An argumentative essay by Claudia Bakker
Written for English Skills class (Amsterdam University for Applied Sciences) on 13 June 2016.
“Greed is good.” Gordon Gekko was rather adamant about his statement in the 1987 film Wall Street. Self assurance is not a synonym for being right though: greed is not good. On the contrary; it is devastating to our environment. Greed always comes to the expense of another being, for there is no room for any sentiment other than ‘kill or be killed’, ‘eat or be eaten’ in the business world. With this culture, businesses all over the world have been responsible for the extinction of tens of thousands of species. When allowed to continue, it will be the end of all. Humans are among the few species able to live outside nature; they tend to forget though that nature is still needed to survive. It will not be possible to grow enough food inside laboratories for the vastly growing world population of 7.4 billion people. Unlike the set precedent, it will not be just the poor countries in famine; it is a given that only the much spoken of 1% will survive. There is nothing wrong with having money, nor is it bad to want to have more. This is an instinct that is engraved deeply inside all living creatures. However, when a ‘have’ or ‘want’ hurts others, it has to be ceased. Capitalism’s mistake in thinking everyone is allowed to take whatever they want in order to further themselves, stems for an important part from Russian-American writer Ayn Rand’s Objectivism philosophy (Levine, 2014) (Campbell, 2009) She stated: “An individual who eagerly faces reality, who embraces his own rational mind as an absolute, and who makes his own life his highest moral purpose will demand his freedom. He will demand the freedom to think and speak, to earn property and associate and trade, and to pursue his own happiness.” (aynrand.org, 2016 ) This idea invites a dangerous society in which everyone is only out for themselves. The success of human evolution however, is due to social abilities, not to ruthlessness and egoism. (Steimo, 2010) The environment will become inhabitable – for all animals, including the human race, if greed remains the driving force behind Capitalism.
Businesses are a force of destruction; as long as the money keeps rolling in, it is perfectly fine to obliterate nature and to decimate animals. Business owners everywhere claim they have long been changing their ways to become environmental-friendly and green. (ExxonMobil, 2015) A company which appears green to the general public isn’t always as environmental-friendly as they would like to seem though. In an ongoing investigation, ExxonMobil who are “the largest publicly traded petroleum and petrochemical enterprise in the world” (ExxonMobil, History, 2016), is looked into for their role in having critical climate change knowledge and the threats of their policies to the environment. (Schwartz, 2016) The investigation gained headlines because the company has publicly denied climate change and even lobbied forcefully against it for decades. (Goldenberg, 2015) (Times, 2015) It is clear that, like most big businesses, ExxonMobil has noticed society’s concern about the environment and realised there was a new potential to cash in on. Green has become the new oil, which is ironic since the two are on opposite sides of the spectrum. Another example of a business owner who deludes his clients and destroys the environment under the flag of protection is multi-billionaire Donald Trump. In 2011 he reached across the pond to Scotland – the Menie dunes near Aberdeen. These dunes were more fit for protection than for playing games: “Designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), the highest national level of environmental protection in the UK, this highly mobile dune system, unique in the UK and rarely found elsewhere in Europe has been of tremendous geomorphological interest for decades.” (Gerrard, 2016) In his infinite greed, Trump decided this was the place where he should built a luxurious golf resort, destroying not only the homes of the people who’d been living there for generations (and bullying them into leaving), but most importantly destroying a unique ecosphere. In an interview around the time, he said: “The greatest thing I’ve ever done for the environment is what I’ll be doing right here in Aberdeen.” (Baxter, 2011) In Capitalism, green doesn’t equal nature; it equals the colour of money instead.
The food industry, in all its aspects, is estimated to be responsible for half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. (Molla, 2014) They, too, have seen the light in recent years, and with pledging sustainability, food producers are now showing alleged concern for the environment as well. (McDonalds, 2016) Money is still the driving force in the food industry though. It had been researched and proven that livestock is extremely harmful to our environment, long before it became known to the general public. “… Yet according to a 2006 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), our diets and, specifically, the meat in them cause more greenhouse gases—carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, nitrous oxide, and the like—to spew into the atmosphere than either transportation or industry.” (Fiala, 2009) While cows are the most harmful livestock, that doesn’t mean other animals raised for meat can be enjoyed guilt-free; pigs’ emmision 1.5 kg of methane against 0.12 kg in humans. [1] (Science) “It turns out that producing half a pound of hamburger for someone’s lunch—a patty of meat the size of two decks of cards—releases as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as driving a 3,000-pound car nearly 10 miles.” (Fiala, 2009) Besides the carbon footprint of livestock, the water footprint is eerily high as well; it takes 4,650 litres of water for a cow to produce a 300 gram steak. [2] (Kekeritz) Activists have fought years for these numbers to get out, and documentary-maker Kip Andersen even stumbled on the terrible discovery that these ringers were not only silenced, some were even killed. (Andersen & Kuhn, 2014) This March, award-winning activist Berta Cáceres was assassinated in her own home. (Watts, 2016) Such acts illuminate the irony in one of Ayn Rand’s famous quotes. “In popular usage, the word ‘selfishness’ is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends… and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word ‘selfishness’ is: concern with one’s own interests.” (Rand, 1964)
In the eyes of business owners, capitalism can do no wrong and those who stand behind the system defend their position by saying it has been good for people; without capitalism, living standards across the world would still be appalling. (Sajid Javid, MP, 2015) Capitalism may have flourished the world (‘s human) population, it certainly did not do the same for any other unfortunate species, sharing this planet with homo sapiens. Since 1900, almost 500 species have gone extinct, which is quite a lot more than the 9 species scientists would expect to fade away through the process of evolution. (Ceballos, et al., 2015) It may be easy to blame poachers for the alarming decline in elephants, Sumatran tigers and rhino’s, but these people poach because there’s a market for their products and they want to profit from it. In principle, a poacher isn’t much different from the head of a canned fish company, hunting their prey no matter the consequence, as long as they get paid at the end of the ride. While John West and consorts claim sustainability (West, 2012), their popular canned fish is supposedly caught with a rod instead of the tainted dragnet, this is only true for two percent of their tuna (Guardian, 2015), a fish at the brink of extinction (WorldWildLife, 2016). Another species being treated dreadfully is our cousin the Orangutan. Their Indonesian homes are destroyed at an infuriating rate, in order for – in an ironic twist – companies to plant palm trees, used for palm oil that can be found in most major food and drink brands as well as ordinary products such as lipstick and shampoo. (Kuhn, 2015) The Orangutan isn’t just deemed homeless though for people to be able to have their Coca Cola; after all, people are an exceptionally cruel species. The lucky apes are brutally murdered. Those not so lucky are horribly abused and mutilated. (Whyte, Desilets, & Warwick, 2014) Businesses do not deem animals important enough to care about; as long as there’s money in it, there’ll always be a reason to destroy and kill.
There is no future possible for human life on Earth if Capitalism is allowed to run its course. The irony of greed is that, by taking all that is desired, such destruction takes place that nothing is left; not for the taker, nor for everyone else. The end result of greed is death. During the last century it has become a normalcy for businesses to destroy the environment, including, yet not limited to human lives, in return for positive dividend at the end of the year. They keep information from the general public if it means a few more years of profit, and when obstructed by environmentalists who share their dirty secrets, some businesses even go as far as to literally shoot those messengers. Capitalism is responsible for the disappearance of unique ecosystems, nature-sights and the extinction of many more species than would be considered natural. It is also responsible for the endless suffering of species which are not quite yet extinct, like the Indonesian Orangutan. All this destruction and suffering in the name of Capitalism is being executed for only a handful of people to profit financially. There is no logical reason for this vileness to continue. Ayn Rand and Gordon Gekko may have been among the few who profited from Capitalism, that does not mean their words should be taken as truth: Greed is taking more than is needed. Greed is taking at the expense of another. Greed is destroying the environment. Greed is bad.
———–1667 words—————-
Bibliography
aynrand.org. (2016). Introductionto objectivism. Retrieved from AynRand.org website: https://www.aynrand.org/ideas/philosophy
Andersen, K., & Kuhn, K. (Directors). (2014). Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret [Film].
Baxter, A. (Director). (2011). You’ve Been Trumped [Film].
Campbell, D. (2009, March 10). Greed is good: a guide to radical individualism . Retrieved from The Guardian website: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/10/ayn-rand-capitalism
Ceballos, G., Ehrlich, P. R., Barnosky, A. D., García, A., Pringle, R. M., & Palmer, T. M. (2015, June 19). Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Retrieved from Science Advances website: http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253.full
ExxonMobil. (2015, – -). Sustainability. Retrieved from ExxonMobil website: http://lubes.exxonmobil.com/Lubes/sustainability_productsandprocesses_diversification.aspx
ExxonMobil. (2016, – -). History. Retrieved from ExxonMobil website: http://corporate.exxonmobil.com/en/company/about-us/history/overview
Fiala, N. (2009, February 1). The Greenhouse Hamburger. The Scientific American, 300, pp. 72-75. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican0209-72
Gerrard, S. (2016, – -). The Dunes. Retrieved from Sophie Gerrard website: https://www.sophiegerrard.com/work/the-dunes/
Goldenberg, S. (2015, July 8). Exxon knew of climate change in 1981, email says – but it funded deniers for 27 more years. Retrieved from The Guardian website: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/08/exxon-climate-change-1981-climate-denier-funding
Guardian, T. (2015, October 6). John West accused of breaking tuna pledge to end ‘destructive’ fishing methods. Retrieved from The Guardian website: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/06/john-west-accused-of-breaking-tuna-pledge-to-end-destructive-fishing-methods
Kekeritz, T. Water Footprint – Virtual water embedded in products. Water Footprint – Virtual water embedded in products. VirtualWater.eu.
Kuhn, A. (2015, March 11). As Palm Oil Farms Expand, It’s A Race To Save Indonesia’s Orangutans. Retrieved from NPR website: http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/11/392292008/as-palm-oil-farms-expand-its-a-race-to-save-indonesias-orangutans
Levine, B. E. (2014, December 10). How Ayn Rand Helped Turn the U.S. Into a Selfish, Greedy Nation. Retrieved from Alternet.org website: http://www.alternet.org/culture/how-ayn-rand-helped-turn-us-selfish-greedy-nation
McDonalds. (2016, – -). Sustainability. Retrieved from McDonalds website: http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/sustainability.html
Molla, R. (2014, September 29). How Much of World’s Greenhouse-Gas Emissions Come From Agriculture? Retrieved from The Wall Street Journal website: http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/how-much-of-worlds-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from-agriculture-1782/
MP, T. R. (2015, November 16). In defence of the c-word: why capitalism is a force for good. Retrieved from Gov.uk website: https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/in-defence-of-the-c-word-why-capitalism-is-a-force-for-good
Rand, A. (1964). The Virtue of Selfishness (Introduction ) (12th ed., pp. 5-9). New York: Penguin Books.
Schwartz, J. (2016, March 29). Exxon Mobil Climate Change Inquiry in New York Gains Allies. Retrieved from The New York Times website: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/30/science/new-york-climate-change-inquiry-into-exxon-adds-prosecutors.html
Science, N. G. Methane emission per animal / human per year. Methane emission per animal / human per year. Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Science, -.
Steimo, S. (2010). The Evolution of Modern States – Sweden, Japan and the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Times, T. N. (2015, November 6). Science – A Range of Opinions on Climate Change at Exxon Mobil. Retrieved from The New York Times website: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-global-warming-statements-climate-change.html
Watts, J. (2016, March 04). Berta Cáceres, Honduran human rights and environment activist, murdered . Retrieved from The Guardian website: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/03/honduras-berta-caceres-murder-enivronment-activist-human-rights
West, J. (2012). Sustainability. Retrieved from John West website: https://www.john-west.co.uk/sustainability/
Whyte, S., Desilets, M., & Warwick, H. (2014, August). Save orangutans from extinction when you next shop – and put an end to the cruelty of palm oil. Retrieved from HUHA website: http://huha.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/HUHA___Palm_Oil_vs_Orangutans.pdf
WorldWildLife. (2016). Bluefin Tuna. Retrieved from World Wild Life website: http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/bluefin-tuna
