Whatever happened to the crisis of capitalism?

As you probably know, Marx mooted the idea that the capitalist system has its destruction coded into its very nature.

The argument is that capitalism is inherently expansionist (that is it must grow to operate) and exploitative (it depends on having new resources/people to exploit). Eventually, there will be nothing/nobody left to exploit, the system will not be able to expand any more and will, therefore, collapse.

Whatever you think of Marxism and Marxists, I have seen no convincing argument to refute the concept of the crisis of capitalism. Tim Jackson tries to argue that a non-expansionist capitalist system is possible (see “Prosperity without growth) but get’s very hand-wavey and vague about how it could work in practice. In my simple brain, the payment of interest on loans means that capitalism must be expansionist (how can you pay back the capital plus the interest if your business has not grown? how can it grow without using more stuff?).

Up until now, the crisis of capitalism has been an idea that, if accepted at all, has been seen to be a long way off. What, however, is the “climate crisis” if not the planet saying “that’s enough, you can’t have any more”?

I am fascinated that I have not seen anyone connect the climate crisis with the crisis of capitalism.

Even the green party and friends of the earth talk about a “green recovery”.

One thing that both Tim Jackson’s book (prosperity without growth) and “Collapse” by Jared Diamond make crystal clear is that if the West stayed where it was economically, and the rest of the world caught up, it would collapse the world’s ecosystems instantly.

No green recovery is possible.

At the moment politicians are making noises about doing things that will be ineffectual and quietly reneging on the deal (e.g. our prime-minister telling the UN that the west must do more to support developing countries with environmental issues whilst the UK cuts its budget for this purpose significantly).

The big problem is that, even if we did the things our politicians say we should be doing, it would have virtually no effect on the problem.

As an example, we are told that we should all be changing over to electric vehicles and that this would be carbon neutral. Not if everybody is encouraged to buy a new car every two years it wouldn’t – even for petrol vehicles, on a two year churn, the usage of fuel is minor compared to the CO2 produced by manufacturing the thing.

Let’s not forget the electricity generation is overwhelmingly not carbon neutral, with most generation throughout the world coming from burning coal or gas. The electricity may be carbon neutral when it is used but all we are doing is hiding the CO2 creation in a distant place and telling ourselves it doesn’t exist.

It would be far more green to keep all the existing vehicles going for as long as possible and gradually convert them to electric traction as their IC engines wear out.

Even better would be for people to live very close to where they work and use public transport, cycle or walk to work. I think it could be made to work without banning private cars entirely, but only if people kept cars for 15 years or more and only used them for special occasions.

Another regular fallacy is the idea that making energy “carbon neutral” makes it climate neutral. So as an example, fusion power is held up as an ideal energy source; “completely non-polluting”. What is forgotten is that energy is pollution and has an effect on the environment. The main effect of “limitless green energy” will be that people will use more.

Everyone will have fusion powered patio heaters so they can party outside in a midwinter that won’t exist because we will be heating the world up directly with waste energy rather than by producing CO2 that prevents its escape from the atmosphere.

Given that recent surveys suggest that, whilst the environment is a “top concern” for voters, they will not change their voting patterns as a result and do not expect to pay more tax to fund green initiatives, politicians are never going to stand on a platform of “vote for me to become less wealthy but possibly happier and maybe actually have a future”.

The only way I can possibly see it working is if all the major parties agree to stand on the same platform (of significantly reducing our environmental impact by shrinking the economy) and not attack each other on the issue. So we are dead in the water.

Right now, I have got to the point (thanks Grant Sharkey) that I have given up. Sadly I can’t tell funny stories whilst playing the double bass but I have taken the message of his book “Excellent choice” to heart and it seems to be this: “Whilst all you engineers are breaking your brains and your hearts trying to come up with ways to make the future a bit less awful, I’m going to be in the pub singing cheery little ditties about the fact that you are a bunch of stupid xxxxxxs for even trying to do something”.