this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
138 points (98.6% liked)
Degrowth
974 readers
4 users here now
Discussions about degrowth and all sorts of related topics. This includes UBI, economic democracy, the economics of green technologies, enviromental legislation and many more intressting economic topics.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Just use the tax system. We don't need these huge movements to fundamentally change global economics. We just need to tax the things we don't like and it'll be unprofitable for businesses to keep doing them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality
Problem is, the people who pass tax law are corporate captured, ensuring such hefty tax laws are not enacted.
Agreed, but how is removing these elected officials easier than removing the profit system?
Both are equally difficult. While it's possible to vote in an FDR-like figure that will tamp back on the worst examples of profit driven exploitation of the planet, I don't think it's possible for the system to self-correct without eventually backsliding due to profit motive, as I believe history has shown in every attempt to reform capitalistic societies.
Personally, I think the best way forward for humanity is to build horizontal structures that will slowly replace the need to rely on the state/for-profit institutions, aka Prefiguration. The fediverse itself is a nice example of that happening.