Who Owns The Earth? -- Paul Roberts
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n my latest book, The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism And Economic Dissolution of The West:Towards A New Economics For A Full World (Clarity Press, 2013), I emphasize that nature's capital, not man-made capital, is the limiting factor for life on earth. I learned from ecological economist Herman Daly and others who were able to escape dogma and to think independently that the measure used by economists to measure economic success -- the growth of GDP -- does not include the most important costs.
What this means is that economics as presently understood is defective and is leading humanity to its destruction.
In his commencement address at the American University of Beirut on June 14, 2013, Chomsky makes the point that our planet is our common possession. It does not belong to Monsanto, or to the military/security complex, or to Wall Street, or to the oil, mining, and timber industries. It belongs to life. If we don't defend it, short-term profit greed will destroy it. Unbridled capitalism means the destruction of the Earth.
The amount of profits that can be made depends on how much of the cost can be imposed on nature. Therefore, in the world economy where unchecked greed operates, humans with their short-term thinking impose huge costs on nature in order to provide profits for executive bonuses, shareholders, and Wall Street.
Chomsky's statement is true that "the Earth now desperately needs defense from impending environmental catastrophe."
The question is: are there sufficient rational and literate persons to save Earth? And if such astute people do exist, do they have the power to save Earth from capitalist greed and Washington's desire for hegemony?
PeakOil is You
The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism
The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism
by Graeme » Fri 12 Jul 2013, 19:56:35
opednews
Dr. Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury for Economic Policy in the Reagan Administration. He was associate editor and columnist with the Wall Street Journal, columnist for Business Week and the Scripps Howard News Service. He is a contributing editor to Gerald Celente's Trends Journal. He has had numerous university appointments.
Amazon description
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')his very readable book by a distinguished economist, Wall Street Journal editor, and Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury is a major challenge both to economic theory and to media explanations of the ongoing 21st century economic crisis. The one percent have pulled off an economic and political revolution. By offshoring manufacturing and professional service jobs, US corporations destroyed the growth of consumer income, the basis of the US economy, leaving the bulk of the population mired in debt. Deregulation was used to concentrate income and wealth in fewer hands and financial firms in corporations “too big to fail,” removing financial corporations from market discipline and forcing taxpayers in the US and Europe to cover bankster losses. Environmental destruction has accelerated as economists refuse to count the exhaustion of nature’s resources as a cost and as corporations impose the cost of their activities on the environment and on third parties who do not share in the profits. This is the book to read for those who want to understand the mistakes that are bringing the West to its knees.
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
-
Graeme - Fusion
- Posts: 13258
- Joined: Fri 04 Mar 2005, 04:00:00
- Location: New Zealand
Re: The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism
by wildbourgman » Fri 12 Jul 2013, 20:37:50
How can he proclaim Laissez Faire Capitalism as a failure when we haven't had anything close to that for many years? What company like Monsanto does for example is not even close to pure capitalism. Goldman Ball Sacks as another example couldn't operate without governmment intervention but we blame capitalism when things go wrong. What we have had and the problems we have can't be blamed on something that doesn't exist and has not existed for a long time.
Now if he gets around to saying in the book that Laissez Faire Capitalism is easily corrupted I might agree, but I would ask what other economic system hasn't been corrupted at some point? I realize the passages you put show a concern for the capitalism and relation to the environment, but how well did communist countries do when it came to the environment? I think we can do better for the Earth's environment without Crony Capitalism that we have today.
Now if he gets around to saying in the book that Laissez Faire Capitalism is easily corrupted I might agree, but I would ask what other economic system hasn't been corrupted at some point? I realize the passages you put show a concern for the capitalism and relation to the environment, but how well did communist countries do when it came to the environment? I think we can do better for the Earth's environment without Crony Capitalism that we have today.
- wildbourgman
- Coal
- Posts: 483
- Joined: Sun 07 Jul 2013, 10:05:52
Re: The Failure Of Laissez Faire Capitalism
by Graeme » Fri 12 Jul 2013, 21:10:03
I agree with the author - there hasn't been enough government regulation. I went straight to wiki and found these solutions:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')olutions advocated to correct such externalities include:
Environmental regulations. Under this plan, the economic impact has to be estimated by the regulator. Usually this is done using cost-benefit analysis. There is a growing realization that regulations (also known as "command and control" instruments) are not so distinct from economic instruments as is commonly asserted by proponents of environmental economics. E.g.1 regulations are enforced by fines, which operate as a form of tax if pollution rises above the threshold prescribed. E.g.2 pollution must be monitored and laws enforced, whether under a pollution tax regime or a regulatory regime. The main difference an environmental economist would argue exists between the two methods, however, is the total cost of the regulation. "Command and control" regulation often applies uniform emissions limits on polluters, even though each firm has different costs for emissions reductions. Some firms, in this system, can abate inexpensively, while others can only abate at high cost. Because of this, the total abatement has some expensive and some inexpensive efforts to abate. Environmental economic regulations find the cheapest emission abatement efforts first, then the more expensive methods second. E.g. as said earlier, trading, in the quota system, means a firm only abates if doing so would cost less than paying someone else to make the same reduction. This leads to a lower cost for the total abatement effort as a whole.[citation needed]
Quotas on pollution. Often it is advocated that pollution reductions should be achieved by way of tradeable emissions permits, which if freely traded may ensure that reductions in pollution are achieved at least cost. In theory, if such tradeable quotas are allowed, then a firm would reduce its own pollution load only if doing so would cost less than paying someone else to make the same reduction. In practice, tradeable permits approaches have had some success, such as the U.S.'s sulphur dioxide trading program or the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, and interest in its application is spreading to other environmental problems.
Taxes and tariffs on pollution/Removal of "dirty subsidies." Increasing the costs of polluting will discourage polluting, and will provide a "dynamic incentive," that is, the disincentive continues to operate even as pollution levels fall. A pollution tax that reduces pollution to the socially "optimal" level would be set at such a level that pollution occurs only if the benefits to society (for example, in form of greater production) exceeds the costs. Some advocate a major shift from taxation from income and sales taxes to tax on pollution - the so-called "green tax shift."
Better defined property rights. The Coase Theorem states that assigning property rights will lead to an optimal solution, regardless of who receives them, if transaction costs are trivial and the number of parties negotiating is limited. For example, if people living near a factory had a right to clean air and water, or the factory had the right to pollute, then either the factory could pay those affected by the pollution or the people could pay the factory not to pollute. Or, citizens could take action themselves as they would if other property rights were violated. The US River Keepers Law of the 1880s was an early example, giving citizens downstream the right to end pollution upstream themselves if government itself did not act (an early example of bioregional democracy). Many markets for "pollution rights" have been created in the late twentieth century—see emissions trading.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')olutions advocated to correct such externalities include:
Environmental regulations. Under this plan, the economic impact has to be estimated by the regulator. Usually this is done using cost-benefit analysis. There is a growing realization that regulations (also known as "command and control" instruments) are not so distinct from economic instruments as is commonly asserted by proponents of environmental economics. E.g.1 regulations are enforced by fines, which operate as a form of tax if pollution rises above the threshold prescribed. E.g.2 pollution must be monitored and laws enforced, whether under a pollution tax regime or a regulatory regime. The main difference an environmental economist would argue exists between the two methods, however, is the total cost of the regulation. "Command and control" regulation often applies uniform emissions limits on polluters, even though each firm has different costs for emissions reductions. Some firms, in this system, can abate inexpensively, while others can only abate at high cost. Because of this, the total abatement has some expensive and some inexpensive efforts to abate. Environmental economic regulations find the cheapest emission abatement efforts first, then the more expensive methods second. E.g. as said earlier, trading, in the quota system, means a firm only abates if doing so would cost less than paying someone else to make the same reduction. This leads to a lower cost for the total abatement effort as a whole.[citation needed]
Quotas on pollution. Often it is advocated that pollution reductions should be achieved by way of tradeable emissions permits, which if freely traded may ensure that reductions in pollution are achieved at least cost. In theory, if such tradeable quotas are allowed, then a firm would reduce its own pollution load only if doing so would cost less than paying someone else to make the same reduction. In practice, tradeable permits approaches have had some success, such as the U.S.'s sulphur dioxide trading program or the EU Emissions Trading Scheme, and interest in its application is spreading to other environmental problems.
Taxes and tariffs on pollution/Removal of "dirty subsidies." Increasing the costs of polluting will discourage polluting, and will provide a "dynamic incentive," that is, the disincentive continues to operate even as pollution levels fall. A pollution tax that reduces pollution to the socially "optimal" level would be set at such a level that pollution occurs only if the benefits to society (for example, in form of greater production) exceeds the costs. Some advocate a major shift from taxation from income and sales taxes to tax on pollution - the so-called "green tax shift."
Better defined property rights. The Coase Theorem states that assigning property rights will lead to an optimal solution, regardless of who receives them, if transaction costs are trivial and the number of parties negotiating is limited. For example, if people living near a factory had a right to clean air and water, or the factory had the right to pollute, then either the factory could pay those affected by the pollution or the people could pay the factory not to pollute. Or, citizens could take action themselves as they would if other property rights were violated. The US River Keepers Law of the 1880s was an early example, giving citizens downstream the right to end pollution upstream themselves if government itself did not act (an early example of bioregional democracy). Many markets for "pollution rights" have been created in the late twentieth century—see emissions trading.
Regulations implemented so far do impose a cost:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he economic costs of environmental regulations have been widely debated since the U.S. began to restrict pollution emissions more than four decades ago. Using detailed production data from nearly 1.2 million plant observations drawn from the 1972-1993 Annual Survey of Manufactures, we estimate the effects of air quality regulations on manufacturing plants’ total factor productivity (TFP) levels. We find that among surviving polluting plants, stricter air quality regulations are associated with a roughly 2.6 percent decline in TFP. The regulations governing ozone have particularly large negative effects on productivity, though effects are also evident among particulates and sulfur dioxide emitters. Carbon monoxide regulations, on the other hand, appear to increase measured TFP, especially among refineries. The application of corrections for the confounding of price increases and output declines and sample selection on survival produce a 4.8 percent estimated decline in TFP for polluting plants in regulated areas. This corresponds to an annual economic cost from the regulation of manufacturing plants of roughly $21 billion, about 8.8 percent of manufacturing sector profits in this period.
This is far from an exhaustive survey. Here's one more.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')onsequently, those who hope to improve their state's business climate,
economic competitiveness, and employment picture by rolling back
environmental statutes are misinformed and are in for great disappointment.
The evidence is compelling that this strategy will not produce any meaningful
economic gains, while imposing real environmental losses. Instead efforts
should shift to factors that have been shown to really affect the bottom line: state tax and labor policies and transportation and communication infrastructure.
Battles over such regulation are going on right now:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'A House hearing next Thursday will provide a platform for GOP criticism of the White House decision to increase the estimated damages from carbon emissions that agencies use in crafting regulations.
A subcommittee of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is delving into the higher “social cost of carbon” estimate.
Howard Shelanski, the top White House regulatory official, will testify at the hearing, a committee aide said. Shelanski heads the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the White House Office of Management and Budget.
The upward revision surfaced in a recent Energy Department rule on microwave oven efficiency, which increased the estimated benefits of the regulation.
The increased social cost of carbon in various agency rulemakings could have big implications as the White House seeks to justify new executive actions to confront climate change, including power plant emissions rules.
The hearing is the latest of several responses to the boosted estimate of damages from climate change, such as changes in agricultural productivity, human health effects and increased flood risk.')
Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
-
Graeme - Fusion
- Posts: 13258
- Joined: Fri 04 Mar 2005, 04:00:00
- Location: New Zealand
