Can “education” solve ecological problems under free market capitalism?
Besides their emphasis on the right to sue polluters, supporters of “free market” capitalism sometimes also address ecological problems like pollution and depletion of resources by calling for public education which will raise people’s awareness to the point of creating enough demand for environment-friendly technologies and products that they will be profitable to produce. This argument, however, ignores three crucially important facts: (1) that environment-friendly technologies and products by themselves are not enough to avert ecological disaster so long as capitalism is based on “grow or die,” which it necessarily is due to the requirements of production for profit (see D.4.1); (2) No amount of education can countermand the effects of market forces. If faced with a tight budget and relatively expensive “ecological” products, consumers and companies may be forced to choose the cheaper, ecologically unfriendly product to make ends meet or survive in the market. Under “free market” ca
