Hot Money by Naomi Klein

Author:Naomi Klein [Klein, Naomi]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2021-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

If these various measures were taken together, they would raise more than $2 trillion annually.32 Certainly enough for a very healthy start to finance a Great Transition (and avoid a Great Depression). And that doesn’t count any royalty increases on fossil fuel extraction. Of course, for any of these tax crackdowns to work, key governments would have to coordinate their responses so that corporations had nowhere to hide – a difficult task, though far from impossible, and one frequently bandied about at G20 summits.

In addition to the simple fact that the money is badly needed, there are practical political reasons why ‘polluter pays’ should guide climate financing. As we have seen, responding to the climate crisis can offer real benefits to a majority of people, but real solutions will also, by definition, require short- and medium-term sacrifices and inconveniences. And what we know from past sacrifices made in the name of a crisis – most notably via rationing, conservation, and price controls during both world wars – is that success depends entirely on a perception of fairness.

In Britain and North America during World War II, for instance, every strata of society was required to make do with less, even the very rich. And in fact, though overall consumption in the U.K. dropped by 16 percent, caloric intake for the poor increased during the war, because the rations provided low-income people with more than they could otherwise afford.33

There was plenty of cheating and black market profiteering, of course, but these programs enjoyed broad-based support because they were, at least in theory, fair. The theme of equality pervaded government campaigns about these wartime programs: ‘Fair Shares for All’ was a key slogan in the U.K, while the U.S. went with ‘Share and Share Alike’ and ‘Produce, Conserve, Share and Play Square.’34 An Office of Price Administration pamphlet from 1942 argued that rationing was part of the American tradition. ‘What Is Rationing?’ it asked.

First, let’s be sure what rationing is not. It is not starvation, long bread lines, shoddy goods. Rather, it is a community plan for dividing fairly the supplies we have among all who need them. Second, it is not ‘un-American.’ The earliest settlers of this country, facing scarcities of food and clothing, pooled their precious supplies and apportioned them out to everyone on an equal basis. It was an American idea then, and it is an American idea now, to share and share alike – to sacrifice, when necessary, but sacrifice together, when the country’s welfare demands it.35

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