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BeckyDem

(8,361 posts)
Fri Sep 24, 2021, 09:59 AM Sep 2021

Rapid Shift to Clean Energy Could Save 'Trillions.' But Corporate-Backed Groups Are Fighting

Rapid Shift to Clean Energy Could Save ‘Trillions.’ But Corporate-Backed Groups Are Fighting the Transition in US Budget Bill


Posted on September 24, 2021 by Yves Smith

( Long but worth the time to read through. )

Yves here. It is striking to see the degree to which businesses actually give top priority to maintaining their management authority over maximizing profits, despite neoliberal theory saying the opposite. Even though the latest example is the clean energy case presented long-form below, Michal Kalecki explained the basis for this behavior in his 1943 essay on the barriers to achieving full employment. As we are seeing now, a (merely somewhat) tight labor market undermines the power of bosses. From Kalecki:

It should be first stated that, although most economists are now agreed that full employment may be achieved by government spending, this was by no means the case even in the recent past. Among the opposers of this doctrine there were (and still are) prominent so-called ‘economic experts’ closely connected with banking and industry. This suggests that there is a political background in the opposition to the full employment doctrine, even though the arguments advanced are economic. That is not to say that people who advance them do not believe in their economics, poor though this is. But obstinate ignorance is usually a manifestation of underlying political motives.

There are, however, even more direct indications that a first-class political issue is at stake here. In the great depression in the 1930s, big business consistently opposed experiments for increasing employment by government spending in all countries, except Nazi Germany. This was to be clearly seen in the USA (opposition to the New Deal), in France (the Blum experiment), and in Germany before Hitler. The attitude is not easy to explain. Clearly, higher output and employment benefit not only workers but entrepreneurs as well, because the latter’s profits rise. And the policy of full employment outlined above does not encroach upon profits because it does not involve any additional taxation. The entrepreneurs in the slump are longing for a boom; why do they not gladly accept the synthetic boom which the government is able to offer them? It is this difficult and fascinating question with which we intend to deal in this article…

We shall deal first with the reluctance of the ‘captains of industry’ to accept government intervention in the matter of employment. Every widening of state activity is looked upon by business with suspicion, but the creation of employment by government spending has a special aspect which makes the opposition particularly intense. Under a laissez-faire system the level of employment depends to a great extent on the so-called state of confidence. If this deteriorates, private investment declines, which results in a fall of output and employment (both directly and through the secondary effect of the fall in incomes upon consumption and investment). This gives the capitalists a powerful indirect control over government policy: everything which may shake the state of confidence must be carefully avoided because it would cause an economic crisis. But once the government learns the trick of increasing employment by its own purchases, this powerful controlling device loses its effectiveness. Hence budget deficits necessary to carry out government intervention must be regarded as perilous. The social function of the doctrine of ‘sound finance’ is to make the level of employment dependent on the state of confidence….

Excerpt: Wind, solar, and batteries are already the cheapest source of electricity and an aggressive shift to clean energy makes more economic sense than a slow one, according to a new study. However, an enormous lobbying effort is underway to block climate policy in the $3.5 trillion budget bill under consideration.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/09/rapid-shift-to-clean-energy-could-save-trillions-but-corporate-backed-groups-are-fighting-the-transition-in-us-budget-bill.html

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Rapid Shift to Clean Energy Could Save 'Trillions.' But Corporate-Backed Groups Are Fighting (Original Post) BeckyDem Sep 2021 OP
Before claiming wind and solar are cheap, one would... NNadir Sep 2021 #1

NNadir

(33,363 posts)
1. Before claiming wind and solar are cheap, one would...
Fri Sep 24, 2021, 07:22 PM
Sep 2021

...do well to open a news feed and check out energy prices in Europe recently.

The wind and solar industries are lipstick on the the gas pig.

They are neither green, clean nor sustainable, popular fantasies aside. They have soaked huge sums of money while doing zero to address climate change.

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