Shane Mage imagines that, if only the carbon tax is implemented, the
"capitalist market" will solve the environmental crisis "by its own 'logic'
". This means he believes that Adam Smith's "invisible hand" can be taught to
do what we want, in this case, solve the environmental crisis. This is a
market fundamentalist fantasy. To back up this fantasy, he imagines that the
only measures that could realistically be fought for prior to the socialist
revolution are market-fundamentalist measures, measures to have the market
"by its own 'logic' " solve the problem.
Lead was removed from gasoline by banning it; lead was removed from new
paints by banning it; the most successful steps towards environmental
controls are by regulation, control, banning harmful processes, etc.
Meanwhile the attempts to have the "invisible hand" solve environmental
issues have either failed or slowed down the progress.
Shane Mage believes that anything other than market fundamentalist measures
like the carbon tax would be "ultraleft idiocy". If this were true, then the
minimum wage, the banning of lead from gasoline, and other measures that go
against the "logic of the 'market' " would also be "ultraleft idiocy". Under
capitalism, there will be a constant struggle over environmental measures
because the "logic of the 'market' " is to devastate the environmental. Shane
Mage capitulates to the capitalists when he looks for a way to ally with the
"logic of the 'market' "; this is, however, what Al Gore puts forward in his
books. Gore does a service in denouncing the looming dangers, but puts
forward the path to ruin in advocating alliance with marketplace logic. It's
a pity to see radicals whose viewpoint is no deeper than Al Gore's.
In my article of 2007 on the environmental crisis, I wrote:
"But the environmental crisis is upon us now, while capitalism still exists.
Major steps will have to be taken soon, while the present capitalist ruling
classes are still in power. As the failure of carbon emission markets to
solve the problem becomes evident, they may take steps to implement carbon
taxes; and as the failure of carbon taxes becomes evident, they will have to
move to some type of regulation of production. True, the capitalists will
likely wait until their hands are forced by a series of spectacular
environmental disasters, and by then the situation will be quite desperate.
But the time is coming closer when the capitalists will have to abandon
neo-liberal orthodoxy, and move towards a regulated capitalism."
I then go on to explain why we should fight regulated capitalism as well as
neo-liberal capitalism, and we should fight it over measures to be
implemented now, prior to revolution. I explain the difference between
regulated capitalism, which the reformists will call "socialism", and the
demands that the working masses should put forward to protect the environment
and their own livelihood.
("The coming of the environmental crisis, the failure of the free market, and
the fear of a carbon dictatorship", January 2007,
http://communistvoice.org/39cKyoto.html)
In my article of 2008, "The carbon tax--another failed free-market measure to
avoid environmental planning", I gave a series of concrete reasons why the
carbon tax is a disaster for the environmental movement.
(http://communistvoice.org/00GlobalWarming.html) I think those reasons hold
up well in the light of subsequent experience.
The carbon tax won't solve the environmental crisis, but moreover, it will
threaten to discredit environmentalism in the eyes of millions upon millions
of people. It turns the slogan of "make the polluter pay" into "make the
people pay", and it will make it harder to rally support for the measures
needed now. The environmental movement inflicts the greatest harm upon itself
with its own hands when it pushes the carbon tax.
-- Joseph Green
>
> [Joseph Green ]On Nov 20, 2014, at 11:30 PM, Joseph Green via Marxism
wrote:
> > Klein prettifies the carbon tax, and does not recognize it as
> > a market measure, no better than the rest of them;
>
> [Shane Mage] This is the purest ultraleft idiocy. ... Effective carbon
> taxation is not merely "better"--it is the ONLY way to make the
> intensification of pollution so UNPROFITABLE that the capitalist
> market totally abandons it and is forced, by its own "logic," to
> recognize and act on the real, and ever-increasing, profitability of
> investment in the whole range of maturing carbon-eliminating energy
> technologies.
>
>
> Herakleitos of Ephesos
>
>
>
>
>
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-----------------------------------
Joseph Green
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