The face of the enemy

[alvarezadams]

It isn't just the GOP or the DLC. It is an entire (and "artificial") political/economic ideology called neoliberalism.

This article mentions one of the neoliberal sources, the Cato Institute. While they are conservative/libertarian, economically they are 100% in line with AEI/Heritage/PPI/et al:

The case for neglecting global warming

By Donald J. Boudreaux
Sunday, August 13, 2006


In the July 30 edition of The New York Times, Gina Kolata reports on recent research findings on the health of modern citizens of industrialized countries. You might expect that this research reveals us denizens of early 21st-century capitalist economies to be staggeringly unhealthy -- our physiques so obese and flabby, our arteries so clogged with cholesterol, our lungs so inundated with pollutants and our brains and spirits so burdened with stress that we are aging faster and suffering more than ever before.

-snip-

Capitalism produces so much food that we are never malnourished; it produces ample clothing and sturdy homes to protect us from the elements; it produces the soaps, shampoos, toothpastes and detergents that we use every day to cleanse our bodies and living spaces of bacteria and other dirt. And by continually substituting machines for human labor, capitalism progressively makes our work less backbreaking and less perilous.

These gains are significant and real. And they are continuing; no one knows where, or even if, they will stop.

Those of us who recognize these important benefits of capitalism -- those of us who understand that capitalism's true greatness lies not (as many critics insinuate) in producing oceans of pointless trinkets and baubles but in making the lives of ordinary people richer and fuller and longer -- are reluctant to yield power to governments to tackle global warming. We worry that this power will kill the goose that's laying this golden egg.

If you think that such a worry is exaggerated, recall the language Al Gore used in his book "Earth in the Balance." The former Vice President asserted that we are suffering an "environmental crisis" that can be avoided only if we "drastically change our civilization and our way of thinking."

-snip-

So given this fact along with the hysterical language used by the likes of Al Gore -- who, after all, is not on society's fringes -- it's a perfectly legitimate stance for truly reasonable people to conclude that the best policy regarding global warming is to neglect it -- and let capitalism continue to make us healthier and wealthier.

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/columnists/boudreaux/s_465727.html

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[unpossibles]

1. it's so small minded and short sighted of them to say that the

green movement is inherently communist or anti-capitalist. Pure BS. Heck, I'd even venture that the need for technology and industry which would be required for a major green paradigm shift would boost the economy the way the internet boom did last decade.

I am so sick of this McCarthyist crap that still is ingrained in our society, how everything that is slightly different gets a pointed finger and a 'COMMIE PLOT!!!' charge thrown against it, with really no thought. And is it so wrong to suggest that maybe we just might BE producing way too much garbage without coming up with a way of effectively recycling/reusing it?

[Clark2008]

5. I just read an article in a trade magazine that said that

environmentalism is both green and will provide a lot of green as more people move toward the purchase of GREEN items to improve their HEALTH and the HEALTH of the earth and their pocketbooks.

This author doesn't seem to know his ass from a hole in the ground.

[FlavaKreemSnak]

2. When you think about it nothing we do is really planned for a long term

When they say it is anti capitalist they are right in a way, it is the same with health care and a living wage, etc. All of those things would cut profits, but none of them are really good ideas if you think about the long term, like how people always tell you you should do when you are thinking about a career, or how you shouldn't do drugs etc because one day you will regret it? But the way we run everything, and it goes from thinking about the environment and global warming to the living wage thing, etc to the invasions, all of it will make a lot of money for a few people in the short term but what happens to lots and lots of people in the long term? But Bush gave a clue about the guideline they are using. Did anybody else see that speech where he said that in the future we will all be dead?

[alvarezadams]

3. Isn't that the basis of neoliberalism?

They stand for "economic anarchy", sans planning, sans regulation, sans checks and balances; anything that will allow those with the means and the will to rake up as much as they Social-Darwinistically can... with both hands.

I'm no friend of Socialistic extremes - but it seems to me that neoliberalism is the OPPOSITE extreme. I say - let there be SOME planning, SOME regulation, SOME checks and balances, SOME rule of law to protect ourselves from ourselves.

It has been said that one of Socialism's failures was that it didn't contemplate an aspect of basic human nature - the need for incentive and motivation. I say that laissez faire capitalism doesn't contemplate another aspect of basic human nature - destructive greed.

Gimme a mixed system and to hell with what the neolibs want to RE-impose. 'Cos what they propound is exactly the atmosphere that lead to the slums of the Industrial Revolution, child labour, 6-day work weeks, no support for those down on their luck...

[Cobalt-60]

4. Unless you start rich

Raw capitalism sucks canal water.
We're getting a dose of raw capitalism now. If you aren't already rich when it is imposed, you'll end up penniless.
It's exactly the same as being a little guy in a society based on personal combat. Eventually the biggest barbarian owns everything.
When capitalism is prepared properly, with a dash of socialism, it's a delicacy.
If the state doesn't keep the bad guys off me, if it doesn't have my back, I have no reason whatsoever to support it.
If the whole purpose of the state is to hold me in poverty and then discard me when it's through, it becomes my duty to destroy the state.

[alvarezadams]

6. But the "land of opportunity"...

Notice how many poor cons stand for rich peoples' rights - on the outside chance they'll win the lottery?