Skip to main content

IS REVOLUTION THE ONLY ANSWER? by Bill Lee

As a capitalist, he is only capital personified. His soul is the soul of capital. But capital has one single life impulse, the tendency to create value and surplus-value, to make its constant factor, the means of production, absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus-labour. Capital is dead labour, that, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks. - Marx, Capital, Volume I, Chapter 10 (1867)


According to CNN (Isadore, 2022) the oil corporate giants, ExxonMobil and Chevron both reported massive second quarter, three-month profit gains “thanks to record gasoline prices during the quarter”. Exxon's profit, came in at an obscene $17.6 billion, almost double what it made in its very profitable first quarter as oil and gas prices started to surge in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, according to the CNN wording. Its 2nd quarter profit was up a stunning (to me) 273% from the same period last year. Chevron raked in a $11.4 billion, up 74% from the first quarter and 247% last year.1 It has been reported (Milman, 2022) that the oil industry as a whole amassed a profit of over one hundred billion (100,000,000.00] dollars in the first quarter of this year..

Three months brothers and sister, three months.

Of course, we are all aware that this kind of “windfall” is by no means a unique happening. ExxonMobil and Chevron are by no means the only monster corporate entities to be engaging to experience this kind of wonderful financial fortune, some might call it profiteering. And the oil sector is not, by any means the only one where profits are pilling up. So, the corporate grand larceny continues and continues. This little snapshot of wild corporate accumulation the is simply another example of how the gods of the capitalist system works, and, if we are honest, the way it is supposed to work. That’s why governments of every stripe in the much discussed “post-industrial world” construct favourable tax regimes and look the other way as avoided taxes are squirrelled away in friendly, and opaque off shore tax havens (Canadians tor Tax Fairness, 2021). In the free neoliberal capitalist world in which we have been existing for decades the acquisition of more and more money and power by fewer and fewer businesses and people is the rule. Meanwhile, the rest of us must make do, so the storey goes, and the wealth gap continues to grow (Schaeffer, 2022).


One of the most appalling consequences of this extreme domination by the rich is the refusal to act in a decisive way so that the human race can responsibility meet the deadly challenges of the climate crises. This should not be surprising since that the capitalist system has rendered both labour and nature as commodities to be used in the creation of profit. So, it should be no surprise that the poor, in wherever country they live are at great risk. (Nisho, A. (2022). Yet what we hear and read from the spokespeople for Fossil Fuel industry, as well as their abetters in many governments, for example, the Texas GOP and the UCP in Alberta, is that we must be patient, must not move to fast (i.e., Don’t mess with our profits). Global warming of course, pays no attention


So, the question must be, how long can this anti human situation be sustained? How are the working/middle class (Like Rick Salutin, the Toronto Star columnist, I see no difference in that we all work for wages paid out by an employer) supposed to hope, let alone believe in a stable and dignified economic or human future? And then of course there is the climate crisis which is being driven by the amoral lust for economic growth by corporations and their stock holders. That will have huge negative repercussions for the majority of human beings, but these will be especially disastrous for the poor. The capitalist system clearly “works” only for the rich. We, as a people, must, need to do and be better at confronting the behemoths of industry the corporations. But how can we, when the system in which we find ourselves is one which is geared for the obscene profits of the few and ultimate misery and degradation of the majority, where, in the USA at least these soulless things are considered “people”. How, outside of a revolution, is there any logical and genuine way to see the end of this criminal system and behaviour?


These questions are not rhetorical nor do I ask them out of some idle curiosity. I ask them in all seriousness. What is to be done?


Resources


Canadians for Tax Fairness (2021). FACTSHEET: TACKLE TAX HAVENS. https://www.taxfairness.ca/en/resource/factsheet-tackle-tax-havens. September. Hartman, T. (2022). “Unequal Wealth. How Corporations Became 'People' - and How You Can Fight Back”. The Hartman Report. https://www.thomhartmann+sunday-excerpt@substack.com. July 32.


Isidore C. (2022) $2,245.62 a second: ExxonMobil scores enormous profit on record gas prices. CNN Business. https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/29/energy/exxonmobil-chevron-earnings/index.html. July 29.

Milman, O. (2022). “Largest oil and gas producers made close to $100bn in first quarter of 2022. The Guardian”. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/may/13/oil-gas-producers-first-quarter-2022-profits. May 13.


Nisho, A. (2021). “When poverty meets climate change: A critical challenge that demands cross-cutting solutions”. World Bank. https://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/when-poverty-meets-climate-change-critical-challenge-demands-cross-cutting-solutions. November 5.

Schaeffer, K. (2022). 6 facts about economic inequality in the U.S. Pew Research. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/02/07/6-facts-about-economic-inequality-in-the-u-s/. July 2.

1 CBC Radio One News report on August 2 of this year stated that in the USA ExxonMobil paid taxes of 1.8% for last year. Poor Chevron, paid 2.8%.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bleak Times for Trump’s USA? by Bill Lee

“If we don’t put a stake into the heart of this administration, there  may not be an election in 2028.” Gavin Newsom, Governor of California The news from the US of A about the wild and weird pronouncements and actions of the abhorrent individual sitting in the most powerful seat in the land, DJ Trump, is bleak. There is his destructive mania for imposing tariffs on every nation in the world: his corrupt attempt to block public knowledge of the truth of the sordid matter of the Epstein files; his racist hatred of Brown and Black people and his inhumane policy of arresting them willy nilly and illegally deporting many; his war on the hard won rights of women and other minorities; his ignoring of court orders (he owns a more or less corrupt Supreme Court); his impossible and unhinged comments on wanting Canada to become the 51st state of the USA; and his increasingly wacky and garbled speech, are only the most recent concerns. But probably the most dangerous of his right-wing campaig...
Post a Comment
Read more

ANY LEFT LEFT? OR WHY I AM DISAPPOINTED IN THE NDP

 By Bil Lee Prior to announcing that they would not support the Liberal budget (thus triggering an election over what was really a pretty left friendly Liberal program) the NDP in Ontario has been wasting a great deal of breath on hammering the Liberals over the "gas plant" scandal. Of course the Libs have been their old tricky and disingenuous selves in many ways and did waste a pile of money (and try to cover up how much) attempting to score some bi-election wins by cancelling the damn things. But the fact is the PC's and the NDP had both made a promise to cancel them if they got into power, so the money ws going to be wasted in any event. So it was all game playing, and pretty boring game playing actually. I am not against a solid critique of the Libs (except I continue to disagree on the utility of playing at the gas thing). My concern with role back of corporate tax breaks that Horvath has muted about as an election promise is that though I clearly support the ide...
4 comments
Read more

RITUALS KEEP CHANGING by Tony Boonstra

It is interesting that since time immemorial people have developed rituals. Sometimes we forget the initial meaning of the ritual. Take Christmas. It was originally “the Mass being celebrated at the time of Christ's birth”. That is literally what the word means. What I found helpful is an idea I came across in my studies at McGill University years ago. One professor shared with us the difference between a sign and a symbol. A sign is literally what it says. So, when one comes to a stop sign there is only one meaning. Stop. No rolling stops allowed. The meaning of a symbol on the other hand, is the meaning that a community embraces. This can change over time as the community's values and belief systems undergo changes. In the Netherlands they celebrate Sinter Klaas-Santa Claus, on December 5. The celebration takes on much of the meaning of what Christmas is in Canada. There is goodwill, exchanges of gifts, celebrations, etc. Then Christmas is a quiet day for reflection and for C...
1 comment
Read more