> What upsets me so much about this unnecessary waste
To the degree ethics (which I am using here to mean, accounting for negative externalities) are not incorporated into economics, with very few exceptions, every company will optimize their profits with no thought to externalities.
Shareholders might care about waste as individuals, but are not coordinated in anyway that moves corporations. And any corporations that would like to be more ethical still have to compete with those that are not. Some with large margins can do that, but most cannot.
Asking/convincing companies or individuals to be voluntarily ethical, one at a time, is not a solution. It is asking the wiser people to de-power themselves, in a way that just increases the opportunity, profits and incentives for less-altruistic actors.
What the EU is doing is good. But I would like to see a consistent economic governance effort to avoid all significant negative externalities. Both the environment and the economy's value creation and net wealth, are better off without colossal destruction of value happening off the books.
Dealing with each externality as if it were an isolated problem fritters away resources and time, and throws away the clarity and commonality that would allow consistent reforms to happen. We don't have that time to waste.
"Asking/convincing companies or individuals to be voluntarily ethical, one at a time, is not a solution. ...just increases the opportunity, profits and incentives for less-altruistic actors."
Exactly, it's why we need to reintroduce regulations many of which were removed or weakened from the late 1970s onward. Moreover, we need intelligent regulation not just gut reaction to an immediate problem. That's proving much more difficult (reigning in the excesses of laissez-faire capitalism that were let out of the bag ~50 years ago with deregulation won't be easy).
Absolutely. Poorly thought out, too strict, performative, or obsolete regulations create opposition for any regulation.
I also think we need to co-opt the “enemy” to be regulated, in their terms. E.g. get all the major fossil fuel CFO’s in a room, and figure out the financials encouraging green energy, and away from polluting and geopolitically complicated energy, that would make cold business sense for them.
Include and involve the military, insurance giants, large food security/supply chain companies like Cargill, reactor companies, big enterprise customers that want rapid energy growth, and all the other major sectors that take climate change and energy expansion seriously and will get value out of a more stable world, with better energy technology in practical terms. The people that CEOs respect.
Once the biggest resisters can profit off not resisting, you will see a genuine change of heart. That can sound very cynical, but it’s just how people are. “First, I shall do no damage to my own turf.” But once they take a new position, their power doesn’t just cease it’s friction, but becomes another rocket for progress.
Whatever tax breaks and other incentives it took, to make green their best move, would be worth it. Bribe? Maybe. Better understood as the cost of faster consensus and coordination. Where the price of waiting for everyone to change due to the hardship that is being locked in, is so much higher.
On the other hand, after consensus, change itself needs to happen smoothly, not suddenly. Incentives and disincentive need to operate slower than we might want to make change practical. The most important thing is that those reinforcers are credible. Companies are forward looking. They will naturally move their investments today where the profits will credibly be tomorrow. They don’t need to feel pain, just know what to do to avoid it, and most importantly, prosper.
> include and involve the military, insurance giants, large food security/supply chain companies like Cargill, reactor companies, big enterprise customers that want rapid energy growth, and all the other major sectors that take climate change and energy expansion seriously and will get value out of a more stable world, with better energy technology in practical terms. The people that CEOs respect
Oh yeah let the corpos and MIC rule the world even more than they already do, great idea :)
We should really reform the "free market" IMO. It is way too free now. They get all the benefits and none of the responsibilities.
> Despite growing corruption, there are still competent people in these organizations to work with.
This is the part I strongly doubt. Well, not the competence exactly. But the motives. These people don't make their own decisions, they do what the board and shareholders want. And all they want is money. It's the only thing that counts for them. So the only solution is making these externalities have a cost. Business won't collaborate on that because it's only a negative for them.
I don't believe in public/private collaboration anymore. In Holland that was tried way too long.
> The military has labeled climate change a global destabilizer for years. Insurance companies and farmers are dealing with the fallout already.
Yet they continue to run full steam to meddle in oil-producing countries. I doubt they will keep this climate change classification up anyway as it is directly in contradiction to the dogmas of the current administration.
> Yet they continue to run full steam to meddle in oil-producing countries.
That isn't military strategy. That is the politicians choosing oil over alternatives and delegating action accordingly.
The military can warn about the threat of climate change or China's growing technical, manufacturing, scientific and potential AI dominance. But it can't (and shouldn't) set the elected leaders' agenda, or refuse to implement it.
A non-governing military is an anti-corruption firewall.
> This is the part I strongly doubt. Well, not the competence exactly. But the motives
There have been streams of people in power resigning as their particular role gets pinched between corruption or resisting. When that stops, maybe there won't be anyone competent with good motives left. But many people are quietly doing the best they can in the meantime, and hoping for a turnaround in the future.
> And all they want is money.
Yes, for those directly profiting from damage, we are going to have to address that directly if we want to acheive change.
But large segments of the economy are being financially hurt by that damage. So there are many natural allies.
For social media, I think we need some hard laws, to give regulators some teeth. For energy, where the damagers are also value producers (we can't just cut off fossil fuels instantly), whatever financials it takes to straighten that out will result in a net benefit.
People on the right often want companies to be able to do whatever they want, ignoring the damage. People on the left often want to eliminate damage, without any cost. Neither of those viewpoints leads us anywhere but off a cliff.
Boldness here is our friend. The sirens of making little changes, or imagining a big change won't take tremendous coordination or cost something, are mirages.
> I don't believe in public/private collaboration anymore. In Holland that was tried way too long.
That leaves a coupe, which isn't going to produce any improvement. "Tear it down" rarely morphs into building anything. "MAGA" as a soft coupe (democratically elected, undemocratic policies) is a mild example.
It's easy to shoot down the potential for change. But that isn't a plan, a step, or a mindset that has any chance of achieving anything.
Although I 1000% relate to the many reasons we have for cynicism and apathy.
Since the 1970s, some industries were deregulated, but overall legal and compliance complexity has still grown over time, according to all studies that I'm aware of on the subject of the regulatory burden.
The studies indicate that a few large early regulations aimed at clear externalities — like major air pollution — delivered substantial benefits on the balance, but many of the smaller restrictions added afterward, especially as they accumulated, mostly generated paperwork (huge compliance industries) and fixed costs (that made smaller firms less competitive) with diminishing returns.
The sensible goal should be to massively reduce the regulatory thicket, while keeping the small set of restrictions that have clear, major benefits and are straightforward to enforce, and replacing the rest with simpler standards or pricing mechanisms that prevent negative externalizations without dragging down productivity through top-down micromanagement of the economy that regiments the actions of private citizens.
To the degree ethics (which I am using here to mean, accounting for negative externalities) are not incorporated into economics, with very few exceptions, every company will optimize their profits with no thought to externalities.
Shareholders might care about waste as individuals, but are not coordinated in anyway that moves corporations. And any corporations that would like to be more ethical still have to compete with those that are not. Some with large margins can do that, but most cannot.
Asking/convincing companies or individuals to be voluntarily ethical, one at a time, is not a solution. It is asking the wiser people to de-power themselves, in a way that just increases the opportunity, profits and incentives for less-altruistic actors.
What the EU is doing is good. But I would like to see a consistent economic governance effort to avoid all significant negative externalities. Both the environment and the economy's value creation and net wealth, are better off without colossal destruction of value happening off the books.
Dealing with each externality as if it were an isolated problem fritters away resources and time, and throws away the clarity and commonality that would allow consistent reforms to happen. We don't have that time to waste.