Greed is causing global warming
The health of the environment is a big topic of discussion today. There are those who believe technological innovations will save the environment and there are those who advocate a different alternative: socialism.
The first possible solution will never be achieved. To simply just create better and more efficient technologies will do nothing for the environment. In fact, the environment will deteriorate even more because, as demonstrated in Jevons paradox, more efficient ways to extract resources will increase consumption. In addition, it will cause more destruction and more pollution.
The second possible solution will work. Socialism is based on the needs of human beings and of the environment. It is the direct opposite of capitalism, which has to due with the accumulation of profit with no care for human beings and the environment.
The problem is capitalism and the modes of production it advocates. Capitalism or the profit motive will destroy the environment.
Marxist theorist Chris Harman describes capitalism as a zombie. As the zombie sucks blood from its victims it continues to need more and more blood to sustain itself. So as more and more capital is accumulated the economy or companies need more profit to even function regularly. That is not even mentioning growth, another principle capitalism is based on.
One could make the futile argument that “human nature” is the problem, or that people are inherently selfish and greedy but that is not true. Human nature allows people to adapt in the best way possible to their given environments. So it isn’t human nature to be greedy. It is human nature to adapt. With a conscious decision to move into a socialist way of life, human beings will adapt to socialism and this will be more beneficial for human beings and the world than capitalism.
Men like Barrack Obama do not get the gravity of the situation. But there are surely some who do. Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela and Evo Morales , the President of Bolivia understand that without socialism, the environment and human beings are destined to someday diminish.
Another man who knew of the gravity of this situation was Karl Marx. He said, “From the standpoint of a higher economic form of society, private ownership of a globe by single individuals will appear quite as absurd as private ownership of one man by another. Even a whole society, a nation, or even all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the globe. They are only is possessors…they must hand it down to succeeding generations in an improved condition.”