Environmental Keynesianism

Susan George tackles how we can beat environmental problems within the capitalist framework.  Because we are stuck with capitalism…

George's prescription is not to lobby governments to impose sane and planet-saving reforms on corporations; that’s not likely to happen when most politicians (in the developed nations, at least) are fervently and blindly pro-laissez-faire-capitalism themselves. Nor does she have any faith that business leaders can be persuaded to abandon their global warming ways voluntarily.

Her solution is to replicate for a “war” against climate change the same large-scale political-business collaboration that was mounted to fight the war against Nazi Germany. In that historic campaign, both politicians and CEOs saw not only the urgent need to join forces to win the Second World War—but the profit to be made as well. The politicians increased their popularity with the voters, and the CEOs increased their revenues by manufacturing guns, tanks, bombers, warships, and submarines.

Fascinating read.  If anyone has access to her original article, please comment here.

What I’m also excited about is that I now have a label to use for the economic transition, Environmental Keynesianism.  Sometimes having a name is a needed step toward a transition.