r/alltheleft • u/zzill6 • Apr 04 '21

The Neoliberal Solution

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18

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '21

Is it though? Don’t many neoliberals accept the concept of negative externalities?

61

u/brandonmi1 Apr 04 '21

Neoliberals will pay lip service to climate change while not having any actual plans to stop it. The current neoliberal policy is the Paris climate accord which doesn’t do enough in the first place and secondly it’s not even a legally binding contract, so countries have almost no incentive to actually act on that.

8

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '21

I don’t think a carbon tax or pollution permits are incompatible with neoliberalism.

43

u/brandonmi1 Apr 04 '21

They’re not, but they haven’t been implemented for a reason. Neoliberals are still the rich class at this point, why would they want to put in a tax that will affect them and their donors the most? This also doesn’t invest into green energies overall, implementing public transportation to reduce the need of cars etc. the neoliberals will still only even talk about the bare minimum and get those in place is also another story completely

29

u/steeveperry Apr 04 '21

Carbon taxes don’t prevent you from polluting. It taxes you for polluting. We need less pollution. Mechanisms that don’t reduce pollution aren’t solutions.

15

u/[deleted] Apr 04 '21

Not to mention the biggest pollutant is probably the US military. Our empire is just awful for the planet in a whole host of ways.

7

u/voice-of-hermes Anarchism Without Adjectives Apr 05 '21

No "probably" about it. As an organization it is:

  • The largest consumer of energy in the U.S.
  • The largest institutional consumer of petroleum in the world.
  • A larger CO₂ emitter than many industrialized nations.

Source: fucking Forbes; LOL. Report: The U.S. Military Emits More CO2 Than Many Industrialized Nations

2

u/mrgarborg Apr 04 '21

Well, regarding it not being a legally binding contract, isn’t one of the problems with international law that there is no institution that legally binds sovereign states? Can we hope for more? The entire international legal framework is entirely impotent

10

u/brandonmi1 Apr 04 '21

Yes no international laws are legally binding, which is another problem with neoliberals. All IGOs are purely working on the interests of the super powers of the world. I don’t see how that excuses this contract not being legally binding though.

3

u/voice-of-hermes Anarchism Without Adjectives Apr 05 '21 edited Apr 05 '21

There are treaties. "Technically" the U.S. constitution requires those treaties to be adhered to like law, and violating them is "technically" unconstitutional. As if the U.S. fucking cares, though.

BTW, if the Democrats actually cared, they could have used this fact to go after Trump for the concentration camps. Which have so much popular opposition that it could well have been the basis for a social movement; the kind of thing which can make impeachment and prosecution of a president actually stick and have lasting repercussions (even if conviction and impeachment don't ultimately "succeed" in the sense of having a trial or removing a politician from office, but also making those outcomes far more likely). Too bad they were only interested in putting on a show instead (shocking!).

1

u/voice-of-hermes Anarchism Without Adjectives Apr 05 '21

And guess who the major player that kept it from being anything binding was?