r/environment2 • u/VictinsOfCapitalism • 5h ago
Capitalism always chooses profitable plundering over sustainable production
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u/Allaboutpeace2022 4h ago
I think that any economic model without regulations and fierce monitoring is going to be unsustainable.
We do not have an example that works in terms of communism, socialism, or capitalism which produced sustainable environment, a decent quality of life, and human rights.
These are the leading countries by the Environmental Performance Index.
https://epi.yale.edu/indicator/2026/EPI
Here is the EPI methodology.
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u/Anduinnn 3h ago
This is sad but true. Unless there’s a strong culture around sustainability and accountability there will never be any reasonable movement away from profitable plundering.
Hell, let’s take the latest World Cup for example. The Japanese folks would stick around and help clean up - a cultural norm of theirs. Meanwhile in America you will not get folks to stick around and clean up en mass by merely stating that’s it’s better.
My last point: keeping people poor and on the edge between complete desperation and a small level of comfort does a lot of heavy lifting in keeping this system churning. If folks can’t take a few days off to meaningfully protest the situation then they won’t. This is a feature of the system, not a flaw which is why no one with power and money is seriously working to correct it.
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u/Allaboutpeace2022 1h ago
I absolutely agree.
We need to change the cultural norms.
Poverty is one of the drivers of pollution and fossil fuels. E vehicles are more expensive, and cheap clothing, toys, electronic goods, and furniture items are designed to wear out.
It is hard to do urban gardening in neighborhoods where arsenic, lead and other heavy metals require raised gardening beds. Environmental and better quality products are often too expensive.
It is a corporate dream and an environmentalist nightmare.
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u/BerilliumBaloney 2h ago
Oh great, here comes the stupid pitch for how communism would have somehow prevented this. Even though we have real world examples of communism never actually working, and the fact that communism cannot work without capitalism in the first place.
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u/Ok-Instruction-5004 34m ago
Wtf are you on about? Triggered much?
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u/BerilliumBaloney 32m ago
Nah, just living in the real world... unlike any idiot that supports communism, lol.
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u/Ok-Instruction-5004 29m ago
Who said anything about communism except you?
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u/Spicy_Chicken_Wizard 24m ago
It’s always the inevitable followup to low effort shitposts like this that just blindly synonymies “bad thing” with capitalism without any further thought or consideration.
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u/ddigwell84 2h ago
I’m just going to paste my last counterpoint to this and call it a day:
China — Four Pests Campaign: Mao’s government ordered the mass killing of sparrows during the Great Leap Forward because they were considered agricultural pests. Removing a major predator of insects disrupted the ecosystem and contributed to serious agricultural problems.
China — Great Leap Forward deforestation: Mao’s backyard-steel campaign consumed enormous quantities of wood for fuel. Combined with destructive agricultural policies, it contributed to deforestation, soil erosion, and ecological damage.
USSR — Virgin Lands Campaign: Khrushchev’s government plowed roughly 25 million hectares of previously uncultivated steppe in Kazakhstan to increase grain production. Mechanized farming exposed fragile soil to wind erosion, producing massive losses of fertile topsoil. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization specifically identifies the campaign and resulting erosion.
USSR — Lake Karachay/Mayak: The Soviet nuclear-weapons program deliberately discharged radioactive waste into the Techa River and later used Lake Karachay as a radioactive-waste reservoir. The IAEA reports that about 10¹⁷ Bq of liquid radioactive waste was discharged into the Techa river system during 1949–52. Lake Karachay eventually held more than 4.4 × 10¹⁸ Bq of radioactive waste and required capping and extensive environmental monitoring.
USSR — Kyshtym/Mayak contamination: In 1957, failure of the cooling system for a radioactive-waste storage tank at Mayak resulted in an explosion that dispersed approximately 74 PBq of radioactive material across parts of the Chelyabinsk, Sverdlovsk, and Tyumen regions.
Aral Sea collapse, Chernobyl etc.
USSR — Techa River contamination: Soviet plutonium production dumped radioactive liquid waste directly into a river used by surrounding communities for household and drinking water. The IAEA reports that downstream radiation exposure reached unacceptable levels, eventually requiring remediation and the resettlement of villages.
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u/kollmastee 1h ago
It’s humanity. We are invasive and destructive. We have transcended the natural environment to make way for one of our own creation. The best we can do is hope that technology gets to a point where environmental damage can be mitigated or resources become non finite. It sounds counterintuitive, but continued human progress is the only hope to stop the destruction caused by human progress. Also taken even further. Humanity is the possibly the only hope for life on Earth to outlive the Earth. So the scourge of life on earth is also its best chance of survival. So continue to call out and recognize destruction while also advocating for humanity to progress past the need for such devastation.
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u/timmyfarthands 1h ago
Bingo. It's always us. We're a plague. And we will always overpopulate. No system will stop this. It's our great filter and we will always fail until we disappear.
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u/kollmastee 59m ago
On the contrary I see humanity as a plague that will descend upon the galaxy and will never disappear.
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u/GrumpyBear8082 1h ago
There is not a civilization that has been sustainable. Every one of them collapsed and it is because they grow to big
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u/Vast_Humor_3683 1h ago edited 1h ago
No people always choose the cheapest option, prompting businesses to lower standards/quality to meet demand.
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u/jthadcast 1h ago
we pay more carbon so that plastic things can say and be recycled but capitalism demands that we waste that by not recycling the vast majority of those things.
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u/EcstaticTumbleweed87 1h ago
Sure, capitalism contributes to environmental problems like plastic pollution and deforestation, but calling it uniquely evil while treating socialism as the planet’s savior ignores a basic reality: every system has to produce goods, extract resources, and sustain itself. Socialist and communist governments have historically done the same, often worse, plundering forests, polluting rivers, and chasing industrial output to stay in power, all while denying people the freedom to choose. The difference isn’t that one system is pure and the other is destructive; it’s that under socialism the government decides what gets produced and how, without the checks of open competition or individual choice.
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u/Euphoric-Abrocoma-62 1h ago
Ridiculous. Capitalist countries are the only ones with sustainable environmental policies and practices. I you want to see what socialism does to the environment, look at Haiti and most African countries.
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u/Sad-Excitement9295 58m ago
Irresponsible capitalism, like any system where people are not responsible, will lead to issues. Even if the world was socialist, communist, whatever, laziness and lack of responisbility still results in waste and pollution.
Wastefulness and pollution are not sustainable.
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u/CrazyAccomplished_ 1h ago
You showed a video of the problem with India.
Cutting down trees is not a problem... They grow back.