I am an admirer of Dahr Jamail’s reporting. In this article, Oceans In Crisis, Jamail tells us that we are losing the oceans. He reports on the human destruction of the oceans. It is a real destruction with far-reaching consequences.
That fact is indisputable.
From my perspective the human destruction of the oceans is yet more evidence of the ruinous nature of private capitalism. In capitalism there is no thought for the future of the planet and humanity, only for short-term profits and bonuses. Consequently, social costs are ignored.
Capitalism can work if social or external costs can be included in the costs of production. However, the powerful corporations are able to block a socially functioning capitalism with their political campaign contributions.
Consequently, capitalists themselves make the capitalist system dysfunctional. We may have reached the point where the external costs of production are larger than the value of capitalist output. Economist Herman Daly makes a convincing case that this is the fact.
While the powerful capitalists use the environment for themselves as a cost-free dumping ground, the accumulating costs threaten everyone’s life. It appears that nothing can be done, because the oceans are ‘common property.’ No one owns them, so no one can protect them and their contents.
This post was published at Paul Craig Roberts on March 30, 2015.
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