[Vision2020] Re: Exxon Mobil earned $11.23 billion first six months of 2004

[Tbertruss at aol.com]

Bill et. al.

The bias I thought I detected was not on the theory of causation in the 
abstract.  It has to do with the value choices involved in answering some of the 
questions I posed earlier, critical to the main point I was attempting to make.  
Maybe I do not phrase these questions in the best manner, because you have 
not answered them.  It is clear, though, I am not a defender of corporate 
capitalist privilege, the unchangeable right to make profit even when it does harm 
to human beings or the environment.

Excuse me if I phrase very complex issues in these simple terms.

Earlier I wrote:

"These questions I ask pose a dilemma for the morality of capitalism and free 
markets when they appear to function in an unpatriotic and disloyal manner.   
Or are these values only for our soldiers dying and being maimed in Iraq?   
They don't apply to Exxon/Mobil?"

No answer!

We can agree that Exxon/Mobil is making huge profits.  They are not in danger 
of bankruptcy.  They have an almost guaranteed market to sell a product the 
world's economy demands and will demand far into the future.  These are facts.  


Now the question of the morality of the situation when they make huge profits 
while at the same time gas prices are going up, all of this in a time of war 
when average Americans are being asked to make sacrifices, causing financial 
distress and real harm to families who must chose between food, medical bills 
or gas to get to work ... this is what I am getting at.

Government regulation of the oil industry is here now.  We don't let them 
drill wherever they want, or pollute however they want, or let total monopolistic 
control of the industry by one corporation, though some would argue the 
recent mergers in the oil industry are allowing this to happen to some extent.  The 
question is not whether we have government regulation of the oil industry, 
the question is, how much?

Let's skip causation and economic models.  Let me put this another way, in 
the broader context of our societies distribution of wealth, and not just 
focused on the conduct of Exxon/Mobil:

Is it moral for a society as a whole to allow an upper class of people to 
gain huge wealth and privilege which brings them a lifestyle unimaginable to most 
working class people, while millions of children in this society don't have 
sufficient nutrition and medical care?

Yeah, a typical bleeding heart liberal sort of question, but still not 
without meaning.  You can answer yes, it's OK for a society to be structured in this 
manner, and make some reasonable arguments why it is OK to allow millions of 
children to go without adequate nutrition and medical care (blame it on their 
parents, and/or claim that government solutions do not work), while the 
richest nation on earth gives tax cuts to the upper class of super wealthy.  Or you 
can argue that the upper classes have some sort of moral obligation to their 
fellow human beings to lessen malnutrition and lack of medical care that demand 
they share some of their wealth.  Of course there are a lot of options 
between the poles of these two moral orientations.

In the case of Exxon/Mobil, it can be argued that their profits are in part 
based on the sweat and hard labor of average Americans who work for the money 
that fills their gas tanks, so Exxon/Mobil has some obligation in turn to not 
gouge them at the gas pump.  

This sort of argument is based on the assumption that the wealth of the upper 
classes is not wholly due only to the work and smarts of those classes, but 
is in reality earned by us all, as we contribute to the economic system that 
allows the upper classes their wealth and privilege.

If you don't want to dive into these sorts of moral questions about profit, 
wealth and the "social obligation" of citizens to share wealth, perhaps you 
think the idea of social obligations to share wealth to be a bunch of bunk!

Maybe it is!

Ted Moffett
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