Capitalism can be a nasty brute or it can lift one to the loftiest of heights. One's philosophical stance on the issue is more than likely dependent upon the size on one's wallet.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, capitalism is defined as "an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit rather than by the state." This definition inherently portrays the conflict in which we are currently engaged concerning North Slope producers and the proposed building of a natural gas pipeline. When private enterprise and government mix, private enterprise will always be the payee and the government will always be the piper, demanding that all dance to its tune of taxation.
I believe that one of the reasons capitalism has been such a tremendous success here in the United States and elsewhere is because a key fundamental motive to that success is greed.
Blaise Pascal said the reason people are not happy is because they are constantly projecting their happiness upon an event into the future, which only ensures they will never be happy. They are unhappy not because they fail to experience this future event, but when they do, they have already moved the bar to the next point in the future where happiness will be found.
This works immensely well in business. Ask a millionaire how much money it will take to make him or her happy. The refrain is predictable: "Just a little bit more than what I have now."
You see, capitalism is great ... until it comes into play in a few areas that we in America have deemed sacred cows. Take the pharmaceutical industry, for example. You would think its purveyors all had 666 stamped somewhere upon their scalp, and if we could only start scalping we could prove it.
Oil companies seem to be firmly placed in this highly virulent category. Why? Well, there are just certain things that trip our triggers, like pulling up to the gas station and doling out our hard-earned money for this most disgusting of petrochemicals. I mean, it doesn't even smell good. We don't seem to mind that we pay a paltry sum for that precious propellant when compared to the rest of the world, or the fact that we can get as much as we want 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Our illustrious legislators refuse to stand idly by collecting a few measly billion dollars a year. They are going to act and act they will. Even the headline from a recent story that ran in the Anchorage Daily News Jan. 12 sings a familiar song. It blares to the masses "Pressure on oil firms urged: Former Gov. Hickel speaks in support of taxing untapped reserves to push gas line." Let us take two of these words out of context: support and taxing.
"Not fair," you scream. Well, I did say I would take them out of context, but the irony shall not escape us. Our former political chief is quoted in the article as saying that he believes the oil companies are "intentionally delaying a deal" (for the gas pipeline). No evidence of this traitorous act, however, is given. I wonder how many board meetings Mr. Hickel has participated in with these oil companies. Without some detail, one may begin to think that the government is simply attempting to manipulate our passions, an act they have perfected over the past 200 plus years.
The government certainly has not been in the business of creating wealth, instead its profundity is for spending. It leaves that nasty business of developing resources to private enterprise.
This is laughable. The bony finger of government is pointing at the captains of capitalism and accusing them of dragging their collective feet in pursuit of the almighty dollar. Yet, it is the government that has set itself up as the biggest impediment to this very pursuit. That's government in all of its glory. The government standing before us, clothed in its dazzling armament, ready to save us, the stupid, unthinking masses of crawling humanity.
The leverage of a natural gas reserves tax - as supported by Hickel - may turn the government coffers and its potful of wishes into dollars. That is, after all, what this battle is and always will be about. We should be careful what we wish for. After all, capitalism is private business engaged in the pursuit of capital. Once the government sticks its finger into the equation, it risks getting it bit off. And that could leave a lasting scar on us all.
Jeff Jones is the publisher of the Alaska Journal of Commerce.
He can be reached at jeff.jones@alaskajournal.com.
