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Jonathon Porritt. Capitalism As If the World Matters. London: Earthscan, 2005.
DOI: 10.1177/1086026607302163
In Capitalism As If the World Matters, Jonathan Porritt argues that there can only be an environmentally sustainable world if capitalism is harnessed to achieve this goal. In his view, communism is not sustainable, environmentally and otherwise, as the example of Eastern Europe demonstrated. And because there is only one system standing, environmentalists ought to be pragmatic and accept capitalism for the sake of the environment. Porritt wants to show how environmental sustainability can be achieved under capitalism.
Porritt has set for himself a difficult task, and he does his best to deliver. Amassing facts and arguments from the sciences and social sciences, including from such practical fields as public policy and administration, he puts forward the best argument he can in favor of capitalism and sustainability. Because Porritt is not an academic but a public intellectual, he brings together different disciplines to make his point. This makes for interesting reading, and Porritt demonstrates that he has excellent knowledge of the main works of each field.
One of the main problems of the book, however, is Porritt's difficulty in finding a good balance between comprehensiveness and depth. Porritt covers so many areas that in crucial parts he does not do a thorough examination of very important concepts. For example, he does not define capitalism. He argues that the features of capitalism are free markets, "pursuit of profits, trade, competitiveness, private property and so on" (p. 65). What does he mean by "so on"? Is capitalism the sum of all these parts, or is there a better way of constructing an ideal type of capitalism? This issue is important because Porritt argues that these features of capitalism make innovation, individual liberties, and democracy possible. If this is so, what is the connection between the former and the latter features of capitalism? Can the latter be achieved under a system different from capitalism? Porritt rejects the possibility of analyzing other systems.
What Porritt does is to portray capitalism as destructive but good and communism as destructive and bad. By presenting this Manichean view of the world, Porritt leads the reader into accepting the lesser of two evils. A more interesting approach would have been...