Capitalism's Last Hurrah - Tonbridge And Malling Green Party

– A Elliott & Em Perera

There is an increase in demand among individual households for renewable energy sources. This is because of the uncertainty caused by the war on Iran by Israel and America leading to it closing the Strait of Hormuz: a vital channel allowing 1/3 of global oil supply produced in the middle East to pass through. Oil prices are set globally so this shortage effects every country who depend on oil and gas energy.

From an environmental perspective this news is welcome because moving to renewable energy reduces the polluting and climate damaging effects of burning fossil fuels. Any move towards reducing harmful emissions is a positive step. However, our collective response to the climate-shaped sword of Damocles looming over us offers a unique insight into our species’ limitations. Where a full understanding of the true fallout of our actions is lacking – and especially on a larger scale – we are usually ill-equipped to meet the challenge of these consequences.

In terms of climate change, this failing has manifested in belated, grudging half-measures wholly inadequate to the threat we face. Long-term sustainability, peace and tolerable conditions for living have repeatedly been sacrificed to individual greed and convenience. I would argue that overwhelmingly the blame for this rests firmly on the shoulders of the wealthy and powerful who gain financially from wars and the economic set up we have currently. They dodge any responsibility or accountability because they fund our media as well as the main political parties, and sit within an economic framework that creates inequality by design.

A logical conclusion

Capitalism, by design, extracts money and resources and accumulates wealth into vanishingly fewer hands. That is why more people are struggling to pay for food, bills and a roof over their heads whilst others have several homes and more money than they can use in several lifetimes. As the economist Clara Mattei describes in her recent interview with Channel 4 News’s Krishnan Guru-Murthy, it is already the case that just 12 billionaires possess more wealth than the poorest four billion people – half the current global population. These numbers are simply dizzying, and make it evident that we’re now in the final throes of this ever perilous system.

Efforts of the far-right to push society to even further extremes are likely another symptom of late-stage capitalism. By blaming immigrants and people who look different from us, we are distracted from getting angry at the people who look like us and are ripping us off! As Michael Moore put it, the cry of the dying dinosaur, as the old guard grows both more desperate and less tolerable. The only, consolatory, indirect benefit of Trumpism, Reform and their ilk is how effectively their ravages expose the weaknesses and injustice built into the socio-economic power structures that birthed them. They have finally shown those of us who have previously been cushioned by exploitative and colonialist politics the raw nastiness of the current system based ultimately on greed, and a hierarchical pecking order that supports humanity’s worst tendencies.

What’s the alternative?

It’s often hard to believe from what we are told by the media, which props up the current capitalist system, that there is enough wealth for everyone to live a comfortable life with a home, food and time for leisure. We have been made to forget that capitalism has only been around for a century or two, within thousands of years of human existence. That capitalism has brought humanity and other creatures to the brink of extinction in such a short period tells us how problematic this system is and we need something else to survive – let alone thrive!

Our current economic system only recognises the value of a tree once it’s cut down – when it becomes timber that can be bought with money. It does not recognise that trees provide oxygen humans need to survive, they absorb the CO2 that we breathe out so clean the air, they provide shade and cooling as global temperatures rise, and provide a habitat for numerous animals, insects and plants. We need systems that work in harmony with nature and the planet that support our existence. Solar, wind and tidal (renewable) energy uses what nature offers without destroying it. It’s cheaper to produce – but we are made to pay more because its price is tied to the price of gas.

This reveals another myth about capitalism, whose acolytes praise free markets and say “let the market decide what the price will be”, when all the time they cheat! They prevent us consumers from paying less for our energy; they pay politicians to pass laws that favour their business or avoid penalties for not paying correct taxes (imagine if we didn’t pay our taxes how hard HMRC would come after us!). Capitalism is crooked and harmful, and has to go. The alternative is a circular economy where waste is reused rather than cause pollution (another by-product that is not recognised within our economy but creates enormous problems for us all).

Let us hope the public’s embrace of renewables is an indication of a better world rising from the ashes of what is rapidly becoming a regrettable past.

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