Environmental and resource constraints, including skyrocketing oil prices, are increasingly becoming a survival challenge for most developed economies.
In a globalized world the economic effects of planetary constraints are many times higher in developed countries than in developing ones. Developed economies, therefore, have to rapidly move away from their dependence on fossil fuel.
The biggest obstacle to sustainability is the interest based financial system. Most sustainable energy industries don’t make profits high enough to be able to pay interest regularly; therefore financially they are not viable. Increasing use of fossil fuel is the consequence. No amount of public opinion will reverse the pressures and incentives for resource exploitation created by the interest based financial system.
“New Capitalism” will make economies sustainable by eliminating interest and instituting asset tax. Asset tax structure will incorporate incentives for investing in sustainable economic assets and disincentives for unsustainable ones.
Given the deteriorating economic conditions in developed countries and the ongoing shifts in the tectonic plates of global economics and politics it is unlikely that there will be any substantial global action on climate change any time soon. It will be too late to reverse climate change, if we wait for a global movement. Additionally, the current interest based system is likely to push the world towards destructive resource wars which may preclude that movement from ever happening.
New Capitalism will not require us to wish and wait for an overwhelming global movement to address global warming. The current economic crisis is in fact a crisis of sustainability, this crisis is all we need to start addressing climate change and sustainability; the only obstacle is the interest based financial system.
Constraints on the supply of oil and other carbon-fuels will be enough to force action on reducing carbon use and consequently climate change, if we have an economic system that enables a move towards sustainability.
As almost all available tools and strategies for economic recovery has been tried and failed to produce lasting economic growth, demand for a new approach or system will soon become overwhelming. New Capitalism is a new system that will answer the demands for sustainability and that for economic growth. New Capitalism is an idea whose time has come.