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Comment by revscat | Hacker News Reader

Neoliberal economics — or really any economic theory — is not going to prevent an apocalypse.

Nope they can't price this in; and would look and whistle the other way if they had too.

Do you want a climate change dictator?

Dictator? I simply said the market/and economists can't price in damage to our environment and won't. If you feel any regulation on a corporation is being a dictator than maybe the answer is yes in your context. We've had to dictate the direction many times in the past when industry has become to exploitative of either labor or resources.

The market certainly can be regulated in such a way as to effectively price in the costs.

If we can have companies following constructs such as Sarbanes-Oxley then they can most certainly follow the constraints of environmental constructs.

Unless you mean that certain vested interests will bankroll politicians to cut regulation? Then yes, that is a very big problems (see: Koch industries buying their way out of environmental legislation) but not insurmountable.

So I don’t have the answer here. I do like Jay Inslee’s argument for simply making mandates to cut emissions and carbon usage. Ie mandating ever increasingly efficient fuel ratings on vehicles. He says that’s an easier policy change than forcing costs on people through laws or created markets that can be undone in a following cycle.

It’s all got to be on the table and considered though. The entire energy footprint of almost all of the industrial revolution through to current needs to be undone in some way. There’s an inherent requirement on the energy that must be expended in order to do that, by the laws of thermodynamics/physics.

Without some form of government or entity to dictate and enforce the laws the free market wouldn't stay free for long, country would turn into Somalia quickly. Why is this different?

Are the laws of physics democratic?

Maybe? You’re still seem to be thinking about this in anachronistic terms. Every political and economic philosophy is based upon the unspoken assumption that there will always be a climate hospitable to human life. This means that neoliberalism is flawed at its core. Every economic and social theory that does not start with addressing the external costs of carbon dioxide is incorrect at its foundation.

they want apocalypse, so they can sell safety

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