Climate change and resource depletion cannot be directly blamed on capitalism, but capitalism creates an environment where exploitation is the norm.  An environment where collective concerns are ignored.

It is a fatal flaw.  Capitalism enabled the century of the self.  The century which may have set up conditions that result in human.


Jason W Moore sees unfavorable shifts in the climate as bad for ruling classes.  Their grip on the existing order is exaggerated and when unfavorable climatic conditions happen the ruling class can't adapt and provide what average people need.

QuoteThis should give us pause to reject both the climate doomism and, I think the climate resignation, this sense of powerlessness in the present conjuncture.

But Diner readers know resource depletion means doomism can't be rejected as cavalierly as Jason would like to.

I had a sense of where the argument might go and I guessed correctly.  Critics will say the arguments Jason presents are circular.  I am not a critic.  I agree with Jason says mostly.  Capitalism puts money in charge and profit exploits.

The exploitation of labor power is the cash machine that destroys the environment.  Cheap labor is the resource that capitalism cannot live without.  Cheap labor is used to cheapen everything else.  As environmental conditions become unfavorable  getting things done becomes harder and profit suffers.  Capitalism fails.

Without a new frontier to exploit capitalism fails.  Profit must extract from a surplus.  The cancer will die, but it likely takes us with it.