Governments and corporations. Not directly, but in how it’s up to us to sort our garbage and sacrifice the thing that used to be conveniences but we’ve now all come to rely on. (Driving, furnaces, hot water heaters, etc)
Wouldn’t it be so much easier to stop these issues at the source?
I don’t remember asking for every single item I buy to be wrapped in plastic, but they do it anyway. Instead of me having to put in the work to find options that aren’t wrapped in plastic, how about we tell the corporations to cut it out?
“Voting with your dollar” doesn’t work when every single option for the necessities of life has the same issues.
Unwrap every item you buy at the store that’s wrapped in plastic and leave the wrappers on the counter. Hopefully others will catch on and follow your lead.
That is the solution even though you pointed out how hard it is.
On the flip side, getting millions of people to act when everything the politicians and companies are doing is even less realistic. How can people achieve zero waste when they don't get to choose how anything is packaged?
How can people achieve zero waste when they don't get to choose how anything is packaged?
Waste is an unwanted by-product of production, that is, it's composed of materials that they has purchased but hasn't been able to transform them into the desired final good. This means it's an expense.
The end of every entrepreneur is to reduce expenses and increase income to have a greater profit. But if they have to face multiple costs in the form of regulations and taxes, reducing pollution will no longer be a priority to them.
In a free-market society, when they don't have to face these bureaucratic expenses and "common goods" don't exist, producers will strive to reduce the amount of product paid for but not used, that is, pollution; AND they will have to respect the property rights of the others who would have the "ex-common goods".
Why? Because all issues concerning the environment involve conflicts over ownership. So long as there is private ownership, owners themselves solve these conflicts by forbidding and punishing trespass (Coase theorem).
The goal of economical management will always be elusive if "common ownership" exists.
No, blaming the rich psychopaths who own the companies and who happen to be the ruling class of the capitalist political/economic system. These are literally the people responsible for what’s happening.
I mean, “the public” is who is going to do the forcing. Or are you just sitting back and hoping that the capitalist-owned state is going to do the forcing without us rising up?
I guess that could be aimed at what the post is criticizing, sure. I’d call it a stretch to say "We need to ‘eat the rich’ " is doing such blaming. Maybe I misread the “still” in your original comment, though.
Eating the rich isn't even relevant to this topic anyway since the problem is pollution and waste, not wealth inequality. Saying that eating the rich is the solution is saying the poor need to rise up and take stuff, which won't solve anything when the problem is the stuff existing in the first place. Plus it puts the onus on the poor to act, instead of acknowledging that society as a whole should expect their government to regulate companies for the benefit of society.
Most likely I missed the point where eat the rich lost any actual meaning related to its origin like gaslighting or pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.
It is extremely relevant, because the pollution and waste don’t come from nowhere; they come from capitalism and its profit motive. Yes, the oppressed (that’s the whole working class, not just people who are typically categorized as “poor”) must act in order to gain the autonomy and power to be able to shape our environment. The onus is 100% on us. Simply “expecting” the oppressive institutions of nation-state governments to suddenly stop being beholden to the capitalists they were designed to protect and serve is not going to do it. Of course it isn’t “fair” for the onus to be on the oppressed and not the oppressors, but it’s how power fucking works.
something about millions of people doing what they can or some lib personal responsibility bullshit.
Like we should also do what we can personally but that isn’t going to save us if we don’t also bring the 2700 billionaires actively deliberately destroying the planet to justice by any means necessary.
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