Does Capitalism Protect the Environment Better Than Socialism?

Capitalism is not a perfect system. However, John Stossel claimed in a new video that it is better for the environment than socialism. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (otherwise known as AOC) (D-N.Y.) insisted that socialism makes the environment better for everyone, not just the elite. Tom Palmer, Atlas Network, refuted her statement in Stossel’s video. 

According to Stossel, Palmer has personal experience in capitalist nations as well as socialist ones. In fact, he “spent lots of time in social countries,” and he is convinced that “environmental-movement socialists are wrong about what’s ‘green.’” Palmer commented, “We tried socialism…. We ran the experiment. It was a catastrophe. Worst environmental record on the planet.”

Palmer shared a story about sparrows in China. Socialist leaders noticed that “sparrows ate valuable grain,” so they decided that the sparrows had to go. Government officials killed sparrows, while others encouraged the people to kill them. “Billions of birds were killed.” The result was no sparrows to eat insects, and the “insects multiplied. Bugs killed more crops than the sparrows had,” and “People starved as a consequence.” That experience was just one of the mistakes made by the central planners in China.

China’s central planners keep making mistakes. Many Chinese lakes and rivers are bright green. Fertilizer runoff created algae blooms that kill all fish. A Lancet study says Chinese air pollution kills a million people per year.

Wherever socialism is tried, it creates nasty pollution.

China is not the only nation where socialism is bad for the environment. Josef Stalin wanted to grow cotton in the Soviet Union, so his central planners selected a spot near the Aral Sea. “They drained so much water that the sea, once the fourth-biggest inland lake in the world, shrank to less than half its size.” Palmer said, “Soviet planners caused catastrophic environmental costs to the whole population.”

Socialists in this nation think that they can make socialism work better than it has in Russia, China, North Korea, Venezuela, and wherever else it has been tried. They think that they are smarter.

According to Palmer, socialists in Russia dump heavy metals and radioactive waste in what a New York Times op-ed claims is “the world’s largest system of most protected nature reserves.” However, capitalists also hurt the environment:

Capitalists destroy nature, too. Free societies do need government rules to protect the environment. But free markets with property rights often protect nature better than bureaucrats can.

Private farmers, explains Palmer, are “concerned about the ability of the farm to grow food next year, year after year, [even] after the farmer is gone. Why? Because the farm has a capital value. That’s the ‘capital’ in capitalism. They want to maximize that.”

Capitalism also protects the environment because it creates wealth. When people aren’t worried about starving or freezing, they get interested in protecting nature. That’s why capitalist countries have cleaner air.

Also, capitalists can afford to pay for wild animal preserves. “When no one has property rights and people are poor, tigers and elephants are considered a burden…. They kill them,” says Palmer. “When you’re wealthier … you care about the environment.”