environmental pyramid scheme

The economy is an environmental pyramid scheme, dumping its liabilities on the young and the unborn. Its current growth depends on intergenerational theft. At the heart of capitalism is a vast and scarcely examined assumption: you are entitled to as great a share of the world's resources as your money can buy. You can purchase as much land, as much atomospheric space, as many minerals, as much meat and fish as you can afford, regardless of who might be deprived. (...) You can burn as much fuel as you like. Every pound and dollar secures a certain right over the world's natural wealth. 

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The arguments defending our economic system are flimsy and preposterous. Peel them away, and you see that the whole structure is founded on looting: looting from other people, looting from other nations, looting from other species and looting from the future.

- George Monibot, Intergenerational Theft in This Can't Be Happening (2019)