“Socialism, at least as envisioned by left-libertarians, such as myself, involves common or worker ownership and workers’ direct-democratic control of the means of production — the diametric opposite of central control.”
Except it is impossible. You envision a fantasy: this has never worked anywhere. Socialism is defined as State Control of the means of production. What you are describing is the workers stealing the Company off the owners: either they’d all end up in prison, or the revolution would have to be national and we are back to the Totalitarian Fascist model of Hitler, Stalin and Mao.
“The State does not have a monopoly on bureaucracy or central planning.” Actually, yes it does. Companies do plan, but they do so independently of each other, and successful companies are rewarded with higher sales, so it gets better over time. Competitors drive innovation in the market. Central planning on a National level just doesn’t.
If you don’t understand how supply and demand work in the free market, then you are not qualified to join a conversation about economics. Everywhere you have willing sellers and willing buyers you have a free market. It has existed in human society ever since money was invented, long before the term “Free Market” was ever mentioned in a textbook.
Revolution: “we need a plan that develops our ability to seize state control and transition to renewable energy without entrenching capitalist power.” That is called a Revolution, and I repeat that this is treason, and our system has checks and balances in place. Freedom of Speech means you can talk about seizing state control all you want: the moment you start to action this coup d’etat, that becomes treason, punishable by death. I point this out so you can’t say you were not warned, that police, FBI, National Guard and the Armed Forces exist to protect citizens against violent overthrow of the State.
Climate change is inevitable and switching to unreliable power sources won’t save the Planet. Your reply to this statement of fact? “That’s a counsel of despair which, if heeded, would result in the extinction of the species.”
Nonsense. At the height of the last Ice Age 14,000 years ago, the sea level was 110 metres (360 ft) lower than today. In the middle of the last inter-glacial 120,000 years ago, the sea was 10 metres higher than it is now, and that is where it inevitably will return when the last ice age is finally over. These are facts, inconvenient facts for our Coastal Cities, but inevitable. We will adapt, or move inland. I’m sure we can keep ahead of a 3 mm per annum rise. It will take 3000 years for the sea level to peak, and if the human race can’t survive a 10 m rise in Sea Level after having already survived a 110 m rise, we don’t deserve to survive. This rise is happening, and no carbon emission reductions can halt the return of the climate to the inter-glacial norm, but don’t worry: We will thrive in that climate. If the sea level begins to fall, that is when we need to worry: ice ages are the kind of climate change we don’t want.
“Screw renewable, unreliable energy! I want my lights on when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow!”
“I’m pretty sure that hydroelectricity allows for that.” Yes, so does coal power, but Greens want to outlaw both: no new hydroelectric power stations have been built in the West for decades, and it is unlikely that new sites will be approved — a dam requires a drowned valley behind it and that is hard to get permission for.
