It's Eve, Theyby on Nostr: Something I was taught as a child was that in #capitalism, competition causes ...
Something I was taught as a child was that in #capitalism, competition causes companies to make things better and cheaper because if they don't, their competitors will take up all their market share.
That naively assumes that there will always be someone willing to undercut the competition with something as good or better. It has always been possible to compete in the other direction: See who can cut corners most deeply.
In the U.S. at least, we're living in that world now. Essentially every brand name our parents trusted in tools and appliances is just a label that gets licensed out to whomever will pay the trademark holder the most money.
This isn't a globalization issue. This isn't a protectionism issue. If our government held manufacturers accountable to support and repair the products they manufacture, things would turn around.
In the same way, if we made manufacturers responsible for the safe disposal of their goods (and all of its packaging), it wouldn't be economical to manufacture in this unsustainable, planet-destroying way.
It doesn't even require destroying capitalism. It just requires that we stop allowing the powerful to make the rest of us pay the expense of their largess.
(But also death to capitalism. I'm just writing things this way because it's entirely possible for liberals, people who buy appliances, and the previous iteration of conservatives to be my allies on this topic.)
That naively assumes that there will always be someone willing to undercut the competition with something as good or better. It has always been possible to compete in the other direction: See who can cut corners most deeply.
In the U.S. at least, we're living in that world now. Essentially every brand name our parents trusted in tools and appliances is just a label that gets licensed out to whomever will pay the trademark holder the most money.
This isn't a globalization issue. This isn't a protectionism issue. If our government held manufacturers accountable to support and repair the products they manufacture, things would turn around.
In the same way, if we made manufacturers responsible for the safe disposal of their goods (and all of its packaging), it wouldn't be economical to manufacture in this unsustainable, planet-destroying way.
It doesn't even require destroying capitalism. It just requires that we stop allowing the powerful to make the rest of us pay the expense of their largess.
(But also death to capitalism. I'm just writing things this way because it's entirely possible for liberals, people who buy appliances, and the previous iteration of conservatives to be my allies on this topic.)