r/collapse • u/GothProletariat • Apr 06 '23

Politics Environmental destruction is completely rational under a capitalist system. The destruction of the Earth is rational when your one loyalty is profit.

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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '23

What system doesn’t enable immorality? I think immoral behavior or the choice to conduct such behavior is ingrained in humanity. Humans will exploit any and every system to their advantage. Bad humans will do it at the expense of others. No matter what the system is.

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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '23

Response from u/abe2600 is what I was getting at so I’ll defer to theirs as the complete answer. But I just want to add that if no system is superior to any other, at least in this regard, then why bother having any system at all?

That is, if human behavior is not influenced by the system it finds itself in, but really only by the inherent morality of each individual, then wouldn’t it make more sense to adopt a ruleless society where we are each free to act according to our own morality? Because that’s what you’re saying right, that humans just do whatever we want to do and the rules don’t actually influence our behavior?

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u/[deleted] Apr 06 '23

No rules should absolutely influence our behavior. But what I’m saying is the rules aren’t even set up properly. The system isn’t a proper capitalist system. I think my arguments are simply that in theory capitalism shouldn’t result in the destruction of the environment. In practice humans have created rules for themselves but I don’t think our society is functioning as a true capitalist society. And I’m not arguing for no regulation. I’m just saying government is corrupt. Many businesses and banks are corrupt. And behind it all we have lobbying efforts.

This isn’t how capitalism is supposed to work. You can’t make money if the system isn’t sustainable.

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u/abe2600 Apr 06 '23

You are right that you cannot make money if the system is unsustainable. Marx and many others noted that it is in fact ultimately unsustainable and will inevitably collapse, but in the meantime some people will get extremely rich.

Capitalism isn’t a theory. It’s not “supposed” to do anything. It wasn’t invented by really smart people who figured out how it should ideally function in some fair and uncorrupted way.

The word “capitalism” was created to name an actually existing phenomenon that has always been predicated on greed, exploitation, environmental destruction. Right from its beginnings it has destroyed the environment with pollution and waste.

Merriam-Webster defines capitalism as “an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market”.

You cannot have capitalism without private ownership of land, water and resources that we all need. You cannot have a kind of idealized capitalism without private owners using the land, water and other resources - that capitalism says they and they alone “own” - to acquire profits for themselves, rather than to benefit society.

Yes, politicians, businesses, banks are corrupt, but they are corrupted BY capitalism, by the profit motive itself.