In October, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Kristalina Georgieva, told a town hall of civil society organisations in Washington, D.C., that the IMF “is indeed supporting biodiversity. For instance, we have economists that are able to measure the monetary value of an elephant and the value of a whale.”
Georgieva’s comments echo an observation made by Karl Marx in volume one of Capital (1867):
“In England, women are still occasionally used instead of horses for hauling canal boats, because the labour required to produce horses and machines is an accurately known quantity, while that required to maintain the women of the surplus-population is below all calculation.”
What is the monetary value of an orangutan, let alone the survival of the planet? The ruling class might be able to calculate those values, but it is clear that they are unwilling to foot the bill to save the planet.
olddogthoughts 