No Market-Driven Solution?

British journalist Paul Mason seems to echo Naomi Klein’s This Changes Everything in his claim that There Is No Market-Driven Solution To Our Climate Catastrophe

But although I am no fan of concentrated private capital I think both of them beg the question by overlooking the constraints that must inevitably be included in the definition of any market. These almost always are expected to include laws against theft and murder, and the solution to all environmental problems including climate is just to also include the prohibition of any permanent environmental impact. If “dumping” of wastes into the atmosphere and oceans was just flat out prohibited (with the onus being on any economic actor to retain and maintain control over any by-products of its activity) then the market would immediately favour whatever source of energy (or anything else) could be made most cheaply within that constraint.

(I am not claiming that this would be easy, just that it is quite independent of solving the problem of fair distribution of wealth and/or opportunity)

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