Bread and Circuses“When you realize that under capitalism, a forest isn’t worth anything until it is cut down, you begin to see where the ecological crisis comes from.” - Adam Idek Hastie
#AntiCapitalism #BiodiversityLoss
#AntiCapitalism #BiodiversityLoss
Karin Sorenby@breadandcircuses thanks for sharing .. spot on..☺️🙏
MoveFastAndFixThings@breadandcircuses It’s not really true … forests are worth more as the trees age, my friend has a career valuing them. I think rampant capitalism is a disease btw
Martin FarrentEven so, their value to owners is that they are, eventually, going to be cut down.
Lars 
@breadandcircuses There is already a change of mind that intact forests are fare more valuable than the wood they would deliver.
That change of mind needs to translate into a change of practice. Until then, it achieves nothing.
Machiel@breadandcircuses capitalism is literally monetizing natural resources to the fullest extend
Dave Hounslow@machiel @breadandcircuses in which case cutting down trees without replanting at sustainable rate isn't capitalism.
@Thinkfoo @breadandcircuses true, replanting starts when all the trees are gone.
@machiel @breadandcircuses that wouldn't be sustainable and would be very poor capitalism.
Virtue signal 💉💉💉🇺🇸 🇺🇦
Juho Mäntysalo@Thinkfoo @machiel @breadandcircuses
Forests are more than just tree farms, in a same way as a stadium full of people isn't a city.
@iju @machiel @breadandcircuses I don't disagree, but this doesn't make the original toot any more true. Arguably the most destructive ecological damage has been in the hands of political systems that have attempted to expunge capitalism.
@Thinkfoo @machiel @breadandcircuses
While the damage done by Russia and its satellites (on whatever name) have been great, you don't really get to compare western capitalism to it favourably.
After all, your citizens aren't demanding access to rare minerals needed for gaming consoles, electric vehicles etc. while queueing for hours on a line to the grocerery store.
@iju @machiel @breadandcircuses yes it's true that attempts to expunge capitalism have failed both people and the environment.
@Thinkfoo @machiel @breadandcircuses
Ah, you're a troll.
First one I've met on this platform, but I guess not everyone who comes from Twitter can be a person of integrity.
antipode77@Thinkfoo @iju @machiel @breadandcircuses
Aha, that is why there were separate better provided shops for the Nomenklatura in the old USSR.
As long as these kinds of inequality are allowed the people know it for the sham it is.
Madison Motta@iju @Thinkfoo @machiel @breadandcircuses the funny part is that Russia hasn't been communist since Lenin.
@MaMotta @iju @machiel @breadandcircuses not very funny really. A collapse into klepto authoritarianism is a common failure mode of attempts to replace capitalism with an entirely different system.
@MaMotta @machiel @breadandcircuses you have way too narrow a definition of what capitalism is and way to much faith that removing it entirely could ever work. It never has. The only systems that have ever really worked for the benefit of the majority are hybrid ones that pragmatically combine regulated capitalism and a welfare state. Anything else is ideologically driven and as a result doomed to collapse into some form of authoritarianism.
@Thinkfoo @MaMotta @breadandcircuses agree! I do miss some notion of democracy is in this definition
@machiel @Thinkfoo @breadandcircuses funny but when it comes to Capitalism You'll have me agreeing with James Madison's quote about it.
@machiel @MaMotta @breadandcircuses yep, that should be in there for sure. No coincidence perhaps that the most democratic systems, those that have proper proportional representation rather than first part the post/winner takes all systems, tend to lead us to that place. Think Nordic/Scandinavian systems.
arceuthobium@Thinkfoo @MaMotta @machiel @breadandcircuses a system capable of meaningfully regulating “capitalism” is, by definition, not capitalism.
When capitalists rule over the population unchecked, that is capitalism.
When the people rule themselves, that is not capitalism.
When capitalists rule over the population unchecked, that is capitalism.
When the people rule themselves, that is not capitalism.
@Thinkfoo @iju @machiel @breadandcircuses I think under the column of "There are no excuses" your idea doesn't add up; suggests a lack of familiarity with environmental statistics (and what a surprise).
Ever-expanding consumer excess is a uniquely capitalist article of faith, and what people believe does matter in the long run.
Bob Jamieson@Thinkfoo @machiel @breadandcircuses Replanting to replace trees cut down is only "sustainable" in a capitalist resource sense. It ignores the fact that the most valuable trees in a ecological sense are those that are allowed to grow old and die naturally because they support a much greater resource in biological diversity. A tree that is cut down and removed does not support the organisms that break down wood and those that feed on them.
@bobjmsn @machiel @breadandcircuses agree that the eco system of a tree, alive or dead is huge. What I don't accept is that overuse of natural resources is any more linked to capitalism than socialism. Indeed extent of exploitation of nature is often even worse in left leaning economic models. Conservation of natural resources is an orthogonal issue regardless of the economic model. To simply blame capitalism is frankly barking up the wrong tree.
Frank Vehafric@bobjmsn @Thinkfoo @machiel @breadandcircuses Explaining to people why tree farms aren't forests is a lot harder than it ought to be.
@fvehafric @bobjmsn @machiel @breadandcircuses yep and that there is a place for both regardless of the economic system in play. Sustainable farming of trees is not exclusive to capitalism, any more than destruction of primary forest is.
LadyT@breadandcircuses errrm, socialists and communists are equally anxious to cut the tree down
@LadyT @breadandcircuses By communist I assume you mean the former Soviet Union, which was not communist but totalitarian (like other "communist" states) which is in practice identical to capitalism with the proviso that the people who profit are different because the power structure is different.
@bobjmsn as is socialism, no different to capitalism when it comes to materialism. Please don't assume and then tell me why I'm wrong in your assumption
@LadyT @breadandcircuses if you're referring to Russia- they haven't been communist since Lenin died. It took the full slide into imperial capitalism decades ago.
cytokine_storm@breadandcircuses While capitalism certainly has it’s problems I dont think this one is exclusive to Capitalism. The soviet union wreaked environmental devastation on a vast scale.
We can do better than those in the past, but if the villains were not oligarchs they would be government bureaucrats or syndicalist farmers or some other people who would benefit from the destruction of the environment.
@cytokine_storm @breadandcircuses the soviet union quickly slid into imperial capitalism shortly after Lenin died.
@MaMotta @breadandcircuses It did not have a great environmental record before his death and certainly not after Stalinisation, when the SU slid out of capitalism again.
@cytokine_storm @breadandcircuses Stalin is exactly who Che Guevara called a weak communist.
@MaMotta @breadandcircuses not sure how that is a rebuttal of stalinisation != capitalism
@cytokine_storm @breadandcircuses because what Stalin established was a dictatorship of state capitalism more than anything else.
VornyWorld@breadandcircuses well technically a forest is a massive CO2 sucking machine so it isn't worthless
Jack@breadandcircuses I was reading recently how wood can now be 3d printed reducing the need to fell as many trees, which I at first thought sounded like progress until I realised that the capitalist viewpoint will be that if that’s the case they can decimate more and more forests without the need to regrow
BensGreenGamingAc@breadandcircuses It’s spot on - and you can replace forest with other things like peat or fish or even oil and it still works.
rick_rampal23@breadandcircuses no questions asked either, under Capitalism!!
Yusuf Toropov@breadandcircuses When you realize that the phrase "under #capitalism" is a rhetorical trick used to define standard human operating procedure with regard to forests and other resources since the dawn of humanity, you begin to see the importance of collective regulation of immoral/illegal profits.
@YusufToropov @breadandcircuses capitalism is just another version of monarchism when you think about it.
🇺🇦PsiPhi 🦉🔬@breadandcircuses
I think a modern day Adam Smith would see each organism in the forest acting in its own self interest and the mutual benefit that comes out of those behavioral feedback loops as if moved by an invisible hand as being natural and superior and more efficient than what a central forest planner could do.
I think a modern day Adam Smith would see each organism in the forest acting in its own self interest and the mutual benefit that comes out of those behavioral feedback loops as if moved by an invisible hand as being natural and superior and more efficient than what a central forest planner could do.
@breadandcircuses
Smith’s first book was on ethics which he though any free system presupposed. What people call capitalism today, he would like despise. He railed against the evils of joint stock companies like the East India Company who were destructive and supported small artisans and a division of labor more akin to a forest where people worked in a fairly equitable way. He was writing at the very start of the Industrial Revolution so didn’t see its horrors.
Smith’s first book was on ethics which he though any free system presupposed. What people call capitalism today, he would like despise. He railed against the evils of joint stock companies like the East India Company who were destructive and supported small artisans and a division of labor more akin to a forest where people worked in a fairly equitable way. He was writing at the very start of the Industrial Revolution so didn’t see its horrors.
@breadandcircuses sorry, not sure why this makes any difference bcs there are quotation marks? Socialism produces just as much materialism as capitalism and just as bad for the planet
Bernie Luckily Does It@breadandcircuses The same principle applies to people as well.
Stanley Grill, Composer@breadandcircuses Actually, vast swathes of ancient forest was cut down long, long before capitalism became the dominant economic model.
RBRATSPIES@breadandcircuses THIS 100%
Ian@breadandcircuses Doesn't appear to allow me to add a comment with the retoot. Anyway, I don't know who Adam Idek Hastie is or whether he said this, but it's true.
WTF@breadandcircuses It makes me furious. This also. People bought the property across the street and for some unknown reason cut it down. I still mourn it.
Tofu Golem@breadandcircuses
Please don't act like changing economic systems will improve the environment. I say that as someone who is utterly disgusted with capitalism.
During the Cold War, America scored a lot of rhetorical points by talking about the fact that the communists were polluting far more than we were. One Soviet diplomat even complained that environmentalism was a "capitalist plot against the economy of the workers' paradise."
1/2
@breadandcircuses
No matter what economic system we have, we have to spend time and effort convincing stupid people in power that science is real and should be listened to.
Changing economic systems will NOT inherently fix this. Everyone has to keep that in mind.
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ZZ Bottom
Urban_Tribesman@breadandcircuses “Isn’t worth any money until it is cut down”
That’s the problem with Capitalism, it is entirely founded & driven by the acquisition of profit. Nothing else is important. A forest is worth so much more, to so many things, than the value of it’s timber. This is what Capitalism has always failed to grasp.
That’s the problem with Capitalism, it is entirely founded & driven by the acquisition of profit. Nothing else is important. A forest is worth so much more, to so many things, than the value of it’s timber. This is what Capitalism has always failed to grasp.
Indra68@breadandcircuses
To quote Joni Mitchell,
🎤🎶🎵They cut down all the trees,
Put them in a tree museum—
And they charged the people,
A dollar and a half just to see them.
Don’t it always seem to go,
That you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone,
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot! 🎵🎶
(Then they charged people to park there)
To quote Joni Mitchell,
🎤🎶🎵They cut down all the trees,
Put them in a tree museum—
And they charged the people,
A dollar and a half just to see them.
Don’t it always seem to go,
That you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone,
They paved paradise, put up a parking lot! 🎵🎶
(Then they charged people to park there)