Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>
> I think you're underestimating the flexibility of capitalism by
> saying there's no way climate change can be dealt with without a
> revolution. It would require heavy state intervention, of course, but
> with a business coalition made up of finance (insurance companies
> tired of paying out storm claims), car companies and utilities
> looking for R&D subsidies, and makers of new enviro technologies,
> together with affluent moderate to liberal voters worried about their
> survival (and that of their beach houses), it could happen.
I have no doubts about the flexibility of capitalism. It is enormous, and my awareness of it is one reason I ground my case for revolutionary organizing not on either the possibility or the desirability of revolution but on its necessity. But that flexibility has never, so far as I know, been manifested in collective decision making on such a vast and complex domain as protection against global warming requires.
China, India, Iran, & Russia would be suicidal idiots if they went along with the necessary planning unless it included, for example, _prior_ disarmament on the part of the U.S. Hence "heavy state intervention" is grossly misleading as to the requirements involved. It takes _simultaneous_ and _coordinated_ intervention by _all_ the major "powers" and most of the other powers.
The vision of the international cooperation in ways that reach deeply into everyday life raise 'problems' that make the problems of non-market socialism utterly trivial in comparison.
It could happen, I suppose, but "could happen" seems pretty nebulous here. You and Gar (or anyone else) haven't even offered rough outline of the most general international agreements necessary or of the prelinary political steps to make those agreements even remotely reasonable.
I suspect that in this case that capitalist flexibility will act _counter_ to the general interest rather than in pursuit of it. Ways will be found for capital to flourish under increasingly difficult circumstances. Many corporations will go bankrupt, but other corporations will wax fat on the disasters.
Carrol