https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/opinion/climate-capitalism-crisis.html?smid=fb-share&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebook.com%2FI have been saving this essay, as I feared reading it. I feared it would sway me, and it did a little. I didn't need to be swayed that the system needs to be changed. It does, and is always changing as an open system does. But the degree of change required, according to this, demands a complete re-founding of our principles. It says that we can no longer afford an economic system that allows individual freedom to pursue capitalistic initiatives.
The thing that sways me is the statement that it's the status quo now needs to be defended. I have always asked people proposing a change to our system to propose something better, and now I think I will stop saying that as it implies that there really isn't anything better.
What isn't better, however, is governmental central planning, and technocracy. Concentration of power. Closed systems. And yet a full change isn't possible with a majority (strong majority) of the people unconvinced that change is required. It's a quandary.
So... the topic for this thread is:
1. Accepting that wholesale change is needed, can it be done within a democratic framework ? Can it be done in a global context ? Can it be done ?
2. Accepting that wholesale change is needed, what does the new system look like ?
Of course, this sounds like and probably is Marxism but that's for the answer to #2 above.
Please if you want to discuss whether Climate Change is real, or whether enacting social/economic change to address it is a good idea then that's off-topic for this thread. We have a lot of threads on that topic, but I want to find out if people on here have ideas about massive global social change.
If your opinion is that it would be a disaster then please say so. I don't disagree with that either.