Synogenes.com

The oil spill from the rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico on 20th April is the worst environmental disaster the US has ever faced and for the moment Obama is going after BP to pay for the damage. But we should think about what really caused this disaster.

Certainly the company didn't know how it would deal with such a failure at that depth because it had never happened before. It's safety plans were clearly not up to dealing with the consequences of its own operations, so there is some culpability there. But we should ask why companies are undertaking such dangerous and environmentally hazardous procedures at all.

The quest for more and more profit is not simply the result of greedy individuals although that's the way it is often presented. In fact, there is a compulsion in all businesses to increase their profits because failure to do so risks a takeover, or at worst going bust. So every company, every corporation, every global business, is in cut-throat competition to maximise the return to the shareholders. All else is a secondary concern.

They will bend government policies, bribe states, corrupt politicians, and when it is expedient dismiss or downplay any environmental, social or economic consequences of their actions. Profit always comes before anything else and the shareholders, the owners of capital, sitting in the background expect board members always and unquestionably to act in their interests.

That fundamental clash between the interests of the owners of capital, and society in general is often hidden behind an ideology that tries to convince us all that it is in our best interests for these companies to succeed, by which is meant to make increased profits. When these companies are in difficulty because of periodic crises, we are told that we have to accept austerity measures in order to keep up the profits for the shareholders. The system that creates the crises is deemed beyond criticism.

We are even told that we are all shareholders now because our pension funds are invested on our behalf. Of course, the truth is that our pensions are deferred income, income that we have not yet been given even though we have earned it. Far from being something we should be grateful for, it is in fact capital that is being used by the major company owners to further their own interests.

The oil spill should suggest to us all that a system that allows the owners of vast amounts of capital to undertake operations that kill their own workers and produce environmental disasters, is fundamentally flawed. A civilised society would not allow a minority of very wealthy people to take such risks just because they own capital. The social cost is simply too great.

And to deal with the disaster, it is very reasonable to propose that the capital of BP be seized and applied to the clean up. No dividends, no profit to the owners, no compensation to the directors, unless and until the mess is cleaned up. Thereafter, it is questionable whether the same people should ever be entrusted with such power again. Often revolutionary and reasonable are the same thing.

It might come as no surprise that a major international insurance giant gets involved in fraud, after all there are massive profits to be made by manipulating the markets.

But AIG was being sued in a class action lawsuit alleging that they were involved in price manipulation, anti-competitive practices, and accounting fraud between 1999 and 2005. They were being sued by three Ohio pension funds but they've now settled the claim avoiding a court case.

They've agreed to pay out almost three quarters of a billion dollars - a billion is one followed by nine zeros. That astronomical sum would be a scandalous admission of the kind of morality followed by the major industrialists, but the real scandal is that AIG is also the insurance giant that was propped up by US government loans.

The US insurance giant was bailed out by the US government to the tune of $182.3 billion (those nine zeros again) so that the US now owns 80% of the company.

So the really clever bit is that 80% of the cost of paying for the fraudulent activity is stumped up by the US government who gets the revenue from the US public. State sponsored fraud settlements! That's a new innovation for corporate capitalism. As long as you come clean, after the state has bailed you out, you get to keep the proceeds of the fraud, keep your reputation intact, keep control of your assets, and have someone else pay the fine.

Sounds like a real result for the fat cats!

The good times may have returned for London bankers, or so says the BBC website. But that is little comfort for those people facing massive cuts in public spending. While they see their services being cut, jobs being lost, and their pay packets shrinking, the very people whose actions brought about the financial crash have apparently been forgiven.

£7 billion are to be paid out in bonuses in the UK this year and we are expected to be pleased that it is less than the £11 billion paid out in 2007. Of course, the bonuses like any other income is taxed but we are expected to excuse the obscene amount simply on the grounds that the government collects the taxes. Everyone pays income tax - it is not an act of generosity that the bankers are paying it on their bonuses.

But we have to remember what caused the financial crisis. Financial capital gravitated towards the trade in securities and derivatives, particularly the selling on of mortgage debt in packages called CDOs, Collateralised Debt Obligations, in order to get higher profits. Speculators bought these products which entitled them to a share of every mortgage payment, thinking that they would get far more profit than investing in productive industry. Although they were well aware of the social importance of productive investment, they were only interested in higher profits.

The value of these CDOs was artificially inflated by having them rated by tame companies - the values were boosted by far more than the value of the properties used as security. As soon as the debt-led mortgage boom slowed and stopped, the value of these CDOs plummeted, as the speculators knew they would. Those adept at hedging their bets, made a killing, but millions of house owners lost their homes. It was a veritable crime against economy.

So when politicians talk about growth and investment in the economy, they would do well to remember that capitalist interests will never forgo the chance of quick profit. Instead of investing in industry, they will always go for the highest return, even if that undermines the economy.

They don't have a choice because they are in competition with other capitals. If they don't take the opportunity, their competitors will. If their competitors gain an advantage, they will lose market share and may even be taken over. So they follow the same scent as the pack. That mad anarchic self-serving logic is precisely what drove the world financial system to crash. And the scale of the crash sparked the state funding crisis that is now being translated into massive austerity measures.

None of this is a secret, even if politicians would rather not talk about it. Because they are all signed up to the belief that growth, trade, market forces, liberalisation of international capital and labour, and globalisation, are the saviours of mankind, and anything or anyone that questions these mantras are deemed unacceptable. But they are confronted with the empirical evidence of the madness of their beliefs. They have proved beyond doubt that blind competition, unconstrained capital, chaotic anarchic market forces, don't tend to equilibrium but to massive and sustained imbalances that benefits a small number of people at the expense of everyone else.

The bonuses are precisely the inducements used to reinforce the short-term profit-grabbing mentality that brings about the crisis. Any responsible government would be committed to ending that mindless competitive rush for short-term gain in the interest of planned investment in the economy.

But that's not how it works. If everyone is seen as a selfish, self-serving individual, each trying to maximise his or her own gain, and it is assumed that this leads to increased social good, then money-grabbing behaviour stimulated and reinforced by bribery is seen as somehow socially acceptable and even beneficial.

But anyone who can think for themselves will see the flaw in this ludicrous position even without the massive empirical evidence of where it leads. The whole argument rests on the idea that competition between individuals and companies is fair, that demand and supply, prices and profits, will equilibrate, will settle to a reasonable balance. But they manifestly don't.

In reality, it's all about power. Large fish don't compete fairly with small fish - they gobble them up. Large companies force smaller ones out of the market. Big states bully smaller ones, the IMF and World Bank impose crippling conditions on their loans to some states while offering favourable terms to their friends. Trading blocks manipulate and control markets even when they are pretending to open them up with neoliberal policies. Those conditionalities are precisely designed to enforce unequal power relations.

The bonuses provide a potent symbol of that damaging corrupting system and there is no reason why we should think ourselves lucky that it is only £7 billion this year. It should be zero and the whole amount should be used to pay off government debt incurred to bail out the speculators.

If the politicians were really concerned about the causes of the speculation they would consider measures such as a tax on every hedge fund transaction. That alone would significantly reduce the power of the hedge funds to create their profitable imbalances in the currency markets. It would also raise more than enough cash to pay back the states who have bailed out the banks. And that in turn would obviate the need for the so-called austerity measures.

But that is far, far too rational an approach for a system based on anarchic competition and blind faith in the market. And it would hurt the pockets of the powerful.

Everyone is breathing a sigh of relief at the wonderful successful rescue of the thirty-three miners from the mine in the Atacama desert. It was a triumph of human determination and technical skill, achieving such a rescue at such a depth. And whilst the media circus engaged the dignitaries and politicians such as the billionaire Chilean President Sebástian Piñera, and the socialist Evo Morales, no-one can deny the heart-rending images of desperate relatives waiting for their loved ones to come out.

I won't have been the only one to notice the role that religion played in the drama. Chile is a very religious country with many practising catholics. They get hope from their faith in a generous and protective God, sufficient to keep them positive in the face of poverty and adversity. Their priests tell them that their lot is an opportunity to show resilience and faith, that God is testing their character, and that he will reward them in heaven.

Not so in the case of Piñera who has decided to avail himself of the riches on earth. As a media magnate not dissimilar to Berlusconi, he has backed the right wing consistently and made a fortune. He doesn't need the piety and platitudes of the clergy because he has the power to do what he wants. And the mine owners like their wealth now too. But the miners are not so lucky.

Despite the appearance on the screens of a cleric odiously trying to claim some of the praise for the rescue by talking about his gathering of praying catholics, this wasn't about a God providing an opportunity for humble people to show their strength, but about a mine disaster. The roof collapsed and thirty-three human beings were trapped. God didn't make that happen nor did he get them out.

At least one of the miners had been working in the mines since he was twelve years old. Mario Gomez, 63, has the miner's disease silicosis as does Mario Sepulveda. It is an occupational disease, a type of pneumoconiosis, caused by breathing in fine silica dust. People suffering from it are condemned to a short life of breathlessness, chronic weakness, coughing, and lung complications. There is no treatment and sufferers often die early.

There is though an effective preventative. By filtering the air and providing protective masks, the incidence can be very greatly reduced and even eliminated. But that costs money, and in the Chilean copper mines, safety has never been a particularly high priority, despite what the owners claim. They are out to make money and they will cut costs to do so.

The safety ladder that was supposed to provide miners with an escape route in the event of a roof collapse was only one third constructed. The "refuge", the area where the miners took shelter had the power cut off and had no ventilation. The San Jose mine has a poor safety record. In 2004, a miner Pedro Gonzalez died following a roof fall. In 2006, a truck driver Fernando Contreras died in an accident. In that year alone, 182 workers were injured, 56 of them seriously.

The mine was even closed in 2007 after a geologist was killed in a mine explosion, but it was reopened again in less than a year. While the church praises itself for supporting a benevolent God and pretends to have had a hand in the rescue, and the politicians wallow in the media exposure, our attention ought to be on the working conditions of the miners, the poverty of their families, and the culpability of those owners who put profits ahead of human lives.

We should be struck by the obscenity of a billionaire politician telling desperately poor miners' families that "we are all together". It is the fact that businesses can exploit working people to extract the wealth they produce that gives rise to the appalling conditions in the mines as well as the wealth of people like Piñera.

We can only hope that the mining businesses will be held to account but with a billionaire as a president who has very strong vested interest in maintaining the exploitation, there's little chance of that happening.

Listening to the media at the moment in the UK, you'd get the impression that every single problem facing the government is part of the legacy left by the outgoing New Labour government. Every single statement by the Tory politicians is prefaced with a reference to this legacy but it pays to check the facts.

The massive financial crash hit in September 2008 but the budget of 2007 estimated that Britain's structural deficit was 3%. At the time, the Institute for Fiscal Studies reckoned that two-thirds of that was borrowing for investment, leaving only 1% of GDP as the financial black hole - a level that was relatively easy to manage.

At the moment, the structural deficit is around 8% so what made the difference? Well, there was the small matter of absolutely eye-watering levels of borrowing to bail out the collapsing financial sector. That is the direct cause of the current demands for austerity. If the banks were taken into public ownership without compensation, accompanied by capital controls to prevent the flight of capital, there wouldn't be any need for the austerity measures.

But even allowing for 8% structural deficit isn't of itself catastrophic although the politicians are presenting it that way. Throughout the post-war period, many economies operated on consistently much higher levels of national debt. When the National Health Service was established in the UK, the economy was running a deficit of 200% of GDP which persisted throughout the long boom years of the fifties. The reconstruction effort, largely publicly funded, continued throughout this long deficit period.

It simply isn't true that deficit economies are necessarily in crisis. So why is there so much emphasis now on austerity? The reason is that the paymasters from which states borrowed, namely the World Bank and the IMF, are insisting on these measures to turn states into debt repayment machines.

Using these "structural adjustments" in a directly political way to shift the balance of power away from working people and even governments, they expect to restore business confidence and encourage investment with the promise of higher profits.

But it was the chasing of higher profits that led to the financial crisis in the first place as investors played the market in fictitious derivatives and securities rather than invest in productive industry. The crude fact is that they could make more money speculating than investing and they were compelled to chase those higher profits or they would be pushed out of business. It was the madness of competition that left them no choice in the matter - it wasn't greed but capitalist survival pressure.

The idea now is that if working people are forced to work harder for less, then industry once again will attract the investors by promising higher profits. But that will only work if there is growth and the financial products don't offer higher returns. So all of our lives are made subject to bribing irresponsible investors who are forced by the madness of chasing the highest profits available to speculate rather than to invest.

The cruel irony is that New Labour were the architects of reducing control on financial capital which permitted the crazy race into speculation on imaginary products. Having created the opportunity, New Labour is having a hard time criticising those who took the speculative chance and brought down the economy.

Both parties support capitalism and both are caught in the chaotic crisis-ridden mechanism of market competition. While the swingeing cuts take effect, it is working people who once again are expected to pick up the tab.

It won't be long before at least some EU states contemplate the prospect of defaulting on their international loans, breaking out of the Euro, devaluing their own currency and trying to minimise the damage locally. That would produce inflation but they would at least again control their own economy.

Austerity measures won't remove the crisis pressures and growth won't be coming back any time soon. Politically, we are in dangerous times as the far right take advantage of the inevitable social conflict.

It seems even the mainstream newspapers are now talking about protesting against the cuts. Johann Hari's excellent piece in the Independent argues against the customary apathy inspired by people thinking that nothing is achieved by protest.

Of course, the impact of the protests has a lot to do with the nature of the protest and depends critically on how easy it is to ignore it. Petitions achieve almost nothing except notifying people that there is or might be an issue to address. Ignoring a petition is very easy.

Strike action on the other hand is much more difficult to ignore. During strike action, the mainstream press always criticises strikers for inconveniencing people, damaging business confidence, hitting profits, and so on, as if the strikers had no legitimate case at all.

In fact, working people resort to strike action because it is one of the few effective weapons against employers who have all the cards stacked in their favour. They have the press on their side, the general apathy of the population, economic power as well as the law, and so working people facing this assembled force cannot hope to achieve their aims using petitions, pleas, and appeals to reason. They have to hit profits and in the public sector they have to hit the government.

And whilst one group of workers can be pitted against another by the press and politicians, using arguments like the inconvenience caused, workers are weakened by their divisions. But where there is solidarity, acting together in mutual support, the strikers are strengthened and their prospects of winning are greatly improved.

This time around it is very starkly a conflict between protecting the interests of the rich and those of the poor. Everyone knows that it was the bankers speculating with entire economies that caused the crisis, and everyone knows that ordinary working people are being expected to pay for it.

Now more than ever, working people have a vested interest in uniting together against the cuts, a blatantly class-based assault on working class conditions and social services. Whilst George Osborne cancels the tax bill for Vodaphone, thousands are being thrown out of work. The issue could scarcely be clearer. Do you support the rich or do you support the poor? The present austerity is about subsidising the damage caused by the rich by making poor people pay for it.

Apathy has always been right-wing, favouring those already in possession of the economic power. But turning the other cheek stops being credible when the second one gets slapped. So now people are starting to realise that unity is what matters, and that there are some things where compromise is the same as a defeat. Half a million jobs lost means half a million people with their livelihoods ruined - that's a crime against economy.

In France, Greece, Spain, and other countries, there are movements fighting the cuts. And all those political liberals who are stridently wrestling with the consciences while they actually do nothing, will eventually urge acquiescence and compromise, an acceptance of defeat even before the fight has begun. But hopefully there will be a strong enough social force to make them irrelevant. Those going on strike are striking for all of us, pushing back against a right-wing government intent on making poor people pay for the damage caused by the madness of the financial markets.

The austerity measures are all about shifting power more towards the owners of capital, away from workers. And working people are being fed stories about the national interest, the public welfare, and our shared future, as if the owners of capital really lived in the same world as the rest of us. But they spend more on lunch than a working class family lives on in a week.

While George Osborne cuts a corporate tax bill, low income families are paying for it instead. That the political and economic reality in our world. And that's why everyone should be supporting the fight against the austerity measures.

We've all heard the phrase "political correctness gone mad" and it almost always indicates an attempt to discredit some action, but its common use now obscures and undermines what are really important arguments.

What is considered "politically correct" is almost always the actions of those fighting prejudice and discrimination and the idea that it has gone mad is almost always directed at some well-intentioned action that is perceived to have gone too far.

To say some action has been taken too far is one thing. To claim that it is political correctness itself that has gone mad, is quite another. The latter aims to undermine the idea of doing something which is seen as politically correct. It aims to make the politically correction action itself seem as though it smacks of madness.

In this insidious way, actions designed to protect people from prejudice and discrimination are undermined by attacking the basically sound idea on which they are based. One newspaper columnist objected to the idea of black children's dolls on the grounds that it was political correctness gone made. They considered themselves anti-racist of course, but didn't want to see an action that raised the profile of the colour assumptions in children's toys.

Another example is one I experienced myself some time ago when I worked as a teacher: I was told that I could no longer use a red pen to mark a student's work on the grounds that it conveyed a negative impression. I had to use a green pen instead. The result of this policy was mass opposition from students and parents who insisted on the reinstatement of the red pen. It was an example of a well-intentioned policy of not being unduly negative when teaching students, being taken too far, beyond what was actually useful.

But no-one then criticised the aim behind the action, namely to avoid being unduly negative. Teachers remained positive and helpful, praising achievement and correct work, correcting that which was incorrect.

Had we adopted the "political correctness gone mad" stance, we would have been demanding an end to positive comments altogether.

In the political arena, the claim that political correctness has gone mad is simply a reactionary response to actions which challenge prejudice and discrimination, making some people uncomfortable. Many would rather simply acknowledge that discrimination takes place, condemn it, and then simply leave it alone.

The use of the phrase is really a kind of reactionary apologism gone mad. Instead of recognising the need for change to fight discrimination and acting to implement it, these apologists would rather dismiss it glibly, turn away, and think about something else. Selfishness gone mad? Political blindness gone mad? Political indifference gone mad? These are far more accurate terms to describe those who complain about political correctness.

For many it is a cheering sight to see the future king of England engaging with his subjects in the streets of London, no doubt offering his unique insights into why he feels entitled to his unearned wealth and privilege whilst students are deprived of the opportunities of higher education.

Doubtless he can refer to his long line of royal ancestors, which rather stumbles at the illegitimacy of William the Conqueror, and to the international alliances of wealthy families whose privilege and fortunes have been preserved through devolving the management of capitalism to parliament.

But he might also have contemplated how unnecessary he was to a society which has moved on from feudalism to a state in which aristocracy and hereditary privilege is as anachronistic as wode and tithes.

He might have recalled from family stories around the fireplace, that on this weekend in 1688, the 10th and 11th December, King James II was busy dressing as a commoner trying to flee the country in response to the increasing power of parliament. In fact the Glorious Revolution was what enabled the rise of parliamentary democracy and cabinet government in Britain.

James though, threw the royal seal into the Thames thinking that no government could function without him. It was recovered by fishermen in their nets, and he himself was arrested by common fishermen as he tried to escape. He ended up being exiled to France.

Of course, Charles is already irrelevant in many respects, just a rich man with some rather bizarre opinions, but at a time of financial austerity, many will wonder whether anachronistic vestiges of a defunct class should still be funded from the public purse.

At sixty-two years old, he will be a pensioner in four years, since the retirement age was upped. He's clearly unemployable though it would be fun to see him trying to work his way through a back-to-work programme. "If you won't work, you won't get any benefit, Charles. Now come on, try to think of something you can actually do!"

As the foreign powers struggle to decide which authoritarian face they want to see replacing Mubarak to protect western investments, the people are at a critical point with everything to lose. The security police are still in place, the army is still aligned with the government, the thugs still prowl around the square, and Mubarak is still in power. If they lose the square, then the fear is that very many people will be arrested by the security forces and will "disappear" like so many protesters before them.

This isn't yet a situation of dual-power in which the people exert such a strong will independent of the state that the government has to take notice. Power is still in the hands of the ruling elite and they also have access to the same apparatus of repression, paid for incidentally by the US. And although liberals around the world are pontificating about the gradual transition to democracy, it is clear that goodwill, public opinion, and strength of numbers, is not enough to sweep away a dictatorial regime. There is the awkward but crucial question of the state apparatus as well. If the old regime is not destroyed, then repression can follow and the movement can be destroyed. No doubt the US would acquiesce in that outcome too.

Below is the statement from the Revolutionary Socialists who know only too well what the regime can still do if the workers are not organised and able to defend themselves:

Statement of the Revolutionary Socialists, Egypt

Glory to the martyrs! Victory to the revolution!

This army is no longer the people's army. This army is not the one which defeated the Zionist enemy in October 73. This army is closely associated with America and Israel. It's role is to protect Israel, not the people. Yes we want to win the soldiers of the revolution. But we must not be fooled by slogans that 'the army on our side'. The army will either suppress the demonstrations directly, or by restructuring the police to play this role.

You have to smile when you hear about the latest pronouncements from the legendary sage and wit, Charles Windsor. He is telling people not to deny the overwhelming evidence of global warming.

Has he had an epiphany, suddenly realising that the scientific evidence is in fact not simply opinion but the result of collecting and analysing vast amounts of data and the testing of hypotheses? Has he finally come to terms with the idea that you can in fact find out whether something is true or not?

After all, he has always been a firm believer in the magic of water treatment, that nonsense therapy called homeopathy, which after more than a hundred years has not a shred of evidence to support it. He seems to have no problem believing something which is utterly contrary to all known science. Why then is he suddenly concerned about those who deny the overwhelming evidence about global warming?

Clearly he hasn't grasped the idea of scientific evidence being based on the analysis of carefully collected data or he would have ditched the nonsense of homeopathy long ago. Maybe he's just had an irony bypass or perhaps there's another explanation.

Like most people in his position, very wealthy and self-important despite limited talents, he feels a sense of paternalism, a duty to offer his advice. Has he not yet realised that the monarchy is a throw-back to feudal times with no civil basis? He is nothing more than a member of a protected wealthy family, given absurd privileges by a state still unable to sweep away the pomp and ceremony of a bygone age.

In any political sense, the Windsor family are an irrelevance and a drain on the resources of the state. Often they are defended as if their tourist value justified their privileges but we can easily see that removing the royal family and opening their palaces would if anything increase the opportunity for tourism.

But Charles Windsor even offers his views on the future economics of the planet: "I cannot see how we can possibly maintain the growth of GDP in the long term if we continue to consume our planet as voraciously as we are doing". Of course, he doesn't know the economics and is simply parroting what his advisers have told him to say. Of course, we could easily reduce the burden on GDP by putting an end to the subsidy of the civil list, and taking back the royal wealth that came from either historical theft or state funding.

And whilst it is certainly true that rapacious capitalist exploitation of the planet's resources undermines the sustainability of the natural environment, the causes are not simply those deluded folks who deny that global warming is occurring. The capitalist system which searches out and exploits every opportunity for profit is responsible and Charles Windsor is one of the less-talented members of the class who benefits. Given the choice between protecting the environment or keeping his privileges and wealth, which way do you think he would jump?

As a social commentator, he is absurdly naïve but in commenting on matters of science and economics he displays a misplaced paternalism that makes him a rather pathetic anachronism, seemingly trying to live up to a role in which he dispenses wisdom and advice to his subjects. Unfortunately he has an inadequate grasp of the issues and is mistaken in thinking that he has subjects at all in any meaningful sense of the word.

Next time Charles Windsor offers advice to his subjects, we should all bear in mind that this is a man who believes that water has a memory and that homeopathic remedies that contain nothing at all can cure all sorts of illnesses. He is one of the deniers he himself decries. If he thinks scientific evidence should be listened to, why then does he persist in promoting the fraudulent therapy called homeopathy?

He has so little grasp of the real world that it is amazing that anyone still bothers to notice when he makes these absurd pronouncements. Unfortunately this nonsense factory that is the royal family is a state-funded business in which the royal family get all the benefits. It's time they were put out to grass.