Capitalism: urge, splurge, purge

The essence of capitalism according to Monbiot. This constant cycle of over consuming whatever we get the urge for is the necessary impetus for capitalism. Ever increasing economic growth is required to facilitate this destructive cycle. And the result is climate chaos. From the article:

"Continued economic growth depends on continued disposal: unless we rapidly junk the goods we buy, it fails. The growth economy and the throwaway society cannot be separated. Environmental destruction is not a byproduct of this system: it is a necessary element. The environmental crisis is an inevitable result not just of neoliberalism – the most extreme variety of capitalism – but of capitalism itself. Even the social democratic (Keynesian) kind depends on perpetual growth on a finite planet: a formula for eventual collapse. But the peculiar contribution of neoliberalism is to deny that action is necessary: to insist that the system, like Greenspan’s financial markets, is inherently self-regulating. The myth of the self-regulating market accelerates the destruction of the self-regulating Earth."

See this prior post for Monbiot's new story to replace capitalism.