## Metadata - Author: [[Eye Of The Storm Podcast (with Yanis Varoufakis and Raoul Martinez)]] - Full Title: A WORLD BEYOND CAPITALISM | Jason Hickel and Yanis Varoufakis - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/11c68061-fe89-4a71-9521-8ec08ac14c87 ## Highlights - Capitalism's Priorities and Climate Change Summary: The significant investment in fossil fuels post-Paris Climate Accords highlights capitalism's priorities, demonstrating that despite knowing where to invest, the powerful logic of capitalism overrides other considerations. Donald Trump's statement about reluctance to acknowledge climate change due to fear of adopting communism underscores the capitalist perspective on survival. Transcript: Speaker 3 It reminds me of that incredible stat about the level of investment into fossil fuels since the Paris Climate Accords, which I think is around four trillion, which just shows you the Priorities of capitalism. It's not that we don't know where we need to put the money but it doesn't matter. The logic of capitalism is so powerful it overrules and overwhelms every other consideration. Janice I'm sure you have some thoughts after hearing Jason. Oh I'm more than happy to take a back seat on this because Jason has said I wanted to say. Speaker 2 Let me just peak our audience by quoting Donald Trump, because occasionally Donald Trump in his haze of misanthropy and madness, he comes up with very insightful points. One was several years ago when he said that he was asked, Mr. Trump, why are you so reluctant to acknowledge climate change? And his answer was, because if I acknowledge it, then I have to become a communist. And I think that is so accurate. So he says, look, I'm a capitalist, right? I'm not going to confess that communism is the only way of surviving. ([Time 0:07:08](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0f883ff0-e10f-48cf-b00c-d3467d407301)) - Capitalism, Growth, and Ecological Goals Summary: The growth and priorities of capitalism pose a significant obstacle to achieving ecological goals due to the direct conflict between economic growth and rapid decarbonization required to meet the Paris Agreement objectives. While GDP and CO2 emissions can be decoupled, the speed of decarbonization is crucial for high-income countries to meet their fair shares of carbon budgets. Existing rates of decoupling indicate a slow trajectory towards zero emissions, highlighting the urgency for dramatic and rapid reductions in emissions to align with ecological objectives. Transcript: Speaker 1 Yeah, so I mean the growth and parities of capitalism are a major obstacle for us to achieve our ecological goals. So we know that in high -income nations, continued economic growth is basically directly inimical us achieving sufficiently rapid decarbonization to meet the Paris Agreement objectives. This has been demonstrated very thoroughly in the scientific literature. It also makes it extremely difficult for us to achieve real reductions in material use, which is a major driver of biodiversity loss and so on. Mean, this is not to say that GDP can't be absolutely decoupled from CO2. I mean, let's be very clear, it can be. I mean, there's no necessary relationship between the two. And we've seen quite a lot of absolute decoupling over the past couple of decades. It's not new at all. There's this fascination that our media has with periodically trotting out graphs showing GDP rising while consumption -based CO2 emissions decline in certain high -income countries. As if this is something that demonstrates that capitalism is somehow compatible with achieving ecological goals. But it's not. I mean, this is not surprising, it's totally expected. When it comes to decarbonization, the overriding question we have to pay attention to is speed. And we know that in high income countries, very dramatic rapid reductions in emissions are required for them to stay within their fair shares of Paris compliant carbon budgets. Much faster than any of the, even the highest performing countries are presently achieving. So at existing rates, we have a study published in the Lancet recently, the Lancet Planetary Health, at existing rates we've found that the 11 countries that have achieved absolute Decoupling over the past 10 years are basically on track to reach zero emissions in about 200 years, right? ([Time 0:11:09](https://share.snipd.com/snip/15e5ada0-0e7d-48de-beb4-89671029234c)) - Dependency on Economic Growth and Stability in Capitalist Economies Summary: Capitalist economies show a strong dependency on growth as even mild recessions can lead to severe social consequences like job loss, homelessness, and food insecurity. Access to basic resources in such economies is tied to employment by capital, making the economy vulnerable to fluctuations in output. In contrast, socialist economies historically did not face this issue as they could ensure access to basic resources regardless of the level of aggregate output. Transcript: Speaker 1 Interesting features of our economy, of a capitalist economy, that become effectively dependent on growth, right? So I mean, just look around you. Every time there's even the mildest of recessions, like a small dip in aggregate output in a given year, can have catastrophic social consequences, right? I mean, think about this. Even in the richest countries in the world, which have huge, like huge quantities of aggregate output, even a small dip in the growth rate can be catastrophic. People lose their jobs, they lose their houses, they end up on the streets, they can't afford food. I mean, think about this. Deeply a deeply unstable economy that is vulnerable to these, to mild fluctuations in aggregate output. And the reason is because access to basic resources is dependent on whether capital is willing to employ you. I mean, right? So if capital chooses for whatever reasons not to not employ you, it's not profitable to do so, then you're out of luck and you're you're amiss rated. Now what's interesting is that is that socialist economies never had this problem. And this is this is actually quite fascinating to consider. They were able, and whatever you might say about 20th century socialist economies, and there's plenty to critique, but one dimension is fascinating, I think, worth learning from, Which is that regardless of the level of aggregate output, they were able to ensure access to ([Time 0:14:18](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c12abdcb-be5b-4b40-a89d-b82dc08fdb8e)) - Overcoming Unemployment Crisis Through Public Job Guarantee Summary: The perpetual crisis of unemployment can be addressed through promoting more growth, either by encouraging private industry to increase production or by implementing a public job guarantee system. By providing training and opportunities for socially useful production like renewable energy projects, affordable housing, or public transit networks, individuals can contribute to solving societal problems. Under capitalism, leaving productive capacities like labor unused perpetuates the artificial scarcity that necessitates continuous growth and private production. Overcoming this situation is possible by adopting alternative approaches like a public job guarantee to ensure the utilization of available labor for the benefit of society. Transcript: Speaker 1 It keeps the wages low And so the only solution to the perpetual crisis of unemployment is more growth. Let's get private industry to grow its production and mop up this unemployed labor. But there's other approaches that one could take, right? Like a public job guarantee, which is precisely what ecological economists have always argued for. Right. I mean, ensure that anyone who wants to has the option of training to participate in socially useful, socially necessary forms of production. Renewable energy, you know, build outs, insulating homes, building affordable homes, expanding public transit networks and public housing, whatever it might be, right? There's plenty of production that needs to happen. And it's only under capitalism that we have this insane situation where productive capacities like labor are left completely unemployed and in misery, even though we have problems That could be solved with their assistance. This is an artificial scarcity of capitalism that maintains the need for perpetual growth and private production, but can easily be overcome. So I think that's, I mean, this is, I mean, perhaps what even Donald Trump himself may have realized in the remark that Janus is pointing to. That's, you know, I mean, I doubt he was this intelligent on this particular point. ([Time 0:16:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/9320dce2-a96d-4571-9004-2bd0e99e0dbb)) - Dependence on GDP for Economic Measurement Summary: The social structure is based on capital accumulation, making GDP the key measure of economic activity. Trying to replace GDP with another metric is like ignoring a high fever while having pneumonia. The system's equilibrium relies on continuous GDP growth, leading to the question of whether focusing on the GDP's failure to reflect human prosperity actually addresses the root issue. Transcript: Speaker 2 Point number two, we can't go back to the pre -capitalist aboriginal mode of reduction for a variety of reasons. So we are now in a social structure which is predicated upon the reinforcement and accumulation of capital. We call it capitalism, or as I call it, techno -feudalism, this doesn't matter. It's the reign of capital and capital accumulation. Now in this world there is no measurement of economic activity other than GDP that makes sense. So to those who say oh let's stop using GDP and let's use something else. I say listen it's like saying you know, if I'm dying of pneumonia and I have a very high fever, we should stop measuring my temperature using Celsius. The metric doesn't matter. What matters is you have a system whose capacity to maintain itself in some kind of semblance of equilibrium, dynamic equilibrium, or balanced disequilibrium, let's say, depends On more and more GDP growth. So what do we do? Attack the symptom, which is the failure of GDP to correlate with human prosperity? ([Time 0:34:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f529701c-98a7-4551-a461-e9bd54cb1b62))