Читать книгу The Unintended Consequences of Technology - Chris Ategeka - Страница 22

The free market can only take us where we need to go. Negative externalities such as carbon pollution must be properly priced and policed. The rules of the game need to be such that competition is free, fair, and respectful of the health of humanity and our planet. Only then do we have a chance at saving the planet.

Unfortunately, markets do not police themselves. They must be balanced by transparent, capable, democratically accountable governments. As you will see in Chapter 2, we need to strengthen the power of regulatory bodies, which are slowly diminishing. In tech companies, regulations are demonized and companies do all they can to keep them at the bare minimum. They couldn't care less if they existed at all. Meanwhile, these same companies care a great deal about their shareholder returns, leading to the rise of shareholder primacy. With more money in the hands of the shareholders and the leadership, in comes lobbying and an increasing role of money in politics. This weakening and systematic attack on government as a necessary or effective institution to regulate capitalism is largely absent.

As a result, one of the fastest routes to profitability is often to persuade politicians to write the rules in your favor. Firms feel free to dump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, for example, while spending hundreds of millions of dollars to lobby against carbon regulation.

We can rebuild trust in the political system, and with it a government that is genuinely responsive to ordinary people, if we can get the money out of politics and stop tolerating business attacks on government. We need to enable government to regulate fossil fuel emissions and provide positive incentives to encourage corporations to embrace low-carbon solutions. That's why I believe getting money out of politics and enforcing carbon emission policing are both very vital in mitigating the UCOTs of capitalism.