Greta Thunberg Blasted for the Most 'I Hate Capitalism Unless It Benefits Me' Tweet of All Time - But Then It Gets Worse
In her new book on the “climate crisis,” Greta Thunberg — the horror-movie Pippi Longstocking ventriloquist doll that simply won’t. go. away. — says that relying on capitalism and market economics to stop climate change is a “terrible idea.”
“Leaving capitalist consumerism and market economics as the dominant stewards of the only known civilization in the universe will most likely seem, in retrospect, to have been a terrible idea,” Thunberg (or a competent ghostwriter, whatever the case may be) wrote in “The Climate Book: The Facts and the Solutions,” which features 105 essays on how we’re all doomed unless the rich embrace austerity, according to MarketWatch.
“If you are one of the 19 million U.S. citizens or the 4 million citizens of China who belong to the [wealthiest] top 1 percent — along with everyone else who has a net worth of $1,055,337 or more — then hope is perhaps not what you need the most. At least not from an objective perspective,” Thunberg wrote.
And you can get this piece of rich, white, Prius-driver self-flagellation for the low, low price of $25.99 in hardcover or $15.99 on Kindle at Amazon!
This is the biggest story in the world, and it must be spoken as far and wide as our voices can carry and much further still. Thank you for your support!
I will not earn money from this book as my copyright belongs to the Greta Thunberg Foundation, so all royalties go to charity.— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) February 14, 2023
Which raises a certain question, best put by UFC fighter, former Special Forces member and conservative pundit Tim Kennedy: “Is this the most ‘I hate capitalism unless it benefits me’ tweet of all time?”
Is this the most “I hate capitalism unless it benefits me ” tweet of all time? https://t.co/VzzeH2EvQK
— Tim Kennedy (@TimKennedyMMA) February 14, 2023
Now, let’s be fair — Thunberg makes it clear she “will not earn money from this book as my copyright belongs to the Greta Thunberg Foundation, so all royalties go to charity.”
That said, Thunberg’s charities are pretty much used to amplify her message and increase her visibility — so while pure profit motive in the traditional monetary sense might not necessarily apply here, it’d be foolish to say she isn’t accruing other forms of abstract capital from this book.
Furthermore, the whole “using the system to destroy the system” argument doesn’t hold water here. For instance, why release the book in paper form at all?
Is there a digital version of this book?
My head hurts thinking about all the trees that were killed to print these.
— Collin Pruett (@pruett_collin) February 15, 2023
Hoping the pages are made of ground-up bugs rather than paper, for the environment’s sake.
— Chris Tomlinson (@TomlinsonCJ) February 14, 2023
Hope this was made out of organic paper grown in Utopia
— SETH WEATHERS (@sethweathers) February 14, 2023
That’s some expensive toilet paper!
— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) February 14, 2023
How many trees did it take to print these books? Did you offset it by planting more? Did you use sustainable beetjuice ink to print the words? Why didn’t you just keep it digital? Wouldn’t that have been better for the planet? So many questions…
— Five Times August (@FiveTimesAugust) February 14, 2023
And, indeed, there’s another question: How exactly are these books getting to their destination?
How are these books shipped? Truck? Plane? Electric Car? What’s the carbon footprint to get from warehouse to bookstore? How many trees to make the boxes they’re packed in? How much oil is used in the machinery to print the books? So many questions…
— Five Times August (@FiveTimesAugust) February 14, 2023
But, author John Hawkins may have raised the best point: What’s more capitalist than selling a book with Greta Thunberg’s name on it that contains almost no content by Thunberg herself?
Oh good, a 20-year-old professional climate prop who has probably never even read a book is here to educate everyone with a book that has her name on it even though she didn’t write it.
— John Hawkins (@johnhawkinsrwn) February 15, 2023
Thunberg is basically advertising a collection of essays where she had minimal authorial input. What could be more capitalistic than that? I mean, aside from buying it on Amazon.
Perhaps the arrant hypocrisy is for the best, however, inasmuch as it serves as an object lesson. In a piece for Politico Europe when Thunberg’s tome was published on the Continent last year, Michael Bröning argued that Greta’s “open break with the capitalist system,” while popular with millennials, wouldn’t accomplish anything.
“Capitalism doesn’t have a foundational document or a philosophical magnum opus enshrining its confessions of faith. Rather, it’s a set of historically evolved practices including, but not limited to, competition, growth, private initiative, individual choice and property rights,” he wrote.
“Abandoning these principles and replacing them with degrowth, the redistribution of diminishing wealth, and comprehensive government control to manage a permanent state of emergency would be guaranteed to make a dire situation worse and undermine civil liberties. Competition would be replaced with unprecedented battles for resource allocation — not to mention, any attempt at implementing such changes by way of democracy would be unlikely to survive electoral challenges, regardless of efforts to celebrate the alleged virtues of enlightened post-materialism.”
Bröning is correct — and still manages to miss the point. He talks about “degrowth,” “unprecedented battles for resource allocation,” a “permanent state of emergency” and the undermining of civil liberties as if these are things the Greta Thunbergs of the world wish to avoid. From all available evidence, however, the loudest voices in the room embrace these eventualities — just so long as it doesn’t affect them, their visibility, or the distribution of their latest book.
Remember, only $25.99 in hardcover at Amazon. Order now to save the planet and destroy capitalism.
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