Why capitalism is the answer to the green’s woes
It seems counter intuitive but the stats bear it out. Mathis, Silent Spring and the Population Bomb, did not come to fruition and have been debunked. But if overpopulation is your concern, capitalistic, rich, first world countries have fewer children. In fact they are shrinking and rely on immigration to keep numbers up.
Monopolistic (socialism) industries do not have any incentive to find efficiencies. The more you can do with less resources the more profitable it is, add to that if the consumers start demanding cleaner processes you must comply or lose out. Being certified organic increases the amount you can sell your produce for. In socialist monopolies, people do not have much choice in products. Whether they buy a product or not has no impact on production as it is produced to a quota system set out by some bureaucrat in the party.
Per capita energy use in North America plateaued in 1988 and started dropping in the aughts. Granted, with the popularity of the electric car, that trend may change. Once again without the greed to save money in electrical bills there is no incentive to come up with efficiencies. If the state provides it for free or heavily subsidized why hassle with upgrading? A 1992 World Bank study found that more than half of the air pollution in the former Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe could be attributed to subsidized energy pricing during this period.
Market economies (capitalism) used about one-third as much energy and steel per unit of GDP as did socialist countries. Likewise, non-market economies (socialism) of Central and Eastern Europe required two to three times more inputs to produce a given output than did Western European economies. (1991) (The former Soviet world, as well as China, also emitted several times more carbon per unit of GDP than the United States did — a trend that continues today.) Simply put, market economies make more with less and are therefore better for the environment.
In the late 1980s, particulate air pollution was 13 times higher per unit of GDP in Central and Eastern Europe than in Western Europe. Levels of gaseous air pollution were twice as high as this. Wastewater pollution was three times higher.
Micheal Moore’s film blamed capitalism for the not so green energy industry. If there were not for the large government subsidies and exceptions to regulations, green energies would have remained a niche product. As Moore shows it is a wealthy oligarchy (socialist elite) who have been the beneficiary of this socialist intervention in the market. It was done under the false pretense that it was in the public good. The only good it has done is lined Al Gore’s pocket with taxpayers dollars.
Moving to a command economy (socialism) is devastating for both the environment and the people who live under its tyranny. Eco-socialism is an oxymoron.
S. Innis
Duncan
