soft ecologists sustainable development

Communist vs. capitalist societies and their involvement with sustainable development.

As soft ecologists we believe that in order to make a country successful, there needs to be a high degree of participation from every citizen in community affairs. Minority groups’ rights have to be taken into consideration at all times. Technology will not be able to solve all of our problems in the future, that is why we need to start thinking about what we do today and the consequences it will bring in the future.

Since the implementation of the capitalist ideology by Adam Smith the way in which resources started to be managed change the way of commerce and to keep producing in big amounts. In the other hand we have Marxism, which has more of utopian ideology that has a more equal distribution of resources according to the needs of the community. In both systems we can see that they have achieve some developments but more in the capitalist we can see that the development and the increase of technology for the use of weapons each time is more frequently. In the case of U.S.A they have a fort named Knox fort in which the only thing they have in is only weapons prepared for war. In the case of communism their development has become more slower because each time the communist countries are less but in the case of Cuba all their population knows how to read and write and also they have achieve high standers of medicine developments thanks to Russia support and also for their skills. U.S.A being known as the biggest capitalist country in the world has a very complex ideology thanks that their image has being always involved in wars and in controversial situation that had affected environments, killed many innocent people and even the fall of their economy. Is specific example is the damage they made at Vietnam that was destroy in a big percentage and, many people died during that time. U.S.A is the country around the world that more contaminates and they show to have the biggest percentage of co2 contributors. Within in the communist society people can only buy and get the resources according to the number of familiars and also to their age. In the capitalist society people buy and keep buying things they already have and even don’t need. Like in the case of people buying the new phone just because is the new version. They both are very complex to maintain but we can see that now a ideas capitalism is more apply with our society.

Capitalistic societies are not sustainable over time in terms of the ecology, of the society and of the economy. Industrialization and the bum of technology presented in our world have cause various negative effects to the environment like water pollution, soil erosion, atomic radiation, loss of biodiversity and much more. Capitalist societies are not able to implement sustainable development into their policies since they are only able to meet the needs of the present but they are compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Communism on the other hand, shares a point of view where all resources are shared; therefore there is equality among people. This contributes to a bigger community identify, which is a crucial belief for us, soft ecologists. Communism societies are able to place society before the individual, which prevents individuals that have too much power to concentrate too much on material aspects that do not lead to a sustainable development.

One of the most important factors in capitalism is that it requires growing. However a system cannot grow forever since there are many limits in our environment, therefore a capitalist society cannot be sustainable.

All things considered, we as soft ecologists believe that in order to make a country and the whole planet succeed, we need to use our resources developing a better economy that is able to sustain our planet and our future communities. Economic crisis of the last years demonstrate that the problem lays in the system itself, thus a total change to a more communist society needs to happen.

The following image represents how as population and economy grows there are many negative aspects growing as well. Each line represents aspects such as Co2 concentration and loss of tropical rainforest and woodland, which are shown, that grow as population grows as well. It is clear then, that as population and economy grows there are many consequences in our planet as well. 

In image number 2 we can see how capitalist societies are clearly bigger pollutants than communist’s societies. The purpose of a capitalist state is to produce as much as they can demand enormous amounts of resources for production. As they demand more resources and produce in excess they also produce waste and pollute in excess. In other words the products of a capitalist state are produced without any conscious, in excess more than the basic needs that people require. That's the reason why many materials and resources are wasted, unwell used and less efficient. This is reflected in countries like the United a states capitalist countries emit a lot more co2 to the environment than communist this is shown in the map in which the darker countries like the us and Australia emit a lot more than China or Cuba.

Image 2

In image number 3, we can see that there is also an effect on the GDP of the countries; the countries that produce the most are not the ones with higher GDP. The effect of GDP on co2 emissions is not directly proportional countries like Norway which are capitalist have high GDP which shows high standards of living in a way but they do not contaminate a lot. The countries that have communist administration methods seek for less production demanding fewer resources and therefore polluting and wasting less. In other words communists produce based on the basic and necessary needs of people, which compared with capitalist based administration produce in excess without consciousness of resources and the pollution they create in the world. 

Image 3

Works Cited

"Capitalism." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 Feb. 2013. Web. 02 Apr. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism>.

"Communism." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 04 Feb. 2013. Web. 02 Apr. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism>.

"Communism vs Capitalism." Buzzle. N.p., n.d. Web. 2 Apr. 2013.

"How Capitalism Is Killing the Earth." The End of Capitalism. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2013.

"What Is Sustainable Development?" What Is Sustainable Development? N.p., 02 Apr. 2013. Web. 02 Apr. 2013.