Foremost amid the clamor over the Gulf of Mexico gusher has been the call for the mega corporation, British Petroleum, to compensate those affected by their risky behavior. The consensus opinion, at least up until today, seems to be that BP’s huge corporate coffers are great enough to pay whatever it takes.
Big new house. Nice new car. (Click to enlarge)
Of course BP’s coffers, no matter how large, are not large enough to compensate for the damage done and the damage to come. The things that really matter cannot be purchased at any price. There is no amount of money that can erase the consequences of our actions. Replacement species cannot be purchased at the pet store. Wetlands cannot be sent to the dry cleaners. Sadness, fear, and distrust cannot be scrubbed from the minds of people who’s world has been irreparably despoiled.
Nevertheless, we want to assign blame and see justice done. To that end, we will make BP pay. But the only crime BP committed was that of getting caught. They were just one among many corporations, taking risks to maximize profit. Had there been no blowout, we would all be blithely driving our cars, running our air conditioners, and watching our BP stock price in hopes of getting rich quick.
If we are interested in preventing the destruction of that which money cannot buy, then assigning blame and making claims against BP will do little to lower our risk. The profit motive is about money — nothing more. So long as we as a nation of people, continue to cede our responsibility for managing our risks, to profiteering corporations, we will continue to suffer from their depraved single-mindedness.
What will the next runaway gusher or runaway credit-default swaps be? If we could know, we could stop it. But when it comes to unbridled profiteering, we can’t know what the next disaster will be, we can only know that the next man-made disaster is just around the next corner.
