A dear friend who’s throughly wedded to market ideas about societies (happy to see them as economies) was…

A dear friend who’s throughly wedded to market ideas about societies (happy to see them as economies) was discussing climate change with me. I shared this quote with him. Here’s how it unfolded. 1/7 https://t.co/CbwE3nOa9x https://t.co/SWsZmleu3z

He believes that the change needed will come when the market is favourable. Meaning when the shift needed is the cheaper option for people to choose. When EVs are cheaper than ICE vehicles, for example. 2/7

I responded by saying look at groceries. Already cheaper at somewhere like Aldi. But most people don’t shop there. Prices don’t drive societies, just as information doesn’t, two tenets of economies-as-societies. 3/7

The example I gave next was flying to the moon and the world wars. Did we achieve either of those things by making prices cheaper for everybody in the ‘market’? It’s ridiculous to even say it. But this is the rabbit hole market-based fantasy leads us down. 4/7

The change needed won’t be gradual, it won’t come from little tweaks to prices. It will be government-sponsored cataclysmic shifts to the way we live. A breaking of our status quo. Just as the Chinese are currently doing, and their industrial output has been doing TO us. 5/7

The Chinese coupled the massive disruption to their status quo. Just as the Victorians did in England, in the 19th century. Here in the West economy fantasies won’t allow it. So we’ll be the ones smashed. 6/7

My economy friend won’t budge, the status quo never does. It’s his team. We’re still great friends. Teams shift when they’re led to shift. By massive disruption. Fighting world wars was catastrophically disrupting. But that fight was led. /end