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Here we have a man who has never worked a day in his life, who has lived in the lap of luxury since birth, and who is worth a reported $60 million. This man is going to instruct us all on the merits of capitalism? Really?
Your Highness, have you ever been grocery shopping, drove a car, or bought a stereo? Ever pay a mortgage or file your taxes? Have you ever met a payroll or started a business? Have you ever sat down and did a budget? No?
So it should come as no surprise that a man who has never experienced capitalism and probably doesn't even know how it works is giving us nonsensical financial pronouncements.
And he wants business to save the planet. Your Highness, how much have you personally contributed of your great wealth to reduce greenhouse gases? Do you really need four homes? As you jet all over the world, rubbing elbows with kings and sultans, has it ever once occurred to you to reduce your carbon footprint even a teensy amount?
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Prince Charles has called for an end to capitalism as we know it in order to save the planet from global warming.
In a speech to business leaders in London, the Prince said that a “fundamental transformation of global capitalism” was necessary in order to halt “dangerously accelerating climate change” that would “bring us to our own destruction”.
He called for companies to focus on “approaches that achieve lasting and meaningful returns” by protecting the environment, improving their employment practices and helping the vulnerable to develop a new "inclusive capitalism".
The Prince was taking part in his first major UK public engagement since sparking a diplomatic row last week by likening the behaviour of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, to Adolf Hitler.
In a politically-charged speech at the Inclusive Capitalism conference, the Prince said: “I remember when the Iron Curtain came down there was a certain amount of shouting about the triumph of capitalism over communism. Being somewhat contrary, I didn't think it was quite as simple as that. I felt that unless the business world considered the social, community and environmental dimensions, we might end up coming full circle.”
The Prince, who has long been outspoken about the need to tackle climate change, said the world now stood at “a pivotal moment in history” ahead of major UN summit in Paris next year on reducing global greenhouse gas emissions.
“Over the next eighteen months, and bearing in mind the urgency of the situation confronting us, the world faces what is probably the last effective window of opportunity to vacate the insidious lure of the ‘last chance saloon’ in order to agree an ambitious, equitable and far-sighted multilateral settlement in the context of the post-2015 sustainable development goals and the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change,” he said.
“Either we continue along the path we seem collectively determined to follow, apparently at the mercy of those who so vociferously and aggressively deny that our current operating model has any effect upon dangerously accelerating climate change - which I fear will bring us to our own destruction - or we can choose to act now before it is finally too late, using all of the power and influence that each of you can bring to bear to create an inclusive, sustainable and resilient society,” he said.
The Prince was addressing an audience of 200 business leaders including Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, and chief executives of multinational companies such as UBS, GlaxoSmithKline and Unilever.
He called on businesses to focus on the long-term and make “an authentic moral commitment to acting as true custodians of the Earth and architects of the well-being of current and future generations”.
“It is only by adopting a broader sense of value that our finances will be sustained and we can find new sources of profit,” he said.
His comments appear to align with those of Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, who has called for “responsible capitalism”.
The Prince suggested that companies must do more to put “young people properly at the heart of companies' employment practices and planning strategies, in order to tackle more effectively the world's growing youth unemployment crisis”.
Businesses must also “account properly for carbon dioxide emissions, the use of water and fertiliser, the pollution we produce and the biodiversity we lose”, he said.
The Prince said that businesses would be unpopular with their peers in the short term for going green but would reap “immense” rewards in the long term.
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