What is easier for you to imagine the end of capitalism or the end of the world?

[noname223]

Tbh for me the latter one.

It is a question I heard in the context of the climate crisis.

We humans are so used to capitalism and its benefits. It is hard to imagine we abstain from its advantages for the sake of this planet. Especially, if it is a free rider issue and a diffusion of responsiblity is happening. People literally shit on the future prospects of their children for the sake of buying cheap products from overseas.
I am glad I won't have children the world will probably burn.

 

[Agon321]

The world existed before us and may exist after us. Capitalism is only a short part of the whole story.

 

[lionetta12]

Tbh for me the latter one.

It is a question I heard in the context of the climate crisis.

We humans are so used to capitalism and its benefits. It is hard to imagine we abstain from its advantages for the sake of this planet. Especially, if it is a free rider issue and a diffusion of responsiblity is happening. People literally shit on the future prospects of their children for the sake of buying cheap products from overseas.
I am glad I won't have children the world will probably burn.

The end of the world because ending capitalism is almost, if not, impossible to end. Capitalism will always exist somewhere to some extent in some form.

 

[derpyderpins]

What does the end of capitalism look like to you? End of the American system, which is not particularly capitalist rn? More "capitalist" countries like Denmark and RoK?

What if we have nuclear war, eliminating most of modern society and infrastructure, and a few of the surviving tribes in the mad Max wasteland have trade with each other without a regulating government or social safety nets and some of them become wealthier than others? Is that capitalism surviving?

If that's the case, then yeah you probably need to end the world before "capitalism" will be fully dead.

 

[noname223]

What does the end of capitalism look like to you? End of the American system, which is not particularly capitalist rn? More "capitalist" countries like Denmark and RoK?

What if we have nuclear war, eliminating most of modern society and infrastructure, and a few of the surviving tribes in the mad Max wasteland have trade with each other without a regulating government or social safety nets and some of them become wealthier than others? Is that capitalism surviving?

If that's the case, then yeah you probably need to end the world before "capitalism" will be fully dead.

I think in the context of this question I define capitalism at maximizing your gains at (almost) all costs. Prioritizing profits over sustainability. Squeezing resources ( I hope that's the right word) until they cannot regenerate anymore. Moreover, that the most important goal of a country is to maximize its economic growth.

I think the question wants to allude to the question what is more important shortterm comfortability or longterm survivial.

Personally, I am sceptical of de-growth. But the approaches of geo-engeneering do not sound promising either. They have the goal to deceive the people, to calm them down that everything can remain the same with having no guiilty conscience.

I don't think capitalism had to end everywhere. It is rather about the side-effects of capitalims if it stays unhinged as in the vast majority of countries. Or even more radical implementing a different system.

 

[alltoomuch2]

Easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Because capitalism is based on greed, which means people won't care about the end of the world until its too late, as long as they get what they want. So whether its the use of ever-increasing resources until they run out, climate change, or world war III, those are far easier to imagine than people suddenly deciding that greed and capitalism is wrong and that they should look after the world and other people.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Yeah, I agree with you. I can more likely envisage humans becoming extinct than quitting capitalism. The world though? The world needs neither humans nor capitalism to survive. It would surely thrive with the elimination of both. I know what you mean though- the human world.

 

[dune_dweller]

I think both would come simultaneously - like a fall of modern civilization as we know it, going through a period of time like in the movie, The Road.

People would form small communities and we'd be on some sort of communistic or bartering system.

 

[(in)sane]

The end of the world because ending capitalism is almost, if not, impossible to end. Capitalism will always exist somewhere to some extent in some form.

The end of the world and the end of the human race are two separate things tho. We haven't existed for that long and we'll probably be gone before the world ends. Capitalism will die with us :D

 

[avoid]

Depends on how you would define "the world."

• The world as a planet will continue to exist after the end of capitalism.
• The world as an ecosystem, on a human time scale, either survives or ends with capitalism. For example, nuclear way breaks out, or our ecosystem reaches its tipping point of an irreversibly damaged climate. In the long run—millions of years—the ecosystem will bounce back.
• The world as an society survives the end of capitalism only if we replace it with a different working economic or social system.
• The world as one's environment will end before capitalism. Capitalism has already destroyed the worlds of many people.

I prefer any interpretation but the first because the world should be on a human scale.

 

[ZeroM24]

Both are 100 % guaranteed. And this gives me at least some sort of peace. Even if there is something like reincarnation, this nightmare called life will end at some point.