Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050

This from Forbes:

Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050

Capitalism has generated massive wealth for some, but it’s devastated the planet and has failed to improve human well-being at scale.

• Species are going extinct at a rate 1,000 times faster than that of the natural rate over the previous 65 million years (see Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School).

• Since 2000, 6 million hectares of primary forest have been lost each year. That’s 14,826,322 acres, or just less than the entire state of West Virginia (see the 2010 assessment by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN).

• Even in the U.S., 15% of the population lives below the poverty line. For children under the age of 18, that number increases to 20% (see U.S. Census).

• The world’s population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 (see United Nations' projections).


Capitalism is unsustainable in its current form.

...MORE...

Of course there are those who say it's humanity that's unsustainable, not capitalism.

What say you?

Other than the fact that the post makes no sense

Oh Well!!!

Yep...communism does a great job sustainability wise...

Stalin and Mao killed around 100 million people...and that's just 2 people...

Go communism!!!
Saving earth one genocide at a time since 1917...

-Chris

a reply to: soficrow

And company's and corporations make insane profits.
With the insanely fast growing world of automation where will all the spending money come from?
It's just going to cause a strain on society as a whole. Sure Tesla has maybe ten employees of millwrights and supervisors to maintain the robots, but imagine if everything was automated, every company, etc. where would the money to sustain the purchasing of the goods come from?

dupe

a reply to: Christosterone

imho - Capitalism and Communism are 2 sides of the same corporate coin.

There are other coins.



PS and fyi:

Forbes is an American business magazine. Published bi-weekly, it features original articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. Forbes also reports on related subjects such as technology, communications, science, politics, and law. Its headquarters is located in Jersey City, New Jersey. Primary competitors in the national business magazine category include Fortune and Bloomberg Businessweek.

So Capitalism is to blame for species going extinct? And deforestation? That's a stretch. Human greed has always existed, and will always exist.

originally posted by: Christosterone
Yep...communism does a great job sustainability wise...

Stalin and Mao killed around 100 million people...and that's just 2 people...

Go communism!!!
Saving earth one genocide at a time since 1917...

-Chris

Communism has been proven to not work, in theory it can work, but all it takes is one person to scream "them and us". Everyone needs to be on the same page for it to work. Capitalism is on the same path of destruction.

a reply to: soficrow

Looks to me most of the world is NOT capitalist.



Blame Canada!

a reply to: soficrow

Economics aside, I think society as a whole is imploding anyway.

If only we could start from scratch - maybe in a resource-based economy with localized food supplies long-term sustainability would be possible - but the way things are right now, I'm not seeing it. Forbes is probably right.

originally posted by: jjkenobi
So Capitalism is to blame for species going extinct? And deforestation? That's a stretch. Human greed has always existed, and will always exist.

Capitalism creates unnecessary goods (toys, video games, 'expensive' cars, etc, etc.) at unsustainable rates to gain control of the goods that really matter. Wood, water, housing, metals, etc, etc. And it's a cycle that will eventually eat itself like a snake eating it's own body. The ones to suffer are where the goods come from and the people purchasing them.

You can't make iPhones without mining precious metals, or creating plastics, you can't build giant houses at ridiculous prices without wood, you can't feed humans obsession with beef without land. Where do you think all that begins? Where do you think will suffer the most at the beginning of the chain?

Communism feeds the world.
In North Korea, the people save their bowel movements, and mix them with compost and chemicals to make a wonderful rich fertilizer. We should do the same. Shouldn't we?

a reply to: soficrow

Capitalism in it's true form isn't the problem. The problem is "Crony Capitalism"! Not sure how old some of you folks on ATS are, but back in my day, the federal government actually had anti trust suits which they brought upon huge corporations for wanting to gobble up all their competition. Now not so much! Now we have government officials holding our their hands for payoffs to enable the multinational corporations to dominate the world!


Blame Capitalism all you want, but factually (at least in the US) our government jumped the ship as far as regulating the multi national corporations. Instead they allow the corporations to write the laws that restrict small businesses from being able to compete!

a reply to: soficrow

Forbes sure enjoys click bait lately. This, fallout 4 release date speculation now elder scrolls and articles about pewdiepie lol

Tried Communism didn't work as intended.

a reply to: seeker1963

Right. We have "corporatism" now NOT capitalism or free markets. That's what happens when corporations and the government have a revolving door or lobbyist push hard and pay millions to law makers to pass laws that destroy their competition.

Capitalism is a pretty bad system, except for all the other systems devised by man.

- some guy in the comment section. Pretty well sums it up.

Article really seemed to be more of a commentary on trying to drive company ownership down to an employee/local level as opposed to retaining ownership in a few fat-cat suits sitting in a corporate office than offering any real evidence of impending starvation other than a few facts that are semi-sorta-kinda relevant but not really.

Capitalism has generated massive wealth for some, but it’s devastated the planet and has failed to improve human well-being at scale.

Why do people act like public ownership doesn't exist for companies ?

That is what stock purchases are.

Buy a share you become a part owner.

originally posted by: neo96

Capitalism has generated massive wealth for some, but it’s devastated the planet and has failed to improve human well-being at scale.

Why do people act like public ownership doesn't exist for companies ?

That is what stock purchases are.

Buy a share you become a part owner.

That and the hyperbolic "devastated the planet" bull#.

a reply to: soficrow

If we continue to go the way we are, of course this will happen.

But we were supposed to elect Hillary the faint, and that didn't happen.

The future is not known, and even though the super wealthy think they got the future by the short hairs, they don't.