“Prince Charles has called for an end to capitalism as we know it in order to save the planet from global warming,” the London Telegraph reports (warning before clicking over: the Telegraph hasn’t yet given up on annoying auto-play videos just yet):
In a speech to business leaders in London, the Prince said that a “fundamental transformation of global capitalism” was necessary in order to halt “dangerously accelerating climate change” that would “bring us to our own destruction”.
What capitalism? To paraphrase that sage economic journalist Don Henley, England hasn’t had that spirit there since 1939. Initially it lost it in response to another world figure who wanted to bring capitalism under his boot — and then permanently, in its own quest to nationalize its socialism:
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Charles goes on to bloviate:
He called for companies to focus on “approaches that achieve lasting and meaningful returns” by protecting the environment, improving their employment practices and helping the vulnerable to develop a new “inclusive capitalism”.
The Prince was taking part in his first major UK public engagement since sparking a diplomatic row last week by likening the behaviour of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, to Adolf Hitler.
In a politically-charged speech at the Inclusive Capitalism conference, the Prince said: “I remember when the Iron Curtain came down there was a certain amount of shouting about the triumph of capitalism over communism. Being somewhat contrary, I didn’t think it was quite as simple as that. I felt that unless the business world considered the social, community and environmental dimensions, we might end up coming full circle.”
Charles is perhaps more right than he knows. As Ayn Rand wrote in December of 1962, and republished in her early 1960s non-fiction anthology, The Virtue of Selfishness:
Socialism may be established by force, as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics — or by vote, as in Nazi (National Socialist) Germany. The degree of socialization may be total, as in Russia — or partial, as in England. Theoretically, the differences are superficial; practically, they are only a matter of time. The basic principle, in all cases, is the same.
The alleged goals of socialism were: the abolition of poverty, the achievement of general prosperity, progress, peace and human brotherhood. The results have been a terrifying failure — terrifying, that is, if one’s motive is men’s welfare.
Instead of prosperity, socialism has brought economic paralysis and/or collapse to every country that tried it. The degree of socialization has been the degree of disaster. The consequences have varied accordingly.
England, once the freest and proudest nation of Europe, has been reduced to the status of a second-rate power and is perishing slowly from hemophilia, losing the best of her economic blood: the middle class and the professions. The able, competent, productive, independent men are leaving by the thousands, migrating to Canada or the United States, in search of freedom. They are escaping from the reign of mediocrity, from the mawkish poorhouse where, having sold their rights in exchange for free dentures, the inmates are now whining that they’d rather be Red than dead.
As Mark Steyn noted in our interview last week, England would only get worse in the following decade, until Margaret Thatcher’s much-needed reforms. And now Charles would like to take them “full circle” — which is a polite euphemism in this case for circling the drain.
Oh and speaking of Gaia and socialism, as we noted, Google could barely rouse themselves yesterday to commemorate Memorial Day, only sticking an 80X70 pixel American flag and yellow ribbon on their homepage sometime around mid-day.
But for proto enviro-crank Rachel Carson, who “was to DDT what Jenny McCarthy is to measles vaccine,” as Iowahawk noted today on Twitter, that’s another story entirely.
Update: “The Left Doesn’t Really Believe in Climate Change,” Jon Gabriel writes at Ricochet:
Every time a real-world solution is provided to a promised calamity, leftist leaders move the goalposts. To be sure, many well-meaning parishioners have bought the con and piously observe the demanding rituals of earth worship. But the high priests still jet around the globe, chasing checks from energy tycoons to build monstrous mansions along doomed coastlines.
That’s because the Left doesn’t really believe in climate change. Their true religion is raising taxes, increasing government, impeding capitalism and reducing national sovereignty. Climate change is just a temporary excuse to achieve those ends.
Read the whole thing.™
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