Working paper · Open access
The System That Finances Its Own Destruction
How Ecological Harm Generates Power — and How That Power Blocks Every Correction
Donald C. Jacob · Working paper, Version 1.1 · August 2026 · Not peer-reviewed · CC BY 4.0
Why is well-established knowledge about climate and Earth-system risk not turned into
limits that match the risk? This paper argues that one mechanism holds a special place
among the many causes. Ecological costs are pushed outside private and institutional
accounts. The resulting profits and rents raise economic and organisational power. That
power is converted into political, legal and communicative influence, and that influence
prevents, delays or weakens the correction of the original externalisation — so the loop
can continue. The paper integrates scattered evidence — on externalities, regulatory
capture, carbon lock-in, lobbying and climate-delay discourse — into a single recursive
meta-barrier, states the criterion on which its special status rests, and derives testable
hypotheses. The practical implication is direct: regulating emissions and individual harms
is not enough. A strategy must also interrupt the conversion of ecologically generated
profit into obstruction capacity.
Abstract
This working paper examines why well-established knowledge of climate and Earth-system
risks is not translated into institutional limits commensurate with those risks. It does
not deny that political inertia, international coordination problems, social dependencies,
technological path dependence and individual denial are independent causes of inadequate
action. Its central claim is that one feedback mechanism holds a special status because it
amplifies other barriers while obstructing its own correction. This externalisation–power
feedback consists of four steps: ecological and social costs are shifted outside private or
institutional accounts; the resulting profits and rents increase economic and organisational
power; that power is converted into political, legal and communicative influence; and this
influence prevents, delays or weakens the internalisation of costs. The initial externalisation
can therefore continue. Research on externalities, regulatory capture, carbon lock-in,
corporate lobbying, political polarisation and climate-delay discourses substantiates the
individual links of the mechanism, and adjacent syntheses — the externalisation society,
the imperial mode of living, oligarchic wealth defence and the existential politics of asset
revaluation — describe important parts of the circuit. The contribution of this paper is to
integrate these elements into a single, explicitly recursive meta-barrier, to state the
criterion on which its special status rests, and to derive testable hypotheses and conditions
that would weaken or delimit the thesis. The implication is direct: an effective strategy
cannot regulate emissions and individual harms alone. It must also interrupt the conversion
of ecologically generated profits into obstruction capacity. The paper does not yet present
a complete institutional design, but identifies the necessary points of intervention.
Read and download
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21807118
How to cite
Jacob, D. C. (2026). The system that finances its own destruction: How ecological harm
generates power — and how that power blocks every correction. Working Paper, Version 1.1.
Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21807118
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). You may share and
adapt with attribution.