Capitalism Torched The World, Fascism Rose From The Ashes

Umair Haque (previously) is in the unfortunate position of being both inarguably correct and horribly depressing when he says "catastrophic climate change is probably inevitable." Capitalism was incapable of dealing with climate change, treating damage to human lives and the planet we share as "unpriced negative externalities" rather than evidence that a system whose tenet was the we would achieve optimal outcomes only if we "exploit and abuse one another, not hold each other close, mortal and frail things that [we] are." But capitalism not only failed to come to grips with climate change: it also "ate through people’s towns and cities and communities, then through social systems, then through their savings, and finally, through their democracies," by making the one percent richer, and richer, and richer -- and everyone else poorer and more desperate. The result of that was the dizzying rise of fascism: in the Philippines, Hungary, Italy, America -- and, any day now, Brazil, where the fascist government-in-waiting stands ready to feed the entire Amazon rain forest into big business's wood-chipper. Fascism is arising at the worst possible moment: the moment when democratic accountability and decisive action are the only possible hope of averting millions of deaths and hundreds of millions of immiserated lives. A sense of frustration, of resignation, of pessimism came to sweep the world.