[lbo-talk] [Fwd: A World Turned Upside Down by George Monbiot]

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

Doug:
> 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 think that is a very reasonable assessment of the situation.  A far more
interesting question posited by the article is how come that the governments
became such a bunker-headed bunch of the neo-liberal market ueber alles
fiends?  This is the polar opposite of the Keynesian regulators they were
not so long ago.

I do not think that propaganda by neo-liberal think tanks or influence of a
few evil corporations (which by the above argument are at odds with other
corporate interests) can explain such a quick and profound change of heart.
It is not just the US, but other countries as well (cf. Germany's Merkel).
What happened?

Wojtek