Waiting for Capitalism to Die Is Climate Suicide

We can’t wait that long so let’s not do it

The climate debate is riddled with people who, in one way or another, blame capitalism for climate change and therefore argue we must change capitalism or else we are doomed to climate catastrophe. I know because I made this argument myself at one time. It seems pretty clear that without a capitalism built on the industrial-level burning of fossil fuels, we would not be facing this crisis. That’s true. But the converse — that we must end capitalism to solve climate change — is not true.

Before I get to that last statement, however, let’s be clear. Capitalism is no friend of the environment. Its spectacular “success” in taking over the world has been built on debt used to drive growth, the burning of fossil fuels to get cheap energy, and the creation of so-called externalities — costs that are ignored in the accounting through socialization or pollution. As a capitalist, one gets to dump waste into a river and tell the government to clean up the downstream problem — at least, that is, until the government stops you. This dynamic leads to perpetual arguments about how much to protect through regulation and how much to live and let live to increase profits. Because profits are aggregated by corporate capitalists, and the US Supreme Court has equated money with political speech, the capitalists get an outsized place at the table. Who loses? The environment, you, me, and society — anyone who is downstream in that river.

Climate change has taught us one critical thing — we are ALL downstream from that factory on the river. Everyone everywhere is now living with that problem. Hence, it is tempting to think, “Hey, if we could just get those capitalists to stop, problem solved!” Theoretically, it’s a great idea. Rhetorically, it is satisfying to say. Practically, it is a non-starter. Here’s why.

Why We Cannot End Capitalism

Whether we like it or not, capitalism has become integral to meeting our human needs. Want to build a house? Capitalism brings you the materials, the skilled workers, and the architect and designer. Want to eat? Capitalism puts the food in your grocery store, whether it is canned, fresh, frozen, or otherwise. Want to heat your home? Most likely capitalism is providing the natural gas you need to do it. Lights and air conditioning? Capitalism provides the electricity to cool your home. Capitalism also enables wanton consumption, products no one really needs, product innovation, life-saving medical technology, and loads and loads of pollution and ecological destruction. It does them all, good and bad. Like it or not, we are dependent on capitalism to meet our needs. Hence, for most of humanity, capitalism is now integral to meeting basic human needs, as well as the destruction of the biosphere and the creation of climate change.

This duality is precisely the problem. On a collective scale, we are utterly dependent on the very system that is destroying the planet. Looking from one side, people can reasonably comment that we cannot survive with capitalism and it must be destroyed. But looked at from the other side, people can equally reasonably conclude that the destruction of capitalism means the destruction of the system that meets our most basic needs to eat, drink, shelter, and clothe ourselves. In addition, we lose the system that provides for our cell phones and our desire to compute, entertain, and beautify ourselves — as well as all the overconsumption people like to criticize.

The spectacle of not being able to meet our basic needs, in addition to the entrenched interests of the invested class, is why people resist the demise of capitalism. The powerful and the wealthy want to maintain their advantages, while the so-called 99% still want their basic needs met. These two forces combine to create a single truth: We can’t end capitalism without a catastrophe. And since the catastrophe from ending capitalism would be immediate and involve everyone everywhere, human nature will avoid that immediate problem and roll the dice on the long-term problem of climate change. That choice is precisely why we won’t end capitalism without a replacement.

Now, if there is a replacement for capitalism, it can’t just be a new political economy. Socialism won’t do. Why? Because there is nothing inherent in socialism to stop the same industrial-scale burning of fossil fuels that drives capitalism. The two biggest communo-socialist countries in the world, Russia and China, are each major players in emissions and providing the fuels to burn to make more emissions. Examples like Denmark and the other Nordic countries may be playing more constructive roles in solving the problem, but there is nothing in socialism itself that intrinsically requires de-industrialization or sustainable industrial practices.

People, governments, and companies around the world will continue to push off the end of capitalism until there is a fully developed alternative for providing their needs, protecting their wealth, and creating sustainability at the same time. Unfortunately, no such system now exists.

Our Bad Situation

In other words, we have three dire outcomes: 1) the continuation of capitalism gets us a climate catastrophe, 2) waiting for the end of capitalism means business as usual and gets us the same climate catastrophe, and 3) the actual end of capitalism gets us a human catastrophe wrought by the unmet needs the capitalist system provides for. It would seem that we are screwed.

But we are not screwed in the way this scenario suggests. Certainly, if we go with one of these approaches, the catastrophe so many people predict is more likely. Waiting for the end of capitalism to solve climate change means waiting while emissions and carbon get worse and worse and climate change plows ahead, making life worse for more and more people. Some people seem to almost relish this vision. I don’t, and neither do most people. We all want to live good lives.

What this means is that, as unsavory as it is, we have little choice but to work with capitalism because we do not have a viable alternative that can meet the needs of humanity. While its intrinsic laws are anathema to sustainability, capitalism is in a transformational stage to learn how to live with sustainability. It isn’t a friend to sustainability, but it is transforming to work with it because governments and society are requiring it.

Three Timelines of Survival

Many people wonder why we can’t get society to take the proper action on climate change. It has to do with the urgency and effectiveness of actions and our perspective on the timeline to survival.

First, our basic human needs must be met, and as we have seen, that means food, water, shelter, clothing, social needs, and other needs the capitalist system currently provides. People would rather eat and build houses than starve. We don’t have an alternative system to provide these immediate needs, so capitalism has to stay in place.

Second, climate change is threatening our ability to meet those basic human needs, particularly in its impact on ecosystems that provide the productive capability for food, cotton, and similar commodities. Climate change needs to be stopped and to do that we need to get atmospheric carbon down to 350 ppm or less, according to the UN IPCC scientists. This means we need to stop burning stuff to provide for our needs and find other ways to provide for those needs. Theoretically, that could be within capitalism or not within capitalism, but since capitalism is currently entrenched, the short road is through capitalism. Although capitalism has grown on the back of the cheap energy provided by fossil fuels, there is nothing inherent within it that requires the energy source to be fossil fuels. It could just as easily do it on solar, wind, and other less expensive sources. The point is that the energy is cheap, not that it is polluting.

Technology is developing that provides inexpensive energy — solar, wind, nuclear, and other renewables. It is happening within capitalism. Right now, our renewable system can only be built out using the current system to provide the distribution, construction, development, and deployment of these and other non-burning technologies. Ending capitalism now would disrupt that transition to a renewable future and create social and starvation chaos in the meantime. Hence, solving climate change won’t go faster by ending capitalism — it will happen faster using it.

Third, we must transform to long-term sustainability — redesigned cities, lower population size, micro-mobility infrastructure, increased local self-reliance, new food systems, and many other ideas for improving the overall sustainability of society. We need to design this more sustainable society, and it may very well develop without capitalism. But all of these things are decades, perhaps even centuries, away. You can’t rebuild cities in ten years. You can’t rebuild transportation infrastructure in a decade either. And it will take generations to reduce the population to bring it in line with the carrying capacity of the planet. These changes are more in line with an expected transition to a noncapitalist system, but if we wait for those to solve the climate problem, it will be decades too late. Should we do them? Yes. Should we wait to solve climate change while they unfold? Absolutely not.

Each level of urgency staves off a critical existential crisis. The first level keeps us alive today, tomorrow, and the next day. The second level is required to survive the next decade. The third is needed to survive and prosper as a species for the next century. That third way is the real path toward a change in capitalism. Just as the rise of capitalism in the 15th century took one or two centuries to root out feudalism and mercantilism, the changeover to a new system will likely take a century. But with climate change, we don’t have a century. We have maybe ten years for decisive action, according to our best scientists.

Changing Economic Systems Is a Very Long-Term Project

Today, we tend to think of capitalism monolithically, as a system that just appeared and took over, but the reality is quite different. Capitalism is an historic development that took a very long time to grow and diffuse itself throughout Europe, and then throughout the world. According to Evelyn Wood Meiksins’ The Origins of Capitalism, capitalism first arose in the English countryside in the 15th century due to a specific set of social conditions. Growing state power was concentrating military and political power with the state and removing it from the feudal landlords, who had used all kinds of power — including military and political — to appropriate wealth from the landless. Since they could no longer use military power, which increasingly belonged to and concentrated in the state, they began to turn to market rents to accomplish the same end — appropriating wealth. Critics argue that appropriation and concentration of wealth are intrinsic to the capitalist system, and historically speaking, they are correct.

But what’s important is this: Capitalism began in the 15th century and it took a very long time to expand, not coming to France, for example, until at least the French Revolution in the 18th century. That’s right… three centuries. The historical development of economic systems tends to work this way, except where enormous political and military power is applied. One might consider that the Russian Revolution and ensuing years under Stalin were an alternative to the centuries-long process in Europe, but I don’t think most people arguing for a transition away from capitalism are advocating for a Stalinesque future. Plus, even that era lasted forty years.

As we know, however, we do not have forty years, and we most certainly do not have three centuries, to solve the climate crisis. Its urgency is bearing down upon humanity with the most recent warnings indicating decisive action is needed by 2030 — a mere seven years away at the time of this writing. This is why waiting for capitalism to die is climate suicide — capitalism will not die in the next seven years because we are all too dependent on that system to provide our very real day-to-day needs. No matter what the critics say, people are not going to give up their means to immediate survival. A real transformation will probably require 50 to 100 years.

We Simply Can’t Wait That Long

For almost all human beings on the planet, the most immediate threat to survival is basic needs — food, water, shelter, and clothing. Next is social life, health care, enjoyment, and security. After those comes the threat of climate, which people reasonably conclude may or may not affect them between today and the meeting of their more immediate needs. They know and understand how the capitalist system meets their needs, or doesn’t, and they are willing to work with that because they have no idea of what an alternative would be, how they would get there, and the risks to the meeting of their own needs they would need to confront. They don’t want to see capitalism end without understanding what will meet their needs instead. This then, is the challenge to the anti-capitalists. Don’t just tell us the system sucks — it does and we all know it. What is your alternative? How will it meet immediate short-term needs, actually stop carbon from going into the air, and eventually lead to the more equal and just society you talk about? Without that, you are giving us a lot of hot suicidal air.

Anthony Signorelli

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