Grünen Kapitalismus - Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung

sulting credit to another company – allowing the latter, without penalty,
to defer any comparable improvement – or use it for itself, as an offset
to operations of its own whose cleanup it might deem to be too costly.
The dollar-amount of the credit that is extended (whatever the basis on
which a company might originally have received it) is subject to legislation
or administrative ruling. In either case, there is ample room for even
the most direct forms of corruption. 197 More generally, however, even assuming
transparent operation, this arrangement precludes attention to
such systemic matters as questioning the social need for continuance of
particular lines of production.
The ecological crisis reflects the totality of human productive activity,
as currently organized. The capitalist response to the crisis is unavoidably
defined not only by the profit motive but also by the ultimate unit
of decision-making, which is not the community or the whole society,
but the particular enterprise. A capitalist government, despite its theoretical
function of serving the system as a whole, is nonetheless compelled
– absent a powerful countervailing force – to respect enterpriseautonomy,
exercised through the market. As the current dual crisis (economic
and ecological) deepens, pressure to override this custom is likely
to grow. But in the meantime, it continues to be reinforced by countless
institutional ties.
With green capitalism – “green energy,” “green recovery,” etc. – now embraced
as official US policy, it is worth examining more closely the scope
and implications of this commitment. At the highest levels, the changes
from the Bush administration are clear, in that there is now a greater
interest in pursuing forms of energy other than those based on fossil fuels.
But there is no diminution of the cozy working relationship between
government agencies and corporate management. The overall picture is
encapsulated in remarks by Obama’s Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, in a
February 2009 speech:
197 An example is the announcement by Obama’s science adviser John Holdren (Washington
Post, April 9, 2009) that the government would not require payment for all emissions-permits
but would instead (in a concession to lobbying by the energy industry)
give away some of them for free.
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