Stories tagged with "capitalism"

Investor Class Civil War: Stewart v. Cramer

Posted by Glenn on March 19, 2009 - 9:01am
Topic: Economics/Finance
Tags: capitalism, economic growth, energy infrastructure, energy investment, investors, stock market [list all tags]

When "class warfare" is typically discussed, it usually refers to the farmers, lower income or working class trying to negotiate for a larger share of the economic pie against landlords, government or business owners respectively. Sometimes there is a settlement and life goes on. Other times bitterness lingers for years or a generation.

Many might label the current feud that has erupted between The Daily Show host John Stewart and CNBC as part of this tradition of class warfare, but it has really exposed a rift between the investor class between Wall Street insiders and outsiders that have faithfully invested their money over the years to save for retirement, higher education, buy a home or whatever. This rift, has exposed a deep gulf of trust that could impact personal investment & savings patterns for generations if unresolved. And this has major implications for the future of capitalism and in particular publicly traded energy companies.

Or Link HERE to see the full interview on the Daily Show's website.

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UK's Guardian: Are Capitalism and a Habitable Planet Mutually Exclusive?

Posted by Prof. Goose on February 3, 2006 - 7:05pm
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: capitalism, climate change, peak oil, social change, socialism [list all tags]

(hat tip: Energy Bulletin)

Robert Newman writes in UK's Guardian:

Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change.

There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won't do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth's life-support systems within the present economic system.

There's much more of an argument in the article, but this was rather my point a long time ago about the governance of the commons: with scarce resources, a society either needs to find another scarce resource to compensate, a way of creating/enforcing/reinforcing tribal/cultural norms that encourage people do not hoard more than their "share" of resources, or you need a central government/public sector that controls resource allocation.
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