It is common to come across the notion, especially on the climate left, that humanity and the rest of the planet would not be staring down the threat of climate change if it were not for capitalism – from Naomi Klein’s best-selling This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate (2014) to the growing number of activists identifying themselves as “eco-socialists”.
There is however no evidence that this is the case. On the contrary – and I say this as a committed socialist – while a retreat from market-based allocation and an expansion of economic planning offers us the best hope for rapidly decarbonising our economy today, paradoxically, a maximally socialist 20th century would have resulted in global warming at least as bad as we are currently experiencing, probably worse.
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