Chopped Liver Productions

Capitalism Does Not Work.

The disaster at Upper Big Branch Mine is Exhibit A.

(2010)
 
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CAPITALISM DOES NOT WORK!

I hate to be the one to break it to you, America.

April 8 2010: The disaster at the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia is Exhibit A: Capitalism does not work.

OK, I know. I take it back, I take it back! Capitalism has worked out great -- for bigwigs at the Massey Energy Company. But for the families of those 25 miners known to be killed by the explosion on Monday, capitalism is not working out well at all. They have lost so much, all so that the Massey Company could make an extra buck.

AP: Emergency air system at WV mine was broken
by Sam Hananel and Mike Baker (AP 4/7/10)

Federal inspectors at a West Virginia coal mine that blew up this week cited the operators three months ago for having fresh-air systems flowing the wrong way near two escape routes. ... Investigators called January's citation extraordinarily negligent. Mine safety experts say it should have been a red flag.

At least 25 miners were killed in Monday's explosion, the country's worst since 1984. Four other miners are missing.

The company that runs the West Virginia mine ... frequently sidesteps hefty fines by aggressively contesting safety violations, including recent problems with the ventilation system that clears away combustible methane gas.

Massey Energy Co., which owns the Upper Big Branch mine, the site of Monday's explosion, is still contesting more than a third of all its violations there since 2007. In the past year, federal inspectors have proposed more than $1 million in fines for violations at the mine in Montcoal, W.V. Only 16 percent have been paid. Among the violations that have been appealed are the company's two largest fines on record, assessed in January for problems with the mine's ventilation systems.

Baldly stated, it cost less to risk paying penalties for operating unsafely than to use any resources to save miners' lives.

The question of whether or not we should be mining at all is a totally separate issue. I'm wondering why the poor people who report to a reckless employer would rather have capitalism than a state that enforces safety rules. I have a feeling there are plenty of tea partiers in the hills of West Virginia. I just can't figure out how this myth of government-as-the-enemy persists.

All my American life -- and chances are I've lived longer than you -- capitalism has been a sacred cow, something we did not dare question because it was the sum total of the American Way of Life. Which was pretty good indeed.

All the Powers That Be trumpeted the fabulousness of capitalism, the obviousness of its virtues, and the horrors of any other economic system. And American brains are stuffed so full with love for Capitalist America that there's no room, not even a teeny little crack somewhere, for the germ of a notion that maybe the Powers That Be are betting on capitalism because they're the Powers That Be -- and that maybe a whole other way of doing things might work out better for rabble like me and thee.

The Powers That Be wouldn't lie about what's good for us, would they? What reason could they possibly have for doing that?

And now that the American Way of Life is going down the tubes before our eyes, capitalism remains an article of faith. Every day the American people seem determined to show the world they can be ever more gullible.

When are we going to start thinking about our own self-interest? Am I the only selfish one around here?

copyright 2012 Janice Leber, Chopped Liver Productions