this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2023
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I wouldn't say capitalism is based on the notion of infinite growth, but it is an inevitability of there being no limits on capital accumulation. The notion that humans have endless desire for more, always needing a stronger hit to maintain personal satisfaction, is more psychological than something inherent to private ownership itself. Capitalism feeds the natural animal reward system to disastrous effect, but it isn't required for capitalism to work. In fact, insatiable desires are the reason capitalism doesn't work, because if people could be satisfied with a reasonable amount of resources, never trying to acquire more than they need, capitalism would be a fairly decent system.
Living 100% sustainably on this planet is counterintuitive to what it means to be human. We don't need a political revolution, we need a psychological one.
Exactly. Democratic systems serve society better than non democratic ones, but a strong democracy can only be as good as its people. If the voters lack the wisdom to limit their consumption, both for sustainability and their own satisfaction, they're doomed to make things worse.
Someone with fewer resources can be much happier than someone with a ton of them. Philosophers have long recognized that certain pleasures only grow more demanding when you feed them, while having sustainable consumption and gratitude is much more stable. As you consume something like meth or opiates, your brain gets used to it, requiring larger and larger doses to get the same effect. With pleasures that are similar drugs, this will eventually harm your happiness and well-being. Our brains cannot remain in a perpetually euphoric state, so we must limit these pleasures.
Certain drugs or pleasures are so euphoria inducing that there is no moderate consumption. Some people have a harder time moderately consuming pleasures that others can tolerate, resulting in addiction disorders.
With the wealthy, their greed is dangerous and addictive, but because it often doesn't directly harm them and they warped society to accommodate it, it should be handled as more of a criminal condition than a clinical disorder. They get hit after hit from opulent excess, but they always try to get more, and will never satisfy their desire. We must criminalize excessive consumption from individual wealthy people.
Average people also overconsume finite resources, but that is better addressed by taxes, regulations, and incentives for alternatives. Law will be used, but not in the same way as when dealing with the rich.
I would disagree, most people want a more sustainable life, be it economical or ecological, people actually vote for that. But we are never given what we vote for, because of pressure on government given by the big corps, we're always given some half-assed version of what we actually want.
Agreed. Assuming such a thing is playing with the meaning behind words more than understanding the purpose and function of the dogma itself.
I think there's one important distinction.
Capitalism is a "rich-get-richer" system.
In any finite economy, this is immoral, because one person (or small group) wins, and everybody else loses. By definition. And once you're a loser, you're sunk.
So capitalist apologists rely on the illusion/dream of limitless growth because it means they get to pretend that when they steal from you they are somehow "creating value".
Just because the rich get richer doesn’t mean the poor get poorer. Look at the data.
... The data that shows that as worker productivity increases, worker income doesn't increase proportionally?