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[–]worm 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I'll begin with a nitpick that's not really important to the point you're making: I think most people tend to greatly overestimate the power that humans as a species exert on the planet. We may be a dominant species, but we are certainly (for now) incapable of "destroying the planet". Nuclear weapons are probably capable of wiping ourselves out, but our weapons are laughable in comparison to the forces of nature.

As to the fundamental point you are making: You're accusing capitalism of destroying the planet, by saying that the profit motive is the root cause for our excess consumption, which of course is in turn what drives us to extract resources beyond what we should be extracting. I hope this summarizes your argument - correct me if I was wrong. If this was the argument being made, I think it's one that I disagree with.

I'm of the opinion that this argument vastly overstates the importance of social organisation amongst human society. In my view, capitalism is a process tacked-on to the end of the equation, rather than the fundamental driving force of our consumption.

No matter what sort of socio-economic model humans adopt, consumption will always be a part of human life. Survival, even on an individual level, cannot be divorced from the consumption of limited resources which have to be extracted from our surroundings. This is a truism which extends from the largest of animals to the smallest of microorganisms.

It's possible that human consumption will be limited to our means under a planned economy rather than a capitalistic one, but that leads to more questions: what level of consumption would be considered "excess", and who is to decide on what level of consumption is permissible? Would a planned economy even manage to limit consumption, if it seeks to maintain certain living standards? Fundamentally, could there be any model of social organisation which would allow humans to live and consume without impacting the environment around them? It seems to me that no matter the social model you impose upon our civilization, the consumption of resources (and the continual increase in the consumption thereof) will inevitably increase as the human population increases. If anything, capitalism has perhaps limited the increase in consumption by making use of the monetary system to ration consumption and to encourage efficient extraction of limited resources.

But returning to the broader point: the fact that humans must consume regardless of what form of social organisation we adopt. This is what I mean when I say that capitalism is merely "the means by which humans divide resources". Models of social organisation such as capitalism, state planning, or even if you're really far out, anarcho-primitivism all simply change the way we divide scarce resources amongst ourselves. There is no model which fundamentally frees mankind from its physical needs. If we adopted a state-led economy, it would be the demands of the state rather than the demands of the market which then force us to extract resources from our surroundings.

From my perspective, it is the association of capitalism with (for the lack of a better word) evil which perplexes me. The evils you describe are fundamentally part of our world regardless of whether capitalism operates or not.