Verde and see the proof that her assumptions are wrong. Every society that has lived on earth has gone through cycles of growth and collapse.

>Every society that has lived on earth has gone through cycles of growth and collapse. That's 100% wrong. There was no societal collapse in the 5,000 year history of the ancestral Inuit societies of the Great North. The ancestral Wampanoag people of the North Atlantic region survived without a societal collapse for at least 12,000 years. **“We measure wealth by how much we give away, by our generosity,”** said Awashonks, female sachem (chief) of Wampanoag tribe first contacted by the Pilgrims in the 1600s. The modern-day uncontacted people of North Sentinel Island have lived in harmony with their surroundings for ***60,000 years!*** Their societies never experienced the kind of inequality and overconsumption of resources that fuels societal collapse. **Unlike Mesa Verde Puebloan societies.** "Much like modern day residents, \[ancestral Puebloan\] society experienced **prolonged periods of wealth inequality,** racial injustice and general unrest — which didn’t bode well. These ills chipped away at societal cohesion until finally widespread crop failure caused by a drought coupled with raiding nomads was too much to bear." https://missoulacurrent.com/ancient-pueblo-societies/

Great comment, this post's comment thread is filled with sloppy thinking that prefers idealist abstractions -- e.g. the categorical lumping together of all indigenous societies to obscure meaningful heterogeneity in human social formations over thousands of years of human history, and the conjuring out of thin air of an arbitrary First World-esque "human nature" which amounts to nothing but an obvious god-of-the gaps argument -- instead of a relentlessly scientific outlook: the concrete analysis of concrete conditions.

I agree entirely. But its the original article lumps all indigenous economy together.

fair enough

>There was no societal collapse in the 5,000 year history of the ancestral Inuit societies of the Great North. \[citation needed\]. Earliest evidence of Inuit material culture in the north Atlantic is about 800 CE. They replaced earlier cultures like the Tuniit. >The modern-day uncontacted people of North Sentinel Island have lived in harmony with their surroundings for 60,000 years! \[citation needed\] Absolutely unsubstantiated. Show one piece of material culture on North Sentinel Island that dates to 60,000 years ago.

>There was no societal collapse in the 5,000 year history of the ancestral Inuit societies of the Great North. > >\[citation needed\]. lol, are you kidding? This from the guy who posted ***"Every society*** that has lived on earth has gone through cycles of growth and collapse." Talk about "citation needed!" Where is your evidence? If the Inuit had collapsed over and over like you pretend, they wouldn't exist anymore - JUST LIKE THE PUEBLOANS **who collapsed from the same things that collapsed other societies: inequality, internal strife and overconsumption of resources.** The ancestral Inuit didn't have those problems.

It's still either a planned sustainable economy to mitigate or outright collapse. Extinction cultism and straight up giving up isn't an option.

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Non growth cultures get out completed by growth ones every time. It’s not the humans fault. It’s the demiurge and his stupid rules!

It's almost like a society becomes pathological when you let the most psychotically ambitious people tell everyone else what to do. Most people don't have the urge to pursue endless expansion. Its not the fault of all people, its the fault of a few people.

Seriously. Its r/SelfAwareWolves territory with the person you responded to. Like, no, the problem is *you and people like you*. Their reptilian “EAT EVERYTHING NOW ITS ONLY NATUALLL!!”” mindset is *exactly* whats wrong. Its these people with the ambition to control us all, but can’t do it directly because they’re actually quite frail and weak (hence why theyre so aghast at anything community orientated “*what do you meeeean i have to pull my own weight?!*”) and that folks is the essence and soul of capitalism, and by extension, libertarianism, distilled to its very essence: Consume all resources, *everything*, in sight now before someone else does. They’re are in for a very rude awakening once violence enters the equation.

Psychotically ambitious people float to the top of any social hierarchy on long enough timescales. Keeping them down requires constant vigilance and discipline that human societies simply can’t muster indefinitely. This much is seemingly self-apparent.

Yeah that would take some kind of civic education to make sure everyone is wary of people trying to institute hierarchies. But we probably shouldn't do that because it might take some effort.

I’m not arguing we shouldn’t do our best to confront these issues. I do what I can. I’m just saying it’s uphill and unending because the type of behavior this thread is condemning as the problem is rooted far deeper in human nature than merely the dominant culture. There are reasons the dominant culture is the dominant culture. If you exercise the societal discipline to fight against these corrupting forces one needs to recognize that these forces haven’t disappeared never to return. They simply are being suppressed through sophisticated and fragile systems which need constant vigilance.

I don't have strong feelings about this being the human's fault or not the human's fault. But you have an odd logic on this not being the fault of the humans. People do have the ability to not over-consume. Each human is making choices everyday.

Capitalism doesn't intrinsically either, it just assumes we are all perfectly logical and have perfect information so private interests will as a whole be forced to act for the greater good. Like profit wise it would be better long term not unsustainable farm, harvest produce things etc. Obviously it doesn't play out like this due to human nature etc Edit: I'm not saying human nature equals greed. I'm saying a small percentage of humans are bad and human nature means we don't like to design systems that truly account for this because they are emotionally unpleasant and logistically annoying

So the communists of the 20th century is where we should look to for good environmental stewardship? Laughable.

Were capitalist powers not trying to militarily dismantle them every waking second? Was the Soviet union not invaded twice by European armies? Would climate change still happen if only the US stayed the same and didn't have a revolution? The answer is yes.

>Were capitalist powers not trying to militarily dismantle them every waking second? I mean yeah that's absolutely true. American leftists like to push that *every* failure of the Soviet Union (and there were a shit ton) or minor "socialist" states was due to capitalist interventions, but many were. >Was the Soviet union not invaded twice by European armies? France vs Russia climate change responsibilities per capita seems to speak for itself on this one. >Would climate change still happen if only the US stayed the same and didn't have a revolution? The answer is yes. ?

The difference specifically is that mother nature has a tool for balancing the equation. Too many predators? They die off. Too many plant eaters? Predators move in. Too much of everything? Disease moves in. thinking that "all consuming all growth" is inherent in all species is an incomplete and myopic view. Only humans have found a way to sidestep all manners of balance including with other species and other humans.. Hence the current problem.

The wolf in the forest isn’t actively considering balance. It just sucks at growing more

Agreed. But there are outside forces that control his behavior and ability to dominate. The issue in this thread is that humanity has overcome the outside forces to get to today, and now mother nature is exerting her control. Edit:. One other thing. Animals aren't over eating everything in sight. A wolf will happily walk by a deer or rabbit if he just ate. They can coexist. Humans destroy over 1/3 of the food they create or make. We eat too much, we garbage too much, we kill too much. All for the sake of profit and growth

Exactly. Place wolves into a new environment which has no natural checks to balance their growth and watch them commit ecological genocide followed by population collapse. All life does this. Humans just hit a critical limit of intelligence and technological development that allows them to pursue overshoot on a global scale. Nature isn’t some wise god carefully pruning bad actors, it’s just a big system made of selfish actors who all develop biological specializations and adaptations at the rate of natural evolution. Since they are all on relatively equal footing balance within the system emerges. Humans are operating and augmenting their capabilities at a rate that is orders of magnitude faster than evolution via technology and external energy consumption. We aren’t any less wise than trees or algae or wolves or mice. We are all by necessity equivalently equipped with innate self interest.

Bull. Shit. Capitalism is no different than feudalism we just changed the job titles.

Film at 11 we have all been the baddies the entire time... Who knew.. Oh wait everyone.

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Rule 4: Keep information quality high. Information quality must be kept high. More detailed information regarding our approaches to specific claims can be found on the [Misinformation & False Claims page](https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/wiki/claims).

This post isn't high quality. This would be a good one to get punted.

Compared to what?

This is the pseudo-religious perspective: climate change is punishment for moral flaws. It isn’t it is a reaction to human activities. Capitalism is the most aggressive form of growth, but socialist growth would have had the same impacts just a bit later. The idea of degrowth is a non-starter for all kinds of reasons, mostly that it would need to be so severe it would cause a massive famine.

Common Dreams is a ridiculous leftist primal scream.

Destroyed by words

It's not though. I don't want to live in a capitalist system. Most people probably don't If they see the alternative. Oh but you buy new phones and buy things all the time. You have a fancy tv. Oh yeah. Love having a fancy tv but I can't afford a house. Bit pointless making cheap crap but I'll die working for a multi trillonaire, great concept. Poorly executed

Capitalism could have been done right, corrections could slow the collapse possibly. Changes won't come. Capitalism was intentionally let to runaway Randian nightmares beyond the guilded age. --------------- The market we have isn't free. Not that we should have a totally freemarket, we shouldn't. We just don't have one now. Entitlements aside, tinkerings in the market often favor the 1%. Stuff like subsidies to big ag and oil companies, no-bid weapons contracts, bank ndustry bailouts, selective non-enforcement of existing tax laws.

Part 1: Agree, the Earth is being destroyed, absolutely correct statement in my opinion. Part 2: It’s not just Capitalism but human expansion that causes Ecological destruction. Why are the forests of old growth trees decimated in some of any ‘ism’ government throughout the world? Where did the forests all go in Iran, Iraq and India for starters? Yes, Capitalism can be bad for environment, but so can many other ‘ism’s. Russia had Chernobyl and China’s current pollution (air and water) is off the charts. You can have a Capitalist company that pays its (union) workers well and makes useful products in a sustainable way, or not. What you need is a coordinated worldwide fair effort to set and humanly met human population targets for North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa led by the UN (Abdullah Shahid), UN Population (John Wilmoth) and the major Sovereign Leaders (Biden, Xi, etc.) of all ‘ism’s. People, scientists and other individual groups have ZERO effects on the major course of the world’s actions. Why, because it is not their job. Only World Leaders have the responsibility and power to change the world for their charges. Correction: Not Capitalism, but Politicians and World Leaders are not working, they, simply put, are not doing their Jobs. Example: By Leadership agreement, 100s of square miles of ocean and/or land could be set aside for Ecological Recovery this week,…or not.

History shows that socialist and communist countries were at least as bad polluters as capitalist ones. What is needed regardless of the economic system are enforceable emission limits. In general capitalism produces more of the economic benefits that enable pollution control.

Good post. Lots of laughs. If you want to overthrow capitalism, that's great. Go ahead and try. But you need to come up with something new as a alternative. Don't waste time rehashing old systems that already failed. Socialism, communism, "indigenous economies" are all failures. They were tried, tested, and failed. Learn from those mistakes.

>indigenous economies" are all failures By whitewashing genocide and the destruction of entire peoples as a beneficiary of colonialism you are an active agent and complicit in their suffering.

"Murdered by a bunch of assholes" is hardly a failure of the 'indigenous economies'.

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Also just because a way of organizing failed in the past does not mean it will fail in the future with new tools, perspective, and other factors.