That’s around 3-4x the average American annual output… in a single hour. Thats a little over 30,000x the annual output of your average American (and much higher for non-Americans)
He’s like 20 million times wealthier than the median American so from a true unfettered capitalism perspective he deserves to emit WAY more, which is obviously disgusting.
Edit: all the downvotes because you don’t like how capitalism only values capital and nothing else - don’t be mad at me, that’s just reality 🤣 This guy is literally totally free in our system to emit as much CO2 as he can afford to. He can fly his empty planes and sail his empty yachts back and forth across the world 24/7/365 if he wants, and our society does nothing to regulate or stop it.
I don’t think there’s any reason to think emissions should be linear with respect to wealth.
It is definitely fair to say people in high wealth positions will emit more. In the above example of Taylor Swift, even if she cuts her emissions to a minimum, she is always going to emit a lot more than the average person because she simply travels way more than the average person in just the process of performing her job. The criticism is that there are lots of things the super wealthy do which are flagrantly bad for the environment, for generally a small personal convenience.
I’m still not sure I agree with that, a large part of why stuff like this is possible is because our markets do not account for climate externalities. So he’s in effect only paying a fraction of the realized cost (as is everyone else, just the average persons actions are usually less discretionary)
Also ftr I hate that your being downvoted, you should downvote bad comments not comments you just disagree with
What mechanism would exist in unfettered capitalism to force him to pay the externalized costs? I believe that requires state (government) intervention, which means it’s no longer unfettered
In pure capitalism? Basically none. In theory at least some of the apparent cost should be passed through, as the sellers themselves are subject to the impacts of the externality, but in practice the costs are so detached and undefined that this doesn’t really happen outside of some more niche cases.
The inability to account externality costs is actually one of the most significant flaws of pure capitalism
Because the only thing that’s valued in a capitalist system is money. Poor people are not protected from pollution by the rich because they can’t afford to protect themselves.
There is no “valuation of emissions” in true unfettered capitalism. There is only the fact that the richer you are, the more you can afford to emit, pretty much linearly. I could never emit what a billionaire does because I can’t afford a private yacht or jet. I literally just don’t have the money to do so.
Ah, I see what you’re saying. I think your use of the word “deserves” is what threw me (and looks like other people) off here. I agree that in a capitalist system he as able to emit far more than the rest of us of course. However much he’s able to.
Capitalism as an economic system makes no sort of moral judgment that the word “deserves” implies though. That’s something that we project onto it.
Money is how resources are allocated in the system. It’s quite literally saying that those with more money deserve more resources than those with less.
Again, that is just not present in capitalism as an economic theory. There’s arguments to be made about capitalism as a sociological construct / how it exists in different systems around the world, and how that differs from capitalism as an economic theory, and how ethics enters there. But capitalism as an economic theory does not prescribe any moral judgment on its members.
I say all this as a leftist who hasn’t shopped at Target or Amazon for the better part of half a decade. I am not arguing for capitalism in any way.
We might just not have anything else to say here. I think I’m more or less repeating myself.
The billionaires aren't going to let you actually suck, slobber, devour, tickle your tummy from the inside, mouth hug, choke, bruise your throat, or make your mascara run on it so you don't need to boot lick so hard lil bro.
There's people you can do this for who will actually use your mouth like you want.
133
u/danfay222 rm -rf / May 04 '25
That’s around 3-4x the average American annual output… in a single hour. Thats a little over 30,000x the annual output of your average American (and much higher for non-Americans)