Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Idk, I don’t think it matters who we blame. The problem isn’t the multinational corporations that do this, it’s the system that lets them. We need a better system.



Which is the system at fault here? Capitalism?


Captialism (as implemented in many Western countries) can deal with these things, it just doesn't by default. We successfully solved ozone depletion, we made significant progress with acid rain, we got rid of leaded gasoline, our rivers are reasonably clean, ...

Reasonable legislation that sets the right incentives works. But it's difficult to get passed when entrenched interests are against it. The problem isn't capitalism, the problem is the industry influence on politics that prevents reasonable legislation.


I don't think he intended for it to be named. It's just a system. E.g., The system that lets companies pump water out of aquifers from states in drought and sell it back to people marked up 1000x while seeding misinformation that all tap water is evil. That's the system that is at fault: the deliberate exploitation of both consumers and natural resources for extreme wealth.


Capitalism is just an idea. The actually existing system is a complex self-contradicting hydra that is hard to describe. But yes as another commenter said it comes down to governance. How do we as people want to govern human action? I am way more in favor of decentralized governance. I’d say that a lot of our problems come from having a powerful centralized government that can be influenced by the wealthy. That’s not “capitalism” in a libertarian sense at all. It’s more like an oligarchy in practice. Tho many tend to refer to our system as capitalism, which can lead us down all manner of arguments over terminology. What I really care about is power and how it is distributed. I believe in more directly democratic systems. I think oligarchy tends to lead to problems like plastic waste because the wealthy rulers can basically insulate themselves from any problems they cause, while the rest of us have the choice of buying plastic trash or spending more resources to avoid plastic. The third option of zero waste grocery stores (food as one example) could lead to a life without extra burden on the more conscious consumers and without excess plastic trash. These are common in some other countries, but a country flooded by the plastic producers’ public relations machine, US consumers are all to happy to buy more and more plastic trash. A big question on my mind lately is why we allow public relations to manipulate us in to believing these falsehoods. We’ve surrounded ourselves with megaphones of corporate endorsed pseudoscience, as happened with disposable plastics. Sociologists know public relations works, but we’ve allowed the public relations industry to convince us it’s benign. I think we need to think hard about who that industry serves.

By the way, Noam Chomsky uses the phrase “really existing capitalism today” to talk about the system we’ve ended up with.

https://youtu.be/_uuYjUxf6Uk


"Economic system based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit" no not capitalism, governance.


Not sure that presenting a definition of capitalism gets it off the hook here.

When you don't have a remote third party (the capitalist) involved in your transactions, things are simpler.

You can just ask: is the person I'm doing business with creating more problems than they solve? And then not do business with them if the answer is yes.

If you acknowledge property rights that justify the involvement of capitalists in your transaction, you now have to also ask the same question of them and weigh those answers against the first. It's much harder to figure out who's agenda you're furthering with your money--so most people just don't bother. Both parties blame this abstraction that hangs over their business and neither takes responsibility for its consequences.

The invisible hand ends up being a scapegoat and nothing changes.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: