Glencore and the patronising disposition of unaccountable power
April 15, 2024
The recent P&I article by Chris Douglas featuring Glencore and the Great Artesian Basin raised many genuine concerns, especially regarding the sophism of corporate social responsibility. These included Glencore’s predatory culture and rapacious deeds and the egregious conduct of many other extractive mining brigands across Australia and elsewhere around the globe.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Under conditions of tyranny, it is much easier to act than think - Hannah Arendt.
Capitalism is a remarkably adaptive creature and its protean elements of fascism always run the risk of mutating into an unorthodox paradigm. After many decades of rampant unfettered free market fundamentalism, it has degenerated into a pernicious prototype of gangster capitalism with a brutal gloves are off, winner takes all and no regrets philosophy.
Examples include BP and Deepwater Horizon, Glencore and the Queensland parliamentary inquiry report into the resurgence of black lung, Rio Tinto – Juukan Gorge and Bougainville Copper, and - further afield, the Sackler Family, Purdue Pharma and OxyContin.
Amidst the Covid-1984 pandemic this brutal gangster capitalism was expedited by Schumpeter’s gale of creative destruction and is supported by a resilient and sinister merger of corporate and state interests. Moreover, it has provided many transnational organisations with a malevolent freedom to harm and impunity.
The current architecture of oppression is often reinforced by a corporate deification of shareholder theory with a preponderance of regulatory and policy capture that surreptitiously wins hearts and minds. Medical treatment is mistaken for health care, vigilante security patrols and paramilitary policing for public safety and military prowess for national security.
It is redolent of the illicit narcotics trade with its rancorous turf wars and the ubiquitous ganglions of power, corruption, fear and intimidation are evident in many organisational cultures. Meanwhile, social welfare has degenerated into warfare aboard a carousel of culpability and speaking the truth in a climate of universal deception becomes a revolutionary act.
War becomes peace, freedom transforms into slavery and ignorance is categorised as strength. If you require any sympathy, it can simply be found somewhere between shit and syphilis in the corporate glossary.
Following major industrial disasters, the spectre of corporate malfeasance always lingers and inevitably emerges during protracted royal commissions, parliamentary inquiries, coronial inquests and additional legal pageants. Much like regulatory capture, the calumny is easily identified but nigh on impossible to prove, especially to a criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt unless there is blatant substantive evidence of bribery or corruption.
Indeed, justice delayed is often justice denied and over many years, countless deeply traumatised, unpretentious and ordinary people are ruthlessly exploited and eventually dehumanised. Meanwhile, the overwhelming personal grief and cruel institutional neglect is painfully endured with remarkable fortitude and dignity. Moreover, the traditional delay, deny and die legal tactics exacerbate a profound torment of burning injustice as cohorts of abhorrent panjandrums and their ambitious acolytes sacrifice truth to protect reputations, shield the fortress and secure power.
Many survivors and bereaved dependents soon recognise that the theatre or pageantry of law has extremely little to do with the discovery of truth and realisation of justice. Amidst a patronising disposition of unaccountable power, justice and judgement often appear incongruous and the only parole for grieving families is death or dementia.
Blind Freddy on a galloping horse can foresee the immense risk of granting access to Australia’s Great Artesian Basin to any entrepreneurial predatory thugs throughout the extractive mining and mineral resources sector. This includes Glencore, a notoriously untrustworthy recidivist. Despite its repeated assurances covering corporate social responsibility, it is much like putting a bull in a china shop and feeding strawberries to a donkey.
Moreover, the current climate of gangster capitalism venerates profit amidst many revolving doors, golden escalators and swivelling chairs. Its unreliable foundation of free market fundamentalism worships the Friedman doctrine and encourages regulatory or policy capture, which raises the pertinent question from the Roman poet Juvenal - Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
For more on this topic, P&I recommends:
https://publish.pearlsandirritations.com/can-australia-trust-glencore-with-the-great-artesian-basin/