The Case for Capitalism: A Comment on Jaroslav Vanek's “Capitalism, Economic Democracy, and Ecological Destruction of Our Planet”

Jaroslav Vanek argues that the ecological degradation of the planet is more severe in a capitalist system than it would be in a fully democratic one. At the heart of the ecological preservation question is how the classic public goods problem can be solved, and we are skeptical that a fully democratic system could solve this problem any better than the capitalist system, particularly given that consumer demand for environmental protection appears to be income elastic and that the capitalist system can be expected to generate higher levels of societal wealth than the democratic system. While we disagree with Vanek's conclusion and with many of its underlying arguments, we agree that the ecological well-being of the planet is of great importance, that it is expected that economic activity will have ecological implications, and, therefore, that it is well worth comparing the expected ecological impacts of alternative socio-economic systems.