The New York Times has an online feature called the Stone, "a forum for contemporary philosophers and other thinkers on issues both timely and timeless." It is moderated by "Simon Critchley, who teaches philosophy at The New School for Social Research." The latest installment comes from Benjamin Y. Fong, "a faculty fellow at Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University." He writes:
The real culprit of the climate crisis is not any particular form of consumption, production or regulation but rather the very way in which we globally produce, which is for profit rather than for sustainability. So long as this order is in place, the crisis will continue and, given its progressive nature, worsen. This is a hard fact to confront. But averting our eyes from a seemingly intractable problem does not make it any less a problem. It should be stated plainly: It's capitalism that is at fault.
As an increasing number of environmental groups are emphasizing, it's systemic change or bust. From a political standpoint, something interesting has occurred here: Climate change has made anticapitalist struggle, for the first time in history, a non-class-based issue....We have a much better chance of making it past the 22nd century if environmental regulations are designed by a team of people with no formal education in a democratic socialist society than we do if they are made by a team of the most esteemed scientific luminaries in a capitalist society. The intelligence of the brightest people around is no match for the rampant stupidity of capitalism.
Fong is vague about precisely what he proposes as an alternative economic system, though he does recommend a book called "Communism for Kids," published by MIT Press. I doubt he's going to get very far with this idea, but if he does, I sure hope that he kills fewer people along the way than the communists did in the Soviet Union and China.
