Comment by throwaway27448
4 hours ago
There is little utility in blaming consumers for the crimes of capital. Consumers are going to consume. Capital is the entity with directable responsibility (if only via state violence). Why not just shake your fist at the tide coming in for all the good this "blame" does?
It matters because to actually improve things in society we need to identify the true root causes.
Blaming the owners of oil companies doesn't help fix emissions problems, becuse oil companies are going to pollute a ton essentially regardless of who owns them. The real solution to that problem is to reduce the global consumption and demand for oil.
But when the owners of oil companies collude to deceive the public about the dangers of continuing to burn fossil fuels; when the refuse to start working on a transition to green energy when it is absolutely 100% certain that one is needed; when they spend billions of dollars lobbying the government both to ensure they retain their massive subsidies, and to stifle efforts to decarbonize...
Yeah, you can totally blame them, hold them accountable, and it will help fix emissions problems.
> The real solution to that problem is to reduce the global consumption and demand for oil.
Blindly hoping humans choose to behave differently without removing the pressures that cause them to act such a way is fucked up. The way you reduce demand in a capitalist society is by beating board members to death until society "decides" to improve.
Or we could figure out a collectively rational way to manage the economy, the blood flow of all humanity. Just a thought. Or we could stick to hope and drive humanity off a cliff
I'm not sure why you think my solution would be blindly hoping? We change things in modern society with laws (and enforcement for those laws).
For example, many countries are already passing laws to limit the sale of new ICE vehicles and/or to provide incentives to own electric vehicles. And these laws are effective - we can track new vehicle sales and see that we are tending in a positive direction.
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If the farmer didn't buy electric tractors, it's not really your fault. But if you drive a gas vehicle yes it's your fault.
> But if you drive a gas vehicle yes it's your fault.
Ok well people are obviously going to keep doing it, so what is the point of caring about fault to begin with if you can't do anything about it? We at least have legal control over capital.
Anyway you can blame basically anything on the masses of people; it's just a fucking stupid train of thought with (again) zero utility. It's the nonreligious liberal version of praying to stop school shootings.