And the IEA, for its part, expects China to continue to be the sole meaningful over-achiever. It recently revised upwards by 728 GW its forecast for total global renewables capacity additions in the period 2023–27. China’s share of this upward revision? Almost 90 percent. While China surges ahead, the rest of the world remains stuck.
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I mean, does it count to be ‘stuck’ if you simply aren’t trying?
Because that’s what it seems like the rest of the world is doing. They aren’t even trying. Not even a little. Just more technocratic discussions on what trying might look like.
“Trying” isn’t really a thing on a national scale. What countries do and how they react just depends on their economic system / mode of production.
Capitalist countries, on account of being capitalist, can never really tackle climate change. China’s the only major country taking this seriously because a socialist nation doesn’t need the profit motive that’s required under capitalism.
As with most things, the answer is revolution.
Let’s not call China socialist when a single party dictates larger economic trends in an otherwise competitive global market. It’s just not “free” as in free market capitalism.
Otherwise I completely agree with the weaknesses of the western capitalist systems.
in an otherwise competitive global market
Global market. China itself is socialist (not as far along as the USSR’s fully planned economy, but even the USSR used a state-driven market economy for its first 20 years with Lenin’s NEP), i.e. the state uses the market for the good of the people, including when that goes against capitalists’ interests. You’re commenting on a post with an article talking about just that.
We’ve also been seeing this the last few months with how they’re tackling the real estate “crisis” by letting real estate developers go bankrupt and refusing to bail them out like capitalist countries do.
But isn’t the means of production still mostly controlled by capital owners? Sure, some industries are influenced by the government, but that is also the case in the West. The plan is certainly more detailed for China, but to me Socialism always meant labor is controlling the means of production. How’s that the case when an elitist single-party government influences the capital owners?
I don’t think you understand socialism tbh
Enlighten me then. Means of production doesn’t seem to be controled by the party alone. Most of China’s economy still follows capitalist principles. Rich Chinese and owners of businesses are still private citizens. Sure, some influenced by the government, some industries very heavily regulated, but China still follows capitalist principles in most cases.
I always thought Socialism means that means of production is controlled by labor directly, not capital owners or an elists single-party government.
Just like how capitalism is a spectrum (in that, y’know, the US does not have purely free market capitalism but is still widely considered a capitalist state), socialism is also a spectrum. Marx and Engel’s writings do touch on this, but it was expanded on by the works of Lenin and Deng Xiaoping (among others). If you’re actually willing to learn, I’d recommend asking on hexbear.net because they’re much more familiar with the literature than me.
Are there any examples of large companies, especially stock corporations, that have voluntarily given up short-term profits in favor of long-term calculation or sustainable management? Or examples of cooperation between competitors outside of common (short-term) profit interests? I am only aware of “sustainability campaigns” that have been staged mainly for publicity purposes, which in the vast majority of cases are nothing more than a drop in the ocean.
As far as I know, it has always been necessary to use legal regulations to force the companies to pay even the slightest attention to the common good. One example of this is the ban on CFCs to protect the ozone layer - and that took more than a decade (from 1987 until 1999).
You raise excellent questions. I’m awaiting responses from others with meaningful links. We might need to be very patient.
I would be really interested to know if there was ever a company that tried this - a company for the people, so to say. As I said, I’m not aware of anything like that. Of course, there are also privately owned companies that are less focused on the logic of short-term profit maximization. But even these companies, such as Valve, can ultimately only apply the same standards, because otherwise they would be at a competitive disadvantage. That’s why I find it interesting to wonder whether there might have been a company at some point that, despite all the resistance, managed to assert itself with an alternative logic. It’s very unlikely, of course, but I’m asking anyway because it would be very desirable imo.
If the company is public, it could be argued that any optimization that isn’t towards short-term profits is harmful to the shareholders and can be used to unseat the relevant executive
Capitalism solves nothing. It doesn’t even, in general, make people rich. It just makes rich people richer.
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But by God, they’re sure not going to try.
And they’re all out of ideas!
Capitalism would just apply a subscription based patch on any given issue at hand if possible, it doesn’t even have to be logistical to the logical mind.
As the life-sustaining places become more scarce, they become more expensive. Your best play for survival is to play the game, amass wealth and afford the trip to Elysium. That’s why even the people understanding the problem are part of it.
Ah, my fantasy – to find a survivable place in the world to call my own.
China has another advantage. They don’t ask the market or the people of they are fine with the idea.
In the meantime, US and Europe don’t do anything is because of the neoliberal idea that the market will solve all problems through the magic of capitalism. This has been true for the past 3 decennia now. And, we knew renewable must be a thing.
Oh they definitely ask the people in China. Government runs mass surveys of public opinion when deciding on the 5 year plans, and there’s also massive public participation in the government itself. China has 1.4 Billion citizens, and CPC has 90 million members. This comes out to 15.5 citizens to every party member. So, every person in China either personally knows a party member or related to a party member. That’s why the government in China enjoys mass public support and approval the likes of which is unseen anywhere in the west. It’s a government of the people and for the people.
Capitalist nation-states have no ability to solve collective action problems because they’re explicitly designed to be unable to. Nation-states exist to make their own nation rich and powerful, which requires them to treat all other nation-states as adversaries. When a problem comes up that would require the barest-minimum level of trust between adversaries just to avoid mutually disastrous outcomes, we end up with things like the Cold War or climate change. Nation-states don’t solve the really big, hard problems collaboratively. They use them as geopolitical contests.
They can cut deals with each other, they can respond to pressure campaigns with PR, but they’ll never be able to do anything other than the shabbiest, most selfish bullshit in response to one of the greatest challenges in human history. So far, it’s all they’ve done.
…as long as it isn’t profitable to solve climate change. And that’s pretty much it. Capitalism is going to be the band playing on the sinking Titanic, except it’s actively drilling more holes in the bottom of the ship.
😂😭😂
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You can’t solve a problem using the same methodology that created it in the first place.
