Caroline Hargreaves The gift of the green movement has been to show that “prosperity transcends material concerns.” That true wealth resides in the quality of our lives, in vibrant communities and in a healthy environment. That true wealth has little to do with profit. The greens have also managed to present a new macro-economic vision where sustainability trumps growth, where consumption for real needs and not mindless consumerism guides economic planning, and, most importantly, they have emphasized the need to establish environmental and resource limits on economic activity. What the greens have overlooked, however, is the power of the profit motive, the structurally inbuilt growth impulse in capitalism, which will trump all other visions, unless we restructure the macro-economic system itself. It is that simple. The profit-motive in capitalism makes the market undemocratic and monopolistic. Capitalism is fundamentally based on property rights, while democracy is based on personal rights. And as Princeton University economist Jaroslav Vanek claims, “the most important aspect of capitalism, its objective function, is to maximize profit.” In other words, fundamentally speaking, capitalist firms do not like regulation; they do not like to be told to add costs, including environmental costs, to the profit equation. They will fight that possibility at every turn of the way. It is for no other reason than this that greenwashing—when companies spend more money or time advertising they are green than actually being green—is so common. That is also why a completely unregulated capitalist economy and a democratic and sustainable economy are incompatible.
Posted on: Thu, 08 Jan 2015 20:21:09 +0000
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