"There's nothing like a heat dome to get people asking how those in power can possibly be allowing this planetary climate disaster to unfold without taking the measures needed to alleviate the horrors we so irrefutably face.
I've seen several comments today that argue that the capitalists should understand that a catastrophe of this magnitude will actually disrupt their ventures and eliminate their sources of profit.
This is a very understandable position to take and, from the standpoint of rationality and self-preservation, it makes a great deal of sense. However, it unfortunately fails to understand the basic driving forces and activities that distinguish capitalism. I'm going to set this out in a way that I hope will be helpful.
Under previous systems of class-based exploitation, let's take feudalism, the exploiters were under much less pressure, as they acquired the wealth that others had created through their labour. The feudal lord had his peasants produce for him but was relatively free of competition with his rivals. He wanted to build finer castles than them and hold more impressive banquets but he wasn't having to outperform them in the marketplace on a daily basis.
It's different for the capitalists and their rivalry is much more intense. They invest their capital in the means to turn out products. This includes the hiring of workers who only get paid for a portion of the labour they perform and the unpaid part forms the basis for the capitalist's profits.
However, they can't simply deposit the unpaid labour in the bank. It has to be 'valorized' and this can only be done by selling products as commodities. The problem that has to be overcome is that the other capitalists are doing exactly the same thing so the process becomes highly competitive.
To sell the products at a profit, the capitalists must beat their rivals by producing products that are more popular or by selling cheaper while still bringing a solid profit. To do that they must produce at a lower cost, which means having a technological edge or being able to extract more unpaid labour.
Assuming they manage to make an adequate profit in this process, the capitalists reinvest a big chunk and go round again in an ongoing process of accumulation that increases in scale.
The thing about this continuing effort to make profits and accumulate is that it is a highly competitive undertaking that has a logic of its own. The result of losing out in the competitive scramble is to go out of business and be replaced by other capitalists.
If anyone gets squeamish and decides that the workers really should be paid more or that resources need to be devoted to ensuring that the environmental impacts of the productive process are reduced, the competition is given an edge that will put the soft-hearted capitalist out of business. The state may step in to limit the rapacity of the capitalists in order to contain the threat of resistance or preserve a reasonable level of public health but this is a very limited and declining function.
When it comes to the threat of climate change, the exact same mechanisms are at work. The fossil fuel companies have known for decades that they were undermining the basis for life on earth but they have spared no effort to protect their flow of profits from any and all attempts to address the planetary disaster they are responsible for. They are invested in a vast infrastructure of extraction and supply from which they draw their profits. They won't stop doing this willingly and, if any of them did, they'd be elbowed aside and replaced by their competitors.
You may still say that this is horrible and irrational and it is from the standpoint of the survival of humanity and of many other species. Yet, the process of accumulation under capitalism is a treadmill that keeps turning even if some try to leap off of it.
It is vital to understand that appeals to think of the horrible consequences of disregarding climate change or even to consider long-term self-interest are futile. We can only limit the destructiveness of the capitalists and their political agents through mass action that threatens their profits. We will only be able to secure a sustainable relationship with the natural world by bringing the destructive system of capitalism to an end."
