Climate Warriors versus Market Fundamentalists
Wed, Apr 16, 2008
Environmental Graffiti Will be Changing Dramatically Soon. Get a Sneak Preview By Signing Up Here.
Brian Gordon is a Canadian Green Party member and candidate trained by Al Gore to present An Inconvenient Truth.
I’ll save you the trouble of reading further if you believe in the infallibility of markets and have dangerously high blood pressure: I’m on the side of moving very rapidly to a new green economy.
New York Stock Exchange. Image by U.S. Department of the Interior
I used to be a climate change sceptic until I did the research; the results were frightening (I have children and even a grandchild) and eye-opening. We really have no choice: We cannot continue our foolish, wasteful, and harmful ways.
George Soros, who has made billions in ‘the market,’ calls those who worship the infallibility of free markets: Market Fundamentalists. I would agree, and most of the opposition to doing something about the climate crisis (we’re way past global warming) comes from these Fundies – who are anything but fun. Anyone who has had the misfortune to be involved in a debate with any of these people will have noticed that they are impervious to facts. No matter the weight of evidence on the side of human-caused global warming, no matter the rather obvious danger we face, they find some reason that negates all of it. Thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies over decades all pointing to one conclusion? No problem, there’s this guy over here who says it’s all wrong. He may not have published anything, the scientists may think he’s a fool, you may be able to point out how his argument has been thoroughly discredited – doesn’t matter. The Market Fundies will believe whoever and whatever supports their idol.
Really, it can get a bit depressing. The saddest part – not including that these people are going to wipe humanity off the face of the planet, starting with the poor – is that most of them are quite well-meaning and don’t realise they’ve been duped. Just as the Communist leaders devoted enormous resources to perpetrating the glories of the socialist revolution and each Five-Year Plan, so do many of us fall for the rubbish claiming that global capitalism will solve, some day, all our problems. Just not today, and not this problem.
Capitalism and the market work well when there are many competitors and they live where they do business, thus giving them a vested interest in the local area. Capitalism fails when it goes big and remote. Capitalism fails when businesses can externalise costs like climate change, or when those costs occur in the future and the manager’s pay and promotions are tied to this quarter’s financial performance. Capitalism has gone big – global – and is as remote as it is possible to be without being located on the moon.
The Market Fundies will not acknowledge the failings in their system. I have become convinced that most – probably all – humans are hard-wired to believe in something greater than themselves. That’s why there are so many religions, why many who are not religious call themselves ’spiritual,’ and why atheists believe there is no god/God (rather than simply saying they don’t know because they see no proof).
Market Fundamentalists have swapped God for The Market, and that is why they see the market as infallible, as the source of all solutions, as the way to organize the entire world – and why they will not listen to reason, or science, when it comes to the climate crisis.
If you want to keep up with Brian’s adventures in the Green Party, why not subcribe to our RSS feed? We’ll even give you a free album.
You Might Also Like Our Friends' Posts From the Intertubes
“The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else.”
April 17th, 2008 at 2:54 am
Dude if you think what we have now is anywhere near a proper example of a capitalist society, you are very sadly mistaken.
April 17th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
No, my point is that capitalism always devolves into the mess we have now. As some people corporations accumulate vast wealth and power, they use that wealth and power to ensure their continued dominance.
April 18th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Sadly for those who like their world delivered to them in convenient soundbites, the science is FAR from settled – It is not just an isolated few scientists who are vehemently rejecting the conclusions of the climate modelers, and who point to a substantial and growing body of evidence AGAINST the methodology and conclusions of the IPCC climate model projections.
Very few of these well informed “deniers” actually deny that humans are having some impact on the climate (just not as much as is reported) , nor do they think the free market is any kind of magical cure for anything. The free market is just harnessed greed. Nothing particularly God-like or faith inspiring about that. Unfortunately it just so happens that the alternatives to gratifying immediate self interest are far less effective in inspiring most people to act. We either face up to that or we fail – no amount of political correctness or inspiring visions of a golden future of sustainable living in a clean world of centrally imposed economic restraint will conceal that reality for long.
Faith in any kind of deity or system is not a necessary or even a worthy argument on either side of this debate – only evidence counts, and the quality of reasoning that leads to your conclusions.
The evidence is that long term collective action for the greater good just keeps on failing and generating harmful side effects wherever it is tried – however well intentioned at the outset.
Love it or hate it, the market is what we must use and understand thoroughly (not worship) it we want to inspire change and to leave any positive legacy to our descendants
April 18th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Paul, you imply that the deniers have a common view, but this is far from the case. In fact, they are all over the place in terms of their views. Tim Ball, for example, is pushing the ‘earth is now in a cooling phase’ line. He has also been thoroughly discredited, as has his ‘cooling’ nonsense.
And I did not suggest we eliminate the market, just that we harness it, as you say. I said that the market works well when there are many small competitors who live where they trade. The market breaks down when it becomes large and remote, and we have proven this empirically. I think the same could be said about any kind of power or wealth generation (or extraction, via slavery, for example) that becomes distanced from its source.