Only capitalism can save the planet

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Only capitalism can save the planet

10 Aug 2010

Speakers: Kate Jennings, Simon Longstaff, Paul Gilding, Lucy Turnbull, Ross Gittins, Steve Keen, Geoffrey Cousins

Why Now?

The core social claim of economics of whatever school, Robert Skidelsky reminds us, is that we should make sure everyone is decently off, and only then become virtuous, green and wise. Two recent debates examine the proposition in detail: in London, Archbishop Rowan Williams and his co-author Larry Elliott talk about the need to re-moralise economic choice and in Sydney, a panel of eminent and straight-talking Aussies pit capitalism against the survival of the human project.

How do you like criticism delivered: the earnest tones of the Archbishop – a sort of patient school teacher delivery? Or biting sarcasm from Down Under, like Paul Gilding praising capitalism for being so brilliant as to create its own remedies: it makes us depressed and invents Prozac? But maybe it also creates other cures, for example in the form of another Zac, Zac Goldsmith. The ecologist turned Tory MP argues for a renewal of local self-government as the way to return the economy to the role of servant, not master.

Event information:

Critics of capitalism have been crowing ever since the onset of the global financial crisis.

Capitalism has been blamed for nearly every one of the earth’s ills – poverty, pestilence, exploitation, environmental degradation, the lot!

Arguing in favour of the motion "Only capitalism can save the planet" are Lucy Turnbull, Ross Gittins, and Geoffrey Cousins.

Lucy Turnbull opens the debate by acknowledging that the past few years have seen the most concerted questioning of the merits of capitalism since Depression, but contests that whilst there are flaws in the contemporary model, capitalism is at heart an adaptive creature.

Ross Gittins' starts with a familiar list of doom-filled facts about the unsustainable growth of the population and concludes that making the appropriate changes to the capitalist system offers “the best chance we have to save the planet.”

Geoffrey Cousins feels compelled to argue that capitalist countries can save the planet, however, is simply because only they have the financial and intellectual capacity to do so.

Arguing against the motion are Paul Gilding, Steve Keen, and Kate Jennings.

Paul Gilding states that the main danger lying latent within the capitalist system is that it is simply not sustainable.

Steve Keen states that talking about capitalism is problematic because it means different things to different people. Everyone describes their own dream of what it might be. The dream of capitalism is just that, it turns into a nightmare in the real world.

Kate Jennings asserts that capitalism is infamous for making a mess, and government, rather than leading, often runs behind trying to clean up. But in terms of their climate change initiatives, she argues that good government will save the world, not capitalism.

Thank you for IQ2 Australia for allowing us to use this video.

Speakers for the motion

Ross Gittins

Economics Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald
Paul Gilding

Former Executive Director, Greenpeace International
Lucy Turnbull

Businesswoman; Director of the board, Melbourne IT

Chair

Simon Longstaff

Executive Director, St. James Ethics Centre, Sydney

Speakers against the motion

Geoffrey Cousins

Australian community leader, businessman, activist and writer
Kate Jennings

Poet, essayist, short-story writer and novelist
Steve Keen

Associate Professor of Economics & Finance, University of Western Sydney