Climate Change

Climate Change (this is the text of a leaflet distributed recently.)
The Market System Must Go

"Climate change presents a unique challenge to economics: it is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen".

So confirms government adviser, Sir Nicholas Stern, in his report on the Economics of Climate Change published earlier this week. Only instead of concluding that the market system must go he wants to give it a second chance through "green taxes" and especially "carbon trading" (trading in permits to emit carbon dioxide).

But "green taxes" and "carbon trading" are not the solution. These are just tinkering with the market system whereas if carbon emissions are to be stabilised and the consequences of global warming tackled effectively it is the whole market system of competitive production for profit that must go. It has to be replaced by a world without frontiers where the Earth’s natural and industrial resources have become the common heritage of all humanity, and so can be used to produce directly and solely for use not profit. Buying and selling needs to be replaced by giving and taking in accordance with the principle of,
 "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs".
Socialist Party