Comments by "Michael RCH" (@michaelrch) on "Huge profits but oil giant admits to paying zero tax in North Sea" video.

I agree with pretty much all your sentiments there. Except one. This IS capitalism. This end state of capitalism is built into the system itself. It concentrates wealth and power inexorably. That process is intrinsic to the system. It systematically exploits works and accrues the value that they create to an ever smaller group of capitalists who gain such market dominance and such dominance of the organs of our democracy that they create their own destruction. They render the working class poorer and poorer until the workers cannot even create the demand to keep the economy going. What we are seeing now is a repeat of the 1920s and 30s but with one awful exception. The destruction is not limited to our society now. It encompasses the whole natural world. The system is now so big that it has expanded beyond the boundaries that our finite planet sets. And all the while money and power continue to accrue to a tiny elite who are oblivious to the planetary catastrophe that is on our path. You are right. This system has had its day. This rotten, unjust and destructive system must end soon, or else everything will.
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@hilaryporter7841 Yes, but the controls are gone as a direct consequence of the functioning of capitalism. It always does this. It is impossible to constrain in the long term. It always concentrates wealth and power. And that power is used to corrupt government and undo the controls. As night follows day. And even after a big reset like the New Deal era when government did take back some limited control, over the decades it lost that control again. The new deal era of social democratic policy lasted from the 1940s until Thatcher and Reagan tore it all to pieces in the 1980s. Since then neoliberal capitalism has been wrecking everything in its path and concentrating wealth at a furious rate. Social democratic reforms always contain the seeds of their own destruction. They only put a weak cage around the monster. They never tame it. In fact it's a fundamentally unjust and destructive system at its heart. It doesn't need taming. It needs killing and replacing with something that puts democracy and the welfare of people at the centre of the system - not private tyranny and accumulation of capital. Those are the intrinsic values of capitalism. They shape all its incentives and processes. Which is why it can right now, be driving us to climate catastrophe like a train that is out of control. It's not the driver that is the problem. There is no driver. It's the train track we are on. Catastrophe is unavoidable under capitalism.
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Your taxes are literally going to enrich an industry that is destroying your children's future. And the Tories are cheering turn on, encouraging expansion and higher profits. Sunak, Johnson and their band of millionaire sociopaths are actively pushing us towards the end of organised human life as we know it. We either stop these greedy lunatics or we get ring side seats for the most horrific spectacle of human suffering in human history.
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Rishi Sunak is in the pocket of the oil majors. He is desperately trying to pour more money into the pockets of their super rich shareholders. While they pollute the planet to destruction. Johnson might be a singularly awful lying buffoonish tool, but they are ALL Tories. Never forget that. It won't get better when Johnson goes. It might actually get worse.
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