question how is capitalism compatible
with your definition of good if it
requires ever-increasing uses of the
finite resources of the planet where
once depleted would mean our end well I
would say capitalism isn't compatible
with my definition of good if it
requires ever-increasing uses of the
finite resources of the planet but
that's by no means self-evident even
though the scuttlebutt let's say
especially among the environmentalist
oriented types who might have some
sympathy for by the way especially with
regards to ocean depletion there's a
huge argument and there has been for
many many years between the economists
and the biologists and this is a really
important thing to know and the
economists point out that human
ingenuity is such that we're continually
able to make more with less and
certainly over the last well 500 years
especially in the last 150 years that's
just absolutely evident you know like
people say we're going to run out of
energy I think that's absolutely
preposterous it's like it's as crazy as
thinking we're gonna run out of matter I
mean we're we're going through a bit of
a bottleneck right now because you know
the population is going to increase to
about 9 million and then it's been a
decrease that's that's the most reliable
projections and 9 billion isn't a lot
more than we have now and you know
there's going to be some environmental
disruption as a consequence of that but
I don't think there's any reason to
assume at all that capitalism
necessarily requires ever-increasing
uses of the finite resources of the
planet it's also not obvious to what
degree the resources of the planet are
actually finite because we can
continually think up new uses for things
that nobody thought had any use at all
and so it depends to some degree on
whether or not you're willing to bet on
human imaginative miss or you're going
to be a Malthusian pessimist and I'm not
saying that there aren't reasons for
both I'm just saying that it is by no
means self-evident that things were
getting worse you know like I can give
you an example so you know in the last
in the last 15 years the Millennium goal
for the UN was to have world poverty
like absolute poverty so that's less
than the dollar 50 day by 50 percent
within 15 years that was actually
ahead of schedule and we've lifted
hundreds of millions of people into the
middle class over the last thirty years
and so there is an increasing inequality
in the West because the working class
has taken the brunt of that saved that
redistribution to third-world countries
but by the same token you know there's
no starvation in the world anymore
except really for reasons of MIS
distribution and-and-and political
purpose and people are becoming richer
and more educated all the time and you
know when we are waking up to our
planetary responsibilities once people
stop starving to death and having to
burn like dirt and eat you know
substandard food that they've scraped
out of the ground they do start to turn
their attention to things that might be
more aesthetic and so on look I don't
think there's any reason to be
pessimistic not fundamentally and I
guess the reason that capitalism is
compatible with my definition of good I
wouldn't say that exactly I would say
that I don't see an alternative that has
manifested itself that doesn't have far
more negative consequences you know it's
sort of a minimal pessimism issue it's
like well this is the best devil that we
have and I do believe it is because the
the successful societies by any stretch
of the imagination by virtually any
metric are the capitalist societies it's
certainly the case for example that the
Soviet Union demolished far more of its
natural resources to far less productive
consequence than the westin there's
evidence there's suggestions that
between ten and fifteen percent of the
total area of the Soviet Union has been
rendered more or less permanently
uninhabitable so the question is
compared to what
you
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