Climate and Capitalism

A wonderful novel that explores how climate change hurts the poor in 'developed' and 'developing' countries the most, who have the least power to change things but take the most blame.

So the world is going to hell in a hand basket, and a lot of us are more aware of the issues we are facing as a global community than we have been before. Given that a lot of these issues are structural and institutional problems, and therefore have structural and institutional solutions, what in the heck are we supposed to do about them as individuals? How do we actually change things? And how do we stay sane in the process?  

The structure and institution of capitalism has been a huge contributor to many of the issues we now face, from climate change to poverty to social injustice to war, there have been a minority of people putting profit before people and getting rich and powerful as a result of other people’s suffering. And the majority of us, whatever relative privilege or disadvantage we live with, are trapped within a system that we didn’t choose and can’t fully extricate ourselves from.  

Furthermore, a lot of the solutions we have created and literally bought into are dependent on this system. The fact is, in our society, we need money to live. I’m not going to criticise anyone for attempting to make a difference by doing things like going ‘plastic free’ or participating in protests, or buying books about inequality. However these options are not universally accessible because they depend on our ability to invest money in them. The poorest among us are not able to make these choices, and we have fallen into the trap of shaming the people with the least power for not making choices to spend money they don’t have on things they can’t afford.  

In order to try to feel less powerless as individuals, we have been lead to believe that collective individual actions that exist within the capitalist structure can change the behaviour of those who have power.  We have been lead to believe that companies only supply what we as consumers demand. This is the most insidious lie we have bought. There have been recent criticisms of fast fashion, for example, which vilify those who buy cheap clothing which wears out quickly, with a chain of production that hurts people and the planet. It’s true that people have chosen to buy these items, and the production of them is immoral. But who was it that created the concept of fashion and trends in the first place? Who decided what wages would be paid and who was hired to do those jobs? Who aggressively sold the idea that money and possessions are status symbols? It wasn’t the poor. It was those who were already rich, ensuring that they maintained or grew their wealth and power. It’s the same small group of people who set the low wages of the staff at the bottom at the hierarchy of multiple different businesses, who also create the cheap clothing, food and other products that they then sell to the people they pay the lowest wages to. They are literally creating both the supply and the demand.  

Furthermore, they are making products which are deliberately designed to break easily, and making them cheaper to buy new than fix up. It’s often the case that someone who has to buy multiple cheap products because they can’t afford to invest more in the first purchase, who end up spending more over time than those who can afford to invest in more expensive, more durable items. It’s a way of ensuring that poor people stay poor and rich people stay rich which is integrated into every layer of business.  

These are also the people who have the most power and control over the resources that we have built modern society around, in order to hold those resources hostage for the maximum amount of profit possible. Once we become dependent on them, like fossil fuels which cause a huge amount of problems but are integral to the way our society works, there is not a lot we can do to subvert their power.  

So things are shit. It’s tempting just to give up and hide in a duvet fort and hope when the apocalypse comes it’s mercifully swift. But there are things we can do to create change. Structural and institutional problems require structural and institutional solutions, and the one way we do have power, is in the government we choose. Governments are the only institutions who can reasonably attempt to hold corporations to account using our legal systems, by enforcing and strengthening laws designed to curb the powers of huge businesses. That’s why who we vote for is so important, because some politicians are part of the problem, working to keep the rich rich and the poor poor, most often because they are the rich. Some are trying to make things more equal but are facing an uphill struggle. Those are the ones we need to support so that they can use the power we give them to create real change.  

But elections are infrequent and MPs are.... let’s say inconsistent. What can we do in the meantime? The ways we can make collective individual changes that really help is to do it outside the system of capitalism as much as possible. What can do which doesn’t include the transfer of money? One of capitalism’s biggest manipulations is to centre money as most valuable and other resources as less valuable.  

Our skills, our time, our knowledge, our emotional labour, our physical labour - these are all things that can be traded outside the realm of capitalism. And the amazing thing is you’re probably already doing it. The other amazing thing is, poor people are also the ones most likely to be doing it the most. When money isn’t an option, you find a work around. You help out with looking after someone’s kids because they are poorly, and you know they’d do the same for you if you need them to. You help someone with a job application because you’ve done it before, and they cook you dinner while you do it. No money changes hands, but we trade skills all the time, and each person is better off as a result.  It’s not the same, but it’s equal. This is not to say that we should all start taking on more than we already do, or that all our relationships are immediate transactions which we need to log and compare. We still need healthy boundaries, we just need a happy medium of balancing all the relationships in our lives to give and receive in a way that means all parties benefit from the relationship equally.  

Another way we can help create change is through campaigns like Amnesty’s Write for Rights. It can be a literal pen-to-paper letter, or an email, or just signing a petition on their website. It’s accessible, community based activism that really does work. The hope that it provides for people in some of the worst situations possible, with the most disadvantage is literally and figuratively priceless, and in doing so, bolsters our hope that we can achieve a better world too. Things are difficult right now. But sometimes it’s better to light a candle than curse the darkness.