Why are climate protests so strongly intermingled with anti-capitalist movements here in Switzerland?

Why are climate protests so strongly intermingled with anti-capitalist movements here in Switzerland? from Switzerland

46 comments

  1. Because capitalism encourages gain at all costs. The healthy environment is a cost that some (edit: a lot) are willing to give up for gain.

  4. If you assess the drivers of CO2-emissions, you quickly find that CEOs of large companies have the duty to maximise the profit (they will loose their job if they prioritise other things like emission reduction). And investors provide capital to companies to get maximum return out of it. This is also a reason why companies urge the consumers to consume as much as possible, so the revenue can go up. This however is all at the expense of the environment and so the inhabitants of the planet. It appears to be very challenging to modify the system in a way that the excessive use of natural resources (such as the capacity of the athmosphere to take up CO2) is stopped. As Switzerland is small but very strong in investment and management of large corporations, this is probably why these topics are highlighted here. Some argue that technology will solve this all. But there are three problems about it: I) This would practically be a solution by accident. There are also lot’s of new technologies and new business concepts which are not good at all for the planet, such as fracking, deep sea mining or fast fashion. II) Climate change is urgent and technologies we don’t have already now will just be too late. III) When assessing the resources our planet can provide most experts conclude that also with all kinds of technology we will need to significantly scale down the consumption, which is not compatible with capitalist principles. Otherwise loss of biodiversity will ruin the foundations of our civilisation.

    What are your ideas regarding this? How to change the inherent motivations of the key decision makers?

  6. Regardless what you believe, basing your climate plan on the abolition of capitalism means ensuring that it will fail. Most people quite like capitalism. Climate action needs strong mandates and cooperation.

  9. Because the main organisations responsible for the movement, like FFF and the last generation are radical leftwing Organisations, using climate change to shroud their actual ideals. Die Welt wrote a investigative article about the last generation in Germany, showing that these people are just common leftwing radicals.
    It is helpful to remind oneself, that the movement is an AstroTurf-movement.

  11. The protesters care about the environment. So they are informed about the damage done by companies either breaking the laws or lobbying for laxer environmental regulations.
    If you see enough of those environmental desasters caused by profit-maximation it’s understandable to adapt an anti-capitalist standpoint.

  12. They follow the German Grünen.

    They were built by the KGB in the late 70s Trotzkyst University students crowd in Germany.

    Platform was sexual freedom (beyond homosexuality), anti nationalism, internationalism, anti capitalism, economic illiberalism and, their true purpose: anti nuclearism.

    Goal was to oppose US tactical weapons forward positioning, new vectors (cruise missiles) could effectively target Soviet logistical hubs during an invasion. Such an effective deterrence would greatly decrease the cost of US defense of West Germany and pushed USSR even faster to the brink.

    They financed them to gain power in the universities and to establish no mans land hippie camps around US bases in Germany.

    To fit German Weltanschaung, they logically gave them a paganist New Age “Gaia” twist, that is where their actual ecological vision comes from.

    They are childish Hippies, relics of a past no longer relevant.

    Their biggest failure, was that they still to come from political/social science backgrounds, and have absolutely no clue about what they are talking about. (Seeing the absurdity of wood pellet heating in mind blowing for example).

    Staying opposed to nuclear power is one symptom of that…

    Seeing them join with with third worldists movements is funny, apart from “anti capitalism” they are very conservative towards sexuality and totally in favor of nuclear power (or any way to cheaply develop their economies). They have nothing in common with their common allies.

    Seeing what’s going on in Canada and Australia for example, I suspect China is watering the old KGB pipes again.

    What saddens me is that they totally suppress the emergence of true political ecology.

  14. Never ever ask something political on Reddit. You’ll get one answer: capitalism is evil. Will the brave Reddit users provide an alternative to capitalism? Maybe communism? I’m guessing they kind of enjoy capitalism themselves

  17. I can’t explain all of it, but there is an interesting theory that points to the concept of “accelerationism”. ShortFatOtaku is a youtube channel that does a lot of video essays on this topic – TL;DR, the anti-capitalist is interested in picking the most fashionable ideas of the day and trying to convince people that these phenomena are the fault of capitalism, and therefore grounds to destroy the system.

    This is why when the carbon-tax was being voted on, a fraction of the far-left parties put in a note opposing it saying “No to a green capitalism”, even though the carbon tax would have lead to reduced C02 emissions, which was always the stated goal. If that’s all they care about, they would have supported the measure, but this would lead to the issue being less pressing/losing the justification for the revolution of the system.

    To be clear being concerned about the environment is very apolitical, but in my mind this theory explains a lot of the anti-capitalist influence in protest movements etc. because these people are not interested in capitalist solutions, they just want the system to burn.

    EDIT: Added “capitalist solutions” to be more precise

  18. A climate change protest is de facto an anti-capitalist action (willingly or not).
    Climate change reactions and protests are originated by the capitalist resources consuming tempo, ergo a reaction to the capitalist action on ressources consumption.

  19. Because capitalism assumes infinite growth. But our world is finite. There is a limited amount of natural resources and things we can take or impact on the nature. This infinite growth (or “green growth” does not work.

  20. Do they realize that Switzerland is one of the smallest producers of CO2 in the world? Global warming is gonna be decided by Asia and South America. These little protests are completely pointless.

  21. I was actually thrilled when the Fridays for Future movement started and I feel like it was a young and diverse protest group initially. I feared from the very beginning that the movement would shift towards the left and being kind of hijacked by anti-capitalist people. Because it’s not a left topic, it’s important to every single one of us and diverse political movements are probably more likely to be heard from the political system and to achieve useful changes supported by a wide range of people.

    I honestly don’t know why this happened. Maybe the leftist student groups are more persistent or they simply have more time and energy and less to lose as they grow older and visit uni in contrast to those who started apprenticeship. I wonder why younger children do not continue protesting. Was it just a hype of a few specific age groups? Did Corona (and the subsequent massively increasing number of children and adolescents with psychological issues) kill the movement?

    Could also be related to milieus. Human beings are mostly oriented towards the people around them every day (parents, friends, teachers, workmates, etc.) The Sinus milieus are a very interesting model concerning people in society grouped by values, lifestyle and wealth: https://sinus-milieus.ch/

    You are probably more motivated to put your opinion out on the streets loudly and also less interested in a future based on consumation and focus on increasing economic prosperity coming from a family or surrounded by friends with progressive, postmaterialist values and at least middle class wealth.

    And it’s honestly a race against time with a great inability of a world based on fossils to change quickly enough so that nobody would have to be concerned about it. I think it’s no surprise that young people are scared for their future and that some of them tend to radicalize, especially in the political harsh and divided times fueled with multiple global crises we live in.

    Sorry für mein holpriges Englisch.

    Edit: Typo

  22. Because you don’t touch ThE FrEe MarKeT. The great invisible hand will save us all! Big corporations will pay their taxes, the rich will do their part and money will trickle down! The market is great, the free market is mighty and it will fix all the problems it definatly did not create by it’s very existence.

  25. For me. People thinking capitalism has to be abolished have 0 solution and if that IS a solution, they have no idea about the outcome.
    Changing system is not.. putting on another sock the other day.
    Changing system is more like decades of ceippling society which in this time produces probably xtimes worse things, especially that since we started these demos we advanced many areas in tech.

    I get the notion.. i get where this belive comes from. But it’s NO solution pure Imagination. Anyonw so far promoting such thoughpattern has offered 0 solution as of how then, magically would become better.

    Also what i belive:. Capitalism in itself is not the pure cause for this. Problems are often complicated and are results of multiple areas. We can argue that if the right people would have set rules during the beginning, things would be way better. So it’s about laws, rules etc. And not just capitalism. Otherwise no law would work in this area(and we see it’s what people want and wel.. works) we just might be too late.
    But changing a system, fking lol that SURELY would not have helped. Lol

  26. As a lot of people have already given you the reasoning why leftits see capitalism and climate protection as incompatible let me give you a different perspective on this:

    Why are *only* lefties at these protests now? My answer, as a lefty, would be that lefties tend to care about issues the mainstream has to forgotten about. You can see the same when it comes to wars. Lefties don’t only care about Ukraine, they also care about the Kurds, the Yemenites, the Uighurs, etc. Just bc mainstream media does not mention these conflicts much anymore doesn’t mean there won’t be protests by lefties. Even with Ukraine we could see this last saturday. The protest in general was much smaller than last year. But who was there again with a large contingent (although smaller as well)? The lefties.

    Same with climate change protests, the public does not care enough (anymore?) to hit the streets. But who didn’t forget? The lefties. So who are those wo now organize the protests? Lefties. What is the main position of lefties? Anti-capitalism.

  27. Simply because the climate crisis is intermingled with capitalism. You cannot tackle the former without tackling the later, no matter how much green washing and “green capitalism” gets fed to us.

  28. Besides all the arguments about how combating climate change with capitalism is futile because capitalism has driven global warming, it’s also because the people who care enough about our planet also care about other aspects of society that need reform.

    They care. That’s why.

  29. both communism and capitalism as we know them are based on growth, which obviously can’t go on forever. The problem is that we’re unable to reach steady-state economy, it doesn’t matter if it’s free market, semi-regulated, completely regulated. Whatever. As long as we think the economy should keep growing, we’re gonna reap resources from the environment we occupy at an unsustainable pace, and the same is valid for our production of pollutants.
    But don’t worry, the environment is gonna win one way or the other 😉

  30. Because environmentalism without class struggle is gardening [cit.]

    And me, you and everyone could still use plastic straws and fly coach without any environmental issue as 60-70% of the whole CO2/pollution comes from factories. If big companies would get serious about the environment and not just do greenwashing we wouldn’t have to change our lifestyle that much to achieve a sustainable economy/world.

  32. I find it quite ironic, because the people and companies that fund research towards environmentally friendly technologies and such are inherently capitalist

  33. Ugh because large companies are the worst polluters maybe?

    It’s true that everybody can do their part for a better world, but what is needed most of all are regulations enforced by the state to regulate pollutions by big companies. That’s what would have the most impact.

  35. Capitalism is feudalism 2.0 and the oligarchs in charge have spent the last 5 decades covering up or fighting against climate science and sustainability.

  39. OP, do you have any example of capitalist groups that are actually doing good for the environment? IE not offsetting carbons in other countries or following regulations.

  40. It’s easy to see why: Capitalism is about maximising PROFITS at all costs, including the costs to climate and human rights. This is the very essence of pure capitalism.

  44. Because it fits their ideology. They want to “fight” climate changes by all means possible and this is only possible with absolute governmental control. Their ideology needs a system that fits and in their case it’s called communism.

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