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Comment on take their money and arrest those responsible

hirihit640@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

US and Europe carbon emissions have gone down in the past 20 years, while China’s has grown rapidly. China accounts for %35 of the world’s emissions. Of course lots of manufacturing for goods happens in China, but this just tells me that capitalism is not to blame here, China is. China needs to raise their carbon taxes. Or maybe manufacturing needs to come back to the US and Europe, where it can be properly regulated.

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GreyEyedGhost@piefed.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Capitalism moves manufacturing to a location with less regulation or the overhead from regulation, resulting in more profits for the capitalists. This is clearly not because of capitalism.

Spoiler

/s for those who need it.

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- hirihit640@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  This is not a result of capitalism. It’s simply the result of competition. Now if you want to erase country borders, that’s a different discussion. But as long as one country doesn’t regulate fossil fuel emissions, it doesn’t matter what economic system they use, capitalism, communism, or whatever, they’re going to be able to produce goods for cheaper. Because they’re ignoring the real costs.
  
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TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Most greenhouse gas emissions occurred when colonizer Western countries were industrialized. They were not “properly regulated”, instead they were offshored in order to discipline labor and extract even greater profits. The offshoring was not exclusive to China, GHGs accordingly increased everywhere that further industrialized as a result of this. This effect is about as capitalist as it gets, trying to maximize profits via labor discipline and opening new fronts for increased exploitation (more profit per worker).

China’s approach to this shift was to realize it was an opportunity to build their own productive forces, that capitalists would give up productive centers and move them to other countries, and those countries should be able to domestically gain and upper hand so long as they ensured that production could broadly increased with every investment. For example, China requires technology transfer as part of direct foreign investment. China was correct in this and it is why it is an exception to the rule for national development as a former peripheral country. Compare ita development to India, which did not require such transfers or focus on building production.

Now, again, this means that industrial production moved outside the imperial core and into other countries, including but not limited to China. That industry did not suddenly become green nor did it become immune to the global economic system. It meant being wed to it. As we all know China’s strategy is one of interdependency with global capitalism even as they try to steer an otherwise anarchic process in a coherent direction via the commanding heights of the economy.

And yet we can see the difference those commanding heights make even on this specific issue. China is the global exporter and consumer of green energy, leading the charge on solar panels that countries like the US sanction and tariff, instead promoting fossil fuels. China is taking the actual steps you’d imagine Western nations doing (even though they never have), like setting public targets and meeting or exceeding them, and sticking to their obligations.

Imagine what could be done if every country could work in concert for those developments. Specifically, against the anarchic tendencies of the market and capitalist profit seeking.

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- hirihit640@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Why are you acting like China is a poor helpless victim to capitalism here. China chose to shift to capitalism at the end of the 1900s. And they can choose to impose stricter regulation on fossil fuel emissions. They choose not to because it hurts their bottom line. Simple as that.
  
  The US and EU have controlled their emissions, while China’s continues to grow. China has the highest GDP in the world, and 7th highest GDP per capita, it has no excuse anymore.
  
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  - TheOubliette@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    Why are you acting like China is a poor helpless victim to capitalism here.
    
    I didn’t. I gave a pretty dry analysis. Maybe ask yourself why that feels overly sympathetic to you.
    
    China chose to shift to capitalism at the end of the 1900s.
    
    That’s not a particularly accurate or useful description of China’s gambit to allow (mostly foreign) capital to exploit its people to build productive forces while maintaining overall control over sweeping aspects of their economy. If China simply switched to capitalism one then has to explain why it is so different from every other capitalist country. China’s trajectory is responsible for the vast majority of global poverty index improvements and this runs in dramatic contrast to the rest of the periphery that was already fully capitalist and continues to be. The redirection of funds and productive capacity to infrastructure, education, housing, direct poverty alleviation. The limits/outright bans on the financialization and speculation that characterize imperial core economies. The policy of embedding the party in large firms and turning developed industries into state-meditated co-ops. The lack of imperialist expansion required by monopolized, financialized capital. But I digress.
    
    And they can choose to impose stricter regulation on fossil fuel emissions.
    
    Sure. They could set them to any arbitrary level. What is the correct rate for it to be sustained? Remember, they’re almost alone in meeting targets among countries as advanced as they are. What level of production flight should they unilaterally sacrifice, if any, and who picks up the slack? At which limits do they begin sacrificing that production? Are their regulations too loose or strict for the optimal trajectory? Why are we focusing on one of the only countries meeting their targets and making progress on renewables?
    
    They choose not to because it hurts their bottom line. Simple as that.
    
    It is, in fact, not as simple as that and this ignores the active work and debate within China that produces the results we are discussing. They aren’t making their targets because that’s just what capitalism does. It’s deliberate, literally a result of deliberation, research, modeling, and pulling levers at the commanding heights.
    
    The US and EU have controlled their emissions
    
    lmfao you can’t be serious they can’t even meet their own targets. France is the only one that ever does and it’s because they became a primary source of nuclear weapons materials (producing low emission energy as a nice side effect).
    
    while China’s continues to gro
    
    Everyone’s continue to grow. The targets are set, at the moment, for when they will hit peak and then begin dropping. China’s peak target is set to 2030 and they are slated to beat that.
    
    China has the highest GDP in the world, and 7th highest GDP per capita, it has no excuse anymore.
    
    Which part of “the only ones taking this seriously” is not registering?
    
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    hirihit640@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Everybody’s economy is different, China is no snowflake. But I am not going to debate whether China’s capitalism is “good capitalism” or not, that feels like pulling hairs and is a digression as you yourself said.
    
    How much should China regulate? At the very least enough to stop the growth. I think that’s a simple enough answer.
    
    Everyone’s continue to grow
    
    Not true. The US and EU have been lowering emissions for the past 20 years.
    
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starsoaked_lily@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
nice stats, now lets talk about emissions per person - neat how you picked the stat that ignores the current state of things and only focuses on how even more emissions the west used to produce

also, the reason the wheels haven’t well and truly fallen off of the global economy is because china has halved oil imports recently to avoid the ill advised us war on iran leading to an oil availability cliff. they (regrettably, but perhaps unavoidably) have used coal heavily (in combination with larger oil reserves than the rest of the world combined) to cut their own demand dramatically and abruptly to bail out the rest of the world

it isn’t unreasonable to see china’s short term reliance on more dirty forms of energy as a tool for energy independence (critical when the us can single handedly cause an international fuel crisis) being used strategically while china continues to rapidly switch to renewables at a rate that puts most western countries to shame

in short, maybe china isn’t to blame; capitalism and neoliberalism is

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- hirihit640@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I mentioned this in another thread which tried to use “emissions per capita”, but that isn’t a great metric because it is biased towards low productivity. We had very low emissions pre-1800s, for example. And North Korea has 4x less emissions per capita than China, are we supposed to follow North Korea’s lead?
  
  Also I hate how everybody constantly frames China as a poor helpless victim of capitalism. This was also mentioned in another thread here. China chose to shift to capitalism at the end of the 1900s. And they can choose to impose stricter regulation on fossil fuel emissions. They choose not to because it hurts their bottom line. Simple as that.
  
  The US and EU have controlled their emissions, while China’s continues to grow. China has the highest GDP in the world, and 7th highest GDP per capita, it has no excuse anymore.
  
  China has all the hallmarks of capitalism - widening wealth gap, massive housing speculation, horrible working conditions, etc. If China gets to use dirty energy as a “short term strategy” with some vague promise to do better in the future, then why not the West? We could call all the evils of the world just “short term strategy”.
  
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  - starsoaked_lily@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    not some vague promise - china is famously switching to renewables very quickly - check the same website you linked in your previous comment if you need a source for china outpacing the west on renewables - and did the whole thing about china leveraging coal right now to very literally save the world economy from the very predictable crisis caused by the us aggression towards iran just bounce silently off your brain? china focusing on energy resiliency is a trade-off but one you should be presently grateful for (and again, despite that trade-off, china is at or near the top of the list for rate of renewable adoption)
    
    do you really expect china to cap their per capita emissions well below the current per capita emissions of the us? let’s be serious. as you point out, to do so would be to expect china to kneecap itself economically in a way you wouldn’t demand of a western country - are you just mad china has so many more citizens? or are you scared of how far china would be ahead economically if it allowed itself as many emissions per person as the us?
    
    on the subject of china not being a “poor helpless victim of capitalism” i will just point at cuba and so many historical examples of what the global north does to counties that don’t bow sufficiently to capital to be labeled comfortably capitalist enough to slot easily into the neo-liberal international economy. (even if not capitalist enough to not constantly be called communist at the same time)
    
    out of one side of your mouth you say that emissions per capita isn’t a great metric because it is biased towards low productivity - presumably meaning you think it makes china look better unfairly because you are lumping it in with north korea and you see both as under-developed backwaters (also it’s cute how you put “emissions per capita” in quotes as if it’s some made up measure and not literally the first stat on the page for each country on the webpage you use as a source)
    
    but out of the other side of your mouth you point out that china has the highest gdp in the world and is in the top ten for gdp per capita and so it is an advanced, economically powerful country and so should be more strictly controlling its emissions per capita (dramatically more strictly than the us, you seem to believe)
    
    you can’t have it both ways. instead, let’s be consistent and expect the countries with the highest emissions per capita to aggressively reduce those emissions and expect developing countries, like china, to stay below or equal with the emissions of developed countries
    
    (we could argue about if the huge headstart the currently developed countries have means that is already unfair but at this point, personally, i believe the need to work together to reduce emissions makes that a backseat issue.)
    
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    hirihit640@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    
    out of one side of your mouth …but out of the other side of your mouth
    
    Both can be true. I’m saying that even though China is less advanced than the US (as evidenced by the lower GDP per capita and lower emissions per capita), China still has enough GDP per capita to be amongst the top nations of the world.
    
    At the very least, they should be reducing their emissions like the other top nations. I’m not asking more from China than I am from western nations. I’m asking for them to do the same.
    
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