The problem with multinational companies or, for that matter, any big company is hubris. They think they own the world.

The problem with giant companies is also that they operate in a "free market" that is run either by them or their cohorts. Their only guiding principle is dividend or profit. And since sea animals and plants don't pay any dividend (except with their lives), British energy giant BP had for almost a month refused to share data on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. No wonder even John Maynard Keynes, that champion of capitalism, wrote: "In a sort of parody of an accountant's nightmare, we are capable of shutting off the sun and the stars because they do not pay a dividend."

The Deepwater Horizon, a semi-submersible oil rig, in the Gulf of Mexico sank exactly a month ago, spilling thousands of tons of crude oil. It became evident in less than a week that the spill could become one of the worst environmental disasters in US history. For almost a month, environmental activists and scientists - and even some US Congressmen - kept asking BP to provide complete data on the spill. And for almost a month BP refused to, thwarting independent scientists' efforts to estimate the amount of crude flowing into the Gulf each day.

It took a Congress hearing (no less) on May 20 to get BP to agree to post a live video feed of the gusher of oil on the ocean floor. The audacious refusal of BP even to discuss the size of the spill prompted Democrat Congressman Ed Markey to tell the hearing, which he presided over: "BP thinks this is their ocean so they should control information about the spill."

Before the hearing, however, the Democrat-controlled US government seemed to be shielding BP by sticking to its early estimates of the spill: 5,000 barrels a day. Independent scientists laughed, saying the figure could be 10 times more. Steve Werely, an associate professor in Purdue University, says about 70,000 barrels a day could be gushing into the Gulf every day. That's more than 2 million barrels in 30 days.

But the Deepwater Horizon disaster is no deterrent for other companies to drill offshore because lives (human as well as non-human) and the environment are not for them to care. Just two days before the Congress hearing on BP, another oil giant, Shell, announced that it would push ahead its offshore exploration in the pristine waters of Arctic Sea. The Shell decision comes after California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger banned drilling off the US state's coast for the first time in 40 years and environmentalists' call to halt oil exploration and exploitation in the Arctic.

But wasn't drilling in the Arctic banned? It was, until US President Barack Obama opened up the area for the first time last month. Is this the same Obama who, during his election campaign, said Exxon should be ashamed of making more than $11 billion in profits from artificially hiking prices? Is environmental activist Al Gore ruing his decision to support Obama in the US polls?

But then even the most powerful, and that includes the so-called free world's free media, have to bow to the power of oil and the oil companies just like the London-based Financial Times (FT) did earlier this week. Amnesty had inserted an ad on Shell in FT. The ad, which featured a wine glass, read: "While Shell toasts $9.8 billion profits, people of the Niger Delta are having to drink polluted water. They're also having to grow crops in polluted soil, catch fish in polluted rivers, and to raise children in polluted homes. If you've got shares in Shell, ask the board to explain themselves when they raise their glasses at today's AGM. Cheers."

The ad was scheduled to appear in FT's edition of May 18, the day of Shell's AGM. But the newspaper pulled the ad at the last minute, citing legal reasons for its action.

Despite all this, misguided environmentalists, mainstream economists and institutional scientists still want us to believe that capitalism with its bloodsucking multinationals, hidden agenda-loving watchdogs of democracy and financial tricksters are the messiahs that will save mankind and mother Earth.

E-mail: oprana@hotmail. com

(China Daily 05/24/2010 page8)