Oh no! Not capitalism!
this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
37 points (100.0% liked)
Climate Crisis, Biosphere & Societal Collapse
21 readers
7 users here now
A place to share news, experiences and discussion about the continuing climate crisis, societal collapse, and biosphere collapse. Please be respectful of each other and remember the human.
Long live the Lützerath Mud Wizard.
Useful Links:
Earth - A Global Map of Wind, Weather and Ocean Conditions - Use the menu at bottom left to toggle different views. For example, you can see where wildfires/smoke are by selecting "Chem - COsc" to see carbon monoxide (CO) surface concentration.
Climate Reanalyzer (University of Maine) - A source for daily updated average global air temps, sea surface temps, sea ice, weather and more.
National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center (US) - Information about ENSO and weather predictions.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) Global Temperature Rankings Outlook (US) - Tool that is updated each month, concurrent with the release of the monthly global climate report.
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System - Government of Canada
Surging Seas Risk Zone Map - For discovering which areas could be underwater soon.
Check out our sister sub for collapse-related memes and silly stuff, Faster Than Expected!
AKA
c/fte@supoli.xyz
Alternative community on Reddthat
If there are any links you think are important that should be added to the list, please send a message and let me know.
Thanks for coming to c/collapse!
This is a supoli.xyz community.
SUPOLI GENERAL RULES:
- Remember the human! (no harassment, threats, etc.)
- No racism or other discrimination
- No Nazis, QAnon or similar whackos and no endorsement of them
- No porn
- No ads or spam
- No content against Finnish law
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Here is a relevant excerpt from The Ministry for the Future (2020) by Kim Stanley Robinson. The context is a meeting between experts of a fictional UN agency looking for weak points in capitalist governments in order to implement carbon capture laws to reverse climate change that has already killed millions in a heat wave in India.
from chapter 15
Jurgen: Insurance companies in a panic at last year’s reports. Pay-outs at about one hundred billion USD a year now, going higher fast, as in hockey stick graph. Insurance companies insured by re-insurance. These now holding short end of stick (tall end of stick?). Can’t charge premiums high enough to cover pay-outs, nor could anyone afford to pay that much. Lack of predictability means re-insurance companies simply refusing to cover environmental catastrophes, the way they don’t insure war or political unrest etc. So, end of insurance, basically. Everyone hanging out there uninsured. Governments therefore payer of last resort, but most governments already deep in debt to finance, meaning also re-insurance companies. Nothing left to give without endangering belief in money. Entire system therefore on brink of collapse.
Mary: What mean collapse?
Jurgen: Mean, money no longer working as money.
Silence in room. Jurgen adds, So you can see why re-insurance hoping for some climate mitigation! We can’t afford for world to end! No one laughs.
Long story short, central bankers of all nations force governments to adopt China-style capitalism-subject-to-socialism so insurance companies can continue to exist. The socialist components tie the issuance of money to provable carbon capture such as by pumping supercritical carbon dioxide underground. Also, billionaires eventually realize civilization is ending though persistent assassination attempts by survivors of worsening climate disasters; they find the assassination attempts don't occur when they fund projects to mitigate sea level rise by halting glacier movement and promoting ice formation through massive pumping of water. It's science fiction, yes, but one of the more hopeful kinds.
That is such a great book. I've liked a lot of his other books, liked them a lot, but Ministry... is just another level.
This bloke’s very clear, capitalism depends on insurance and climate change is making a lot of areas and risks uninsurable. Must be scaring billionaires silly and the rest of us should be too!
Insurance is the biggest racket in the world. They literally looked at mobsters running protection schemes on local businesses and said "I bet that's scalable." It's why I will never have sympathy for people like Brian Thompson. He chose to do gangster shit and he got whacked. Them's the fuckin' breaks, pal.
*the climate we can live in
There will always be a climate, long after capitalism and the silly species who utilized it are gone.
Factually accurate
What a horrible article - capitalism won't suddenly get destroyed because insurance companies won't be able to operate anymore with some regions having houses devalued. In fact, it's quite the opposite in reality: capitalism THRIVES and NEEDS crisis, that's why you have regular boom & bust cycles to get rid of overproduction, wars, etc.
Capitalism can only be destroyed by the working class, it won't miraculously go away on it own after some severe crisis, and especially not after a nothingburger crisis as insurers having a harder time.
capitalism won’t suddenly get destroyed because insurance companies won’t be able to operate anymore with some regions having houses devalued.
It will. Banks, 100% need insurance, in order to lend money on property. Even if they sell it themselves, or risk is factored into interest rate. Property values in west are high mainly because it has been so easy to get loans. But the total interest rate + insurance + property tax + maintenance represents the carrying cost of owning a home, that when it gets too high, reduces value of homes, and reduces reposession value to bank, and their loan safety, that requires even higher interest rates.
Western banks operate on fractional reserve lending (Trump promises to permit them a lower fraction) where widespread losses require a bailout to avoid bankruptcy. There is a limit to financial credibility, that is some small amount of straw over the current camel's back. Repeat of 2008 crisis is a great amount of straw.
While that might cause a crisis, it's in the best interest of the state, central banks, the capitalist class who are the most influential to preserve the capitalist system and do everything in their power to do so. They're not going to sit idly by - there will be restructuring responding to the crisis, maybe even austerity and bailouts like in 2008 (which, mind you, didn't end capitalism) - things might get tough, there might be a shock but it by no means would magically bring something like socialism.
Capitalism is a system that's entirely about social relations: who sells their labor, who owns production and how do these production owners use their accumulated value - this is what has to collapse for capitalism to be destroyed. Financial instruments like insurance exist within this framework, they're not capitalism itself, they can develop and change and they do so regularly in response to crises.
First capitalism is a euphemism for capital supremacism.
there will be restructuring responding to the crisis, maybe even austerity and bailouts like in 2008 (which, mind you, didn’t end capitalism)
2008 bailouts and QE in US was capitalist supremacism through saving banks. Global warming is simply magnitudes of repeating disasters that makes bailouts too big to be credible such that capitalist supremacism cannot be saved. It's also not an opportunity for big private sector to buy cheap while waiting for a rebound. Global warming means economic collapse. Furthermore, it's not "free socialized insurance" for people that can help prevent collapse.
OP could have said "financialized economy" will be destroyed by global warming.
As insurance / financial people they're accustomed to seeing things from that perspective - society as a financial machine. They're describing what they are seeing in their area of expertise and (sensibly!) staying out of areas where they don't have expertise.
Some good news!