These companies are incredibly wasteful and are opposed to the necessary changes to at minimum achieve net zero. This is because of the basic mechanisms of capital, i.e. they'd get less profit. And also because there's no cost - or much lower cost to them as companies - to be wasteful. Same reason they throw away food while people go hungry, at every step in the supply chain, multiplied tenfold because of how much redundancy capitalism has in production.
So, my first point is that there's plenty of room for changes and that they don't require us having less consumer goods.
My second point is about power and control. These arguments are brought up in the contexts of individual action, government regulation, revolution, etc. The fact that so much waste is upstream of "consumer choices" (which is already an anemic tool) means we can't fix this through "demand" or "the market" left to its own devices. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie makes sure this is the case: don't fuck with our short-term profits, they say (and are forced to say by the economic system). Pointing the finger at companies is the first step towards an ecosocialist position by undercutting the "individual choices" argument and placing focus on production and those who control it.
I never said that less waste in production was sufficient for net zero... I actually suggested that this is a talking point to push people towards ecosocialism, i.e. revolution.
Out of curiosity, have you read up on degrowth economics?
It's an entire subfield of economics with a substantial lefty contingent that lays out how transitions could look under certain alternatives of economic planning. One of the more interesting aspects is how it lays out consumption, particularly by income within and across states. The degrowth part is a reference to economic growth, like when people throw around GDP and how it needs to go up (line go up) under capitalism, but a transition to net zero does require changes that will come up in those stats as degrowth, the opposite trend to what capitalism needs to avoid crisis. Keep in mind that GDP and growth are incomplete measures of production, so this doesn't mean you destroy productive forces, just that less shit gets sold and bought on paper, particularly for and by the rich.
The fundamental argument of ecosocialism is that capitalism is incompatible with addressing climate change. The system will collapse when you try to take the necessary measures without having much greater economic planning than the bourgeoisie will allow. You need the economic planning to prevent capitalism from destroying everything as we try to go down that path. You can see a bit of that in how China mitigates the pitfalls of the FIRE economy, which would hollow out production and people's lives there if allowed free reign like it is in the imperial core.
An oversimplified example is that a transition would involve banning all big personal yachts and creating transit systems to replace the vast majority of cars. The former is part of the massive overconsumption by the rich and the latter, while leading to better outcomes everywhere, would create an economic crisis if done in the current capitalist context, and will fail if done piecemeal or too slowly. Imagine the dent to "the economy" (capitalist investments and short-term profits) if you permanently cut out 90% of car sales and related industries within 2 decades. Compare this to the current capitalist "solution" of half-assedly pushing expensive electric cars. Even that would create crisis if it went just a bit faster, if fossil fuel wasn't subsidized (keep in mind that you could take every fossil fuel subsidy and give it back to the people - given different rulers).
Anyways, point is that degrowth is about looking at how the economy is measured, comparing it to production, and comparing that to what a just transition could look like. And the thing that cuts through bourgeois talking points is that there is not, in fact, a necessity to adopt a dramatically decreased quality of life, or that you don't get to use a washing machine anymore, or whatever nonsense people start peddling. Energy consumption and overall consumption need to go down, but that doesn't need to mean truly having less in life, just a modified way of doing production and consumption: items built to last, moving away from fossil fuels, more efficient everything, etc.
The horizon for that future gets narrower and narrower with every decade, however. The changes needed become greater, the levels of energy use and consumption needed to achieve net zero become lower.
Anyways the final calculus ends up being pretty similar to the approaches and ideas we already have: socialism, more revolution, and a world driven less by American empire and more by the Chinese model.
These companies are incredibly wasteful and are opposed to the necessary changes to at minimum achieve net zero. This is because of the basic mechanisms of capital, i.e. they'd get less profit. And also because there's no cost - or much lower cost to them as companies - to be wasteful. Same reason they throw away food while people go hungry, at every step in the supply chain, multiplied tenfold because of how much redundancy capitalism has in production.
So, my first point is that there's plenty of room for changes and that they don't require us having less consumer goods.
My second point is about power and control. These arguments are brought up in the contexts of individual action, government regulation, revolution, etc. The fact that so much waste is upstream of "consumer choices" (which is already an anemic tool) means we can't fix this through "demand" or "the market" left to its own devices. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie makes sure this is the case: don't fuck with our short-term profits, they say (and are forced to say by the economic system). Pointing the finger at companies is the first step towards an ecosocialist position by undercutting the "individual choices" argument and placing focus on production and those who control it.
deleted by creator
I never said that less waste in production was sufficient for net zero... I actually suggested that this is a talking point to push people towards ecosocialism, i.e. revolution.
Out of curiosity, have you read up on degrowth economics?
deleted by creator
It's an entire subfield of economics with a substantial lefty contingent that lays out how transitions could look under certain alternatives of economic planning. One of the more interesting aspects is how it lays out consumption, particularly by income within and across states. The degrowth part is a reference to economic growth, like when people throw around GDP and how it needs to go up (line go up) under capitalism, but a transition to net zero does require changes that will come up in those stats as degrowth, the opposite trend to what capitalism needs to avoid crisis. Keep in mind that GDP and growth are incomplete measures of production, so this doesn't mean you destroy productive forces, just that less shit gets sold and bought on paper, particularly for and by the rich.
The fundamental argument of ecosocialism is that capitalism is incompatible with addressing climate change. The system will collapse when you try to take the necessary measures without having much greater economic planning than the bourgeoisie will allow. You need the economic planning to prevent capitalism from destroying everything as we try to go down that path. You can see a bit of that in how China mitigates the pitfalls of the FIRE economy, which would hollow out production and people's lives there if allowed free reign like it is in the imperial core.
An oversimplified example is that a transition would involve banning all big personal yachts and creating transit systems to replace the vast majority of cars. The former is part of the massive overconsumption by the rich and the latter, while leading to better outcomes everywhere, would create an economic crisis if done in the current capitalist context, and will fail if done piecemeal or too slowly. Imagine the dent to "the economy" (capitalist investments and short-term profits) if you permanently cut out 90% of car sales and related industries within 2 decades. Compare this to the current capitalist "solution" of half-assedly pushing expensive electric cars. Even that would create crisis if it went just a bit faster, if fossil fuel wasn't subsidized (keep in mind that you could take every fossil fuel subsidy and give it back to the people - given different rulers).
Anyways, point is that degrowth is about looking at how the economy is measured, comparing it to production, and comparing that to what a just transition could look like. And the thing that cuts through bourgeois talking points is that there is not, in fact, a necessity to adopt a dramatically decreased quality of life, or that you don't get to use a washing machine anymore, or whatever nonsense people start peddling. Energy consumption and overall consumption need to go down, but that doesn't need to mean truly having less in life, just a modified way of doing production and consumption: items built to last, moving away from fossil fuels, more efficient everything, etc.
The horizon for that future gets narrower and narrower with every decade, however. The changes needed become greater, the levels of energy use and consumption needed to achieve net zero become lower.
Anyways the final calculus ends up being pretty similar to the approaches and ideas we already have: socialism, more revolution, and a world driven less by American empire and more by the Chinese model.
deleted by creator