Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote:
> >> well, don't you think that bringing in socialism would also "upset the
> >> economy"? Which is more likely to happen before global warming hits in
> >> a big way, socialism or a carbon tax?
>
> > Ahem, you just evaded the point that one can't just raise the carbon tax
> > as high as necessary to get the result one wants.
>
> okay, but that's a matter of practicalities that can't be settled
> here. Why not try the carbon tax and see how it works? It might have
> _some_ positive impact compared to the status quo and cap'n trade.
>
You still evading the question that one can't just raise the carbon tax
as high as necessary. Now you say that it's impossible to deal with it.
Shesh. That's a pretty easy way of answering any objection.
You ask, why not try the carbon tax?
--because it would be marking time
--because if it's carried out harshly enough to make a significant difference
it's likely to seriously hurt the masses and thus create widespread mistrust
for environmentalist measures
--because it's wrong to lie to the workers about how the carbon tax won't
hurt them because the Carbon Tax Center (or whoever) can *imagine* that it is
carried out in this or that way, rather than explaining to them what the
actual carbon tax will do. The agitation for the carbon tax already involves
lying to the workers in this way, and there isn't much of a protest against
that, is there? Instead this agitation is teaching its supporters to lie in
this way.
--because it's important to create a trend of serious, pro-working class
environmentalism as opposed to the corporate environmentalism that is now so
fashionable
--because there is a serious danger that after the carbon tax or other market
measures fails, the bourgeoisie will move, not to regulation, but to really
dangerous geo-engineering schemes. Already Obama's science advisor John
Holdren has put this "on the table".
> > That aside, you do raise an important issue. It seems to me that you
> > are dismissing the criticisms of the carbon tax because it seems to you to
> > be
> > something useful, as opposed to waiting around for socialism.
>
> The point of talking about such reforms (at least for me) is not that
> of finding the best one; I am not a neoclassical economist. Rather,
> it's useful to know what our rulers' options are in order to get some
> idea of what may happen in the future and (after the fact) which
> factions are winning.
It seems that you conflate knowing the bougeoisie's present preferred choices
with trying out some of them.
Moreover, I think your picture of their options is wrong. They will
eventually be forced to move towards regulation -- if not before spectacular
damage has been done to the planet, afterwards to deal with the catastrophic
results. This will result in a struggle over the nature of this regulation,
as I sketched out in my article on the environmental crisis and the fear of a
carbon dictatorship.
>
> > But the
> > question which I would raise is, and the question which I think is raised by
> > Mankiw's views, is *not* that we should replace the carbon tax with just
> > twiddling our thumbs waiting for socialism. It's whether there has to be a
> > class struggle now, today, over what type of measures should be taken to
> > deal with the environment. The question is whether we should take
> > Mankiw's views as a warning, about what the "intelligent" neo-liberal
> > opposition to serious measures to deal with the environment is like.
>
> that makes sense. By the way, I never said anything about _replacing_
> the carbon tax with waiting for socialism.
I didn't say, or mean to say, that you advocated doing nothing. If there is
any confusion on that, sorry. But I thought you were saying that those who
criticize the carbon tax must therefore be advocating waiting for socialism.
In any case, if it makes sense to have a program of struggle now over what
type of measures should be carried out, then shouldn't that struggle apply to
the carbon tax itself?
>
> > In my opinion, to believe that the carbon tax or other marketplace
> > measures are the main things we can advocate
> > is like saying that it's private
> > health insurance or nothing -- forgetting about single-payer and national
> > health services; or charter schools or nothing, forgetting about public
> > schools; toll roads or nothing, abandoning public roads; etc.
>
> who said anything about carbon taxes being the "main thing"? not I.
The carbon tax is promoted as the main measure, and as a replacement for
regulation and planning. Tt will be implemented in a way that it assumes that
it is the main measure. This is just as cap and trade is under Kyoto.
Moreover, it will be pretty hard to tell people who suffer from the tax --
oh, this tax is only designed to take care of 2 or 3% of the problem.
But, to go more deeply into this (and this is *not* a rhetorical question),
what are you saying should be done as the main program?
>
> (BTW, I never _endorsed_ Mankiw's point of view.)
>
> > Neoliberal environmentalism developed as a reaction against
> > environmental
> > regulations that had been implemented under capitalism in the late 60s and
> > 70s, and against the fear of additional such regulations. That's the origin
> > of cap and trade and carbon tax schemes. To forget that there is another
> > way
> > of carrying out environmental protection aside from creating artificial
> > death
> > markets means to leave oneself trapped inside free-market economics.
>
> right. Of course, we should also be conscious of the limits of
> command-and-control methods for dealing with pollution and global
> warming, especially in a society that emphasizes aggressive
> profit-seeking über alles.
The program I defend lays stress on the struggle over how regulation and
planning will be carried out. What, however, do you have in mind? What do you
see as the limits of environmental regulation and planning.
>
> > But for now the bourgeoisie is still marking time with marketplace
> > solutions.
>
> It's a mistake to talk about the bourgeoisie as some sort of monolith.
> Competition within the class is important: establishing "cap'n trade"
> may be a major method of what neoclassicals call "rent seeking"
> (looking for special competitive advantage via political means,
> litigation, and the like). That is, it's quite possible that cap'n
> trade isn't a matter of good programs being gutted by political
> compromise (as Mankiw presents it) as much as a program specifically
> pushed by "special interests" in order to have valuable permits to
> pollute given to them for free. Other, more far-sighted, members of
> the bourgeoisie may oppose this (e.g., Soros perhaps).
>
It seems that you are implying that cap and trade is the program of the rent-
seeking bourgeoisie, while the carbon tax is the program of the far-sighted
bourgeoisie. This is a completely arbitrary assumption.
> > This is a real and current danger, and Mankiw is part of this.
> > And there has to be a fight, now, against this policy.
>
> right. His "solution," by the way, is less of a free-market solution
> than is cap'n trade.
>
Both cap and trade and the carbon tax aim to put off regulation and planning.
They are both market measures in this sense. It is pretty arbitrary to say
which is more of a free-market measure -- the carbon tax is a tax, but cap
and trade plans are supposed to set up a government-mandated cap, which the
carbon tax doesn't directly do, and involve a big expansion of the
bureaucracy.
-- Joseph Green
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