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Not to start a fight here, but the video @Drano posted is a good example. It's criticism of XR on the basis that they are operating within a capitalist system rather than trying to overthrow it. Clearly to the person who made that video, abolition of capitalism is more important than climate change[...]
The point is that any movement like XR that focuses on green reform of capitalism is ultimately doomed to fail (or a dead end, as the video puts it) because a system based on endless growth is inherently at odds with environmentalist goals. Don't get me wrong, it's great that people are starting to take direct action, but if we're unable to pivot this anger into demands for more radical change then we are all very much doomed.
Drano-
Don't get me wrong, it's great that people are starting to take direct action, but if we're unable to pivot this anger into demands for more radical change then we are all very much doomed.
But if XR expands to have a much wider remit than reforms that are directed at safeguarding the environment, then it is also doomed.
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Yes, I can understand that concern, and we must address those issues if we want a long-term sustainable civilisation. But we have to be careful to keep our priorities in mind and always consider the opportunity cost of each action we take. What we need to do at this moment is significantly reduce emissions as quickly as possible and that should be the underlying aim of everything we do.
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XR are constantly belittled for wanting to mess with capitalism or dismissed as anarcho-communist or eco-fascists. It depends on who’s doing the trashing.
I think hope for ones own personal politics 100% aligning with a fast-changing lose global affiliation of somewhat likeminded eco activists is miss-placed. It’s also probably a distraction.
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any movement like XR that focuses on green reform of capitalism is ultimately doomed to fail (or a dead end, as the video puts it) because a system based on endless growth is inherently at odds with environmentalist goals.
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capitalism is ultimately doomed to fail because a system based on endless growth is inherently at odds with environmentalist goals.
Not necessarily.
The UK replaced it's declining industry with services. Services can provide economic growth without ever producing anything. Look at a derivatives trader - what is their actual environmental impact (ignore the underlying commodities)? Likely far less than a Chris King employee.
You're looking at it from the bias of someone who has issues with our current system and sees an increase in material goods as an inevitably of economic growth.
At the moment they go hand-in-hand, but they don't have to.
ffm
frankenbike
miro_o
rhb
hugo7
Time for another obnoxious essay!
That's the nub of what I'm getting at really. If we are being honest and proportionate, the concerns of a poor ex-miner in Wigan/an alienated religious person/a sidelined person-of-colour/an anti-capitalist/whomever in the UK pale in significance compared to those of people in island nations/Bangladesh/etc. and the people who will live through the next few centuries.
Not to start a fight here, but the video @Drano posted is a good example. It's criticism of XR on the basis that they are operating within a capitalist system rather than trying to overthrow it. Clearly to the person who made that video, abolition of capitalism is more important than climate change, and it ought to be clear that that is a nonsensical position to take - I mean, you wouldn't spend your money on laser eye surgery if that meant you couldn't afford to eat, would you? Because your eyesight doesn't matter if you're not alive. Similarly, living in a hyper-capitalist dictatorship is better than not living at all. The expenditure of time, money, effort, political capital towards any other problem with modern society is not rational unless those diversions will help to stop climate change sooner.
Maybe if we'd started 30 years ago... but we didn't, so all we can afford to do now is try to resolve this problem just barely in time