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Food for thought:
Can Capitalism be tamed?
Date: March 05, 2001 03:54 PM
Author: Yasmina Zaidman
(yzaidman@ashoka.org)
Subject: Food for thought: can capitalism be tamed?
All of these articles start from the basic premise that the market can be employed as a tool for positive change. There are those however, who feel that the market and the dominance of capitalism as an economic, social, and political model worldwide, are fundamentally responsible for the environmental degradation and social injustice that we see everywhere. Do readers feel that capitalism can be tamed and weilded in positive ways, or that it is flawed in some way that can only be addressed through a radical departure from our reliance on markets and a globalized economy?
Date:
March 05, 2001 07:17 PM
Author: jeff austin
(jeffrey_austin@catellus.com)
Subject: can capitalism be tamed?
A person or organization will never be able to "tame" capitalism. As long as there are resources available and willing labor, capitalism will continue unabated. I say this because of the 6 billion or so people on the earth, one can reasonably assume that at least one-twelfth of them will be greedy enough to cast aside resource limitations and environmental concerns in the interest of CASH. The real question to be asked here is, "can capitalism be taught to look (not that) far into the future, especially when resources become truly scarce." If one is able to teach capitalists how to look farther ahead than, say, 10 years, they may be able to realize the benefits of sustainablity.
I feel that sometimes the rhetoric of an argument can bias it from the beginning. For instance, the use of the word "tame" will make any true capitalist cringe and shy away from the "taming" process and will ultimately challenge the capitalist to continue on in their wild ways. Instead, why not word the argument in a way that utilizes capitalist buzzwords like "long term profit opportunity", or something of similar nature.
Unless there is some catastrophic event that drastically reduces available resources, environmentalists MUST learn to exist within the capitalist framework or perish.
Date:
March 13, 2001 12:21 AM
Author: William Robertson
(william.robertson@alonobis.com)
Subject: Use the System
The solution is beyond "existing" within the capitalist framework, entrepreneurs and other social and environmental executives must be able to thrive on the capitalist framework; succeed from within, speaking, as you said, the language of money.
As capitalist environmentalism becomes an income rich career path, momentum and sector prosperity will propel positive change at ever increasing speeds and quantities.
Date:
March 28, 2001 07:41 AM
Author: Rose
(rosebugler@hotmail.com)
Subject: Social Entrepreneurship and Foot and Mouth
I live to the south of the lake district in Cumbria England surrounded by the catastrophe that is growing around the foot and mouth outbreak. Peoples entire lives are being destroyed on the premise of protecting an export market that only exists to counteract an equivalent import market. We are suffering the final effects of short term global approach to farming. Local low impact farming has always been the tradition in this area and so it seems so unfair that our small tenant farmers are suffering like this. The "treatment" for the disease is being unduly influenced by the need to protect an export market. The disease itself could be handled, it is the treatment that is causing the problem. Implementing old thinking about culling and burning of carcasses seems to have spread the disease further, no one seems to have read the reports about the last outbreak. Many people had been working to find ways for developing small local markets for livestock and encouraging people to buy local before this happened, all the farmers markets have been shut down, restrictions upon movement have effectively put entire communities into quarentine. It is so demoralising it is hard to see how we will recover from this. This may not seem to have much bearing upon social entrpreneurship but I suppose i hope that it is through s/e that our future must lie.
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