No other system has come close to benefiting humanity the way capitalism has. From Robert P. Murphy at instituteforenergyresearch.org:
Presumably bolstered by the fiery claims of Greta Thunberg and the general theme of Climate Week, people on Twitter have been declaring that capitalism threatens humanity. This angst rekindled interest in a Guardian article that ran a few months ago, in which author George Monbiot argued that the very nature of capitalism is “incompatible with the survival of life on Earth.” Not only do such claims ignore the obvious progress of humanity staring us in the face—and the environmental activists are supposed to be the empirical ones in this debate—but even if Monbiot’s worries about the climate were correct, capitalism would still be the best social system to deal with the crisis.
Monbiot’s Case Against Capitalism
The following excerpt summarizes Monbiot’s two-pronged argument for why capitalism threatens our entire species:
Capitalism’s failures arise from two of its defining elements. The first is perpetual growth. Economic growth is the aggregate effect of the quest to accumulate capital and extract profit. Capitalism collapses without growth, yet perpetual growth on a finite planet leads inexorably to environmental calamity.
…The absolute decoupling needed to avert environmental catastrophe (a reduction in material resource use) has never been achieved, and appears impossible while economic growth continues. Green growth is an illusion.
