The suspected folly of capitalism is that it provides excellent living standards to us now, at the expense of environment and natural resourses for future generations. The later human "entrants" would be big loosers compared to us. How high is the risk of this sad scenario? Does capitalism needs expansion like us air? Wouldn't "leftish" impluses allow us to live prosperous times much longer?
We'd be in a bad situation. That's why I don't see a post-civilization society.
Does capitalism needs expansion like us air?
Yes, but not of resource consumption. It needs expanding profits, expanding economies but that's something else. More t-shirts, more cars, more downloads, higher end food, more services. Take a pound of coffee beans, make it all at home, drink it all at the 7-11, drink it all at the fancy coffee bar. Same pound of coffee, similar other resources, but to a capitalist economy very different values. What uses more resources - one thousand dollars worth of lawyer is the same one thousand dollars as a thousand dollars of cheap t-shirts at Walmart, not the same resource input. The resource question is independent of the capitalism one. The former is about what standard of living we can have on a sustainable basis, the latter is about how society is organized. If the government sets rules that force the private sector to use less natural resources, it will use less. Just like higher wages and greater equality in the post WWII period didn't cause a collapse of the capitalist system. The capitalists will have to be dragged kicking and screaming economic doom, just as they did then, and their predictions will be wrong, just as they were then.
Indeed, capitalism is supposed to be robust and function under many regimes, perhaps under any restrictions of natural environment and social agreement. After all, what is the difference between physical restrictions and social restrictions? A climate change may restict your buisiness freedoms muh more harshly than a cautios government policy.
Isn't this ironic that today's economy has to be massaged so subtly by the government?
Nevertheless, can capitalism expand much without the consumption growth? It must be able to reduce the stupendous waste of today's operations, if there exists a conceivable package of sufficient incentives. But how much growth may it have without material production?
