Friday, 19 Ramadan 1445 | 2024/03/29
Time now: (M.M.T)
Menu
Main menu
Main menu

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

 News Right Now: Running Dry

As’salamu Alaikum and welcome News Right Now: ‘Running Dry’

Britain has had a chaotic week sparked initially only by rumours of fuel shortages, but this was enough to send the nation into a state of panic-buying which led to thousands of petrol stations going completely dry, and hundreds of pumps simply remaining closed. As soon as a delivery was made, people queued for hours at a time from the early hours of the morning to fill their tanks, consequently emptying the supplies again and again. At the peak of the crisis retailers said more than 2,000 gas stations were dry. This scene played out all over the country, especially in cities like London, where fights at the pumps, drivers hoarding petrol in water bottles and topping up their tanks continually, was commonplace.

The shortage of lorry drivers in the wake of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic has affected more sectors of the economy than the government has admitted. Disrupting deliveries of food, medicines and fuel, there is noticeably less available on the supermarket shelves. Linked to the fuel crisis is the UK’s energy system that has been plunged into chaos by a perfect storm of market forces, which threaten to rip through the economy from home energy suppliers to heavy industry, and from factories to farmers.

Gas prices in the UK have more than quadrupled over the last year to highs of 180 pence per therm, from around 40p per therm this time last year! In the last month alone, fuel prices have climbed by 70%. This has stoked fears that energy suppliers will collapse, and households will be saddled with unaffordable bills. The elderly, those with young children and the vast majority of people of low or even average incomes will suffer greatly if heating becomes any more expensive, and many will have to make difficult choices between paying for food or heating as the cold winter months set in.

The privatisation of fuel which was introduced in the 80’s and 90’s based on the dogmatic belief that the private sector is always more efficient and productive, while nationalised industries are inefficient and so become a burden on the state and taxpayers, is responsible for this manipulation of prices. The idea led to the privatisation of even public utilities such as water and gas ie the ‘natural monopolies’, which are not actually suited for private ownership like other commodities - and because power generation is a hugely expensive exercise requiring massive capital for upfront infrastructure, it was deemed that it makes economic sense for private companies to manage the task of supplying the nation instead of the government.

However the inherent problem in this model is that governments impose price caps to control the market prices. Although this is supposed to safeguard customers from sudden and unjust hikes in prices, it also means energy firms cannot pass on increases in wholesale fuel prices that may at times be genuine. Like those caused by natural causes, disasters or the emerging effects of the Covid pandemic which have affected global supply chains.
Whatever the reason though, private companies always act to maximise profits devoid of any accountability to reinvest, using unjust incentives to monopolise the market where all the risk of liquidation lies with the taxpayers, while the shareholders can cream off the profit.

Capitalism is an ideological framework which values wealth creation above all else. It views any given situation as a potential to benefit financially. Any commodity can be exploited to its maximum in the pursuit of wealth creation, so the fuel crisis is the natural consequence of Capitalism, the ideology of self-interest, individualism and consequently privatization.

Likewise under Capitalism, nothing is sacred, everything and everyone has a price tag that can be owned and sold without almost any ethical consideration. Food, medicines, fuel, education, healthcare, livestock, agriculture and even water is open to private ownership, therefore restricting the availability of commodities to those most able to pay. In this way Capitalism cannot be the unifying ideology of justice and equity that any society can expect true progress from. By restricting the resources people need to live full and healthy lives, and denying prosperity and modernity to the entire global south, the Capitalist ideology has engineered a global reality that has failed to provide security and stability to people even in the western nations where it is supposedly working well as a beacon of enlightenment.

We see at the very top of the economic pyramid trillions of dollars of wealth are in the hands of a very small group of people, whose fortune and power grow exponentially. Billionaires now have more wealth than the 4.6 billion people who make up 60 percent of the planet’s population. Meanwhile, around 735 million people are still living in extreme poverty. Many others are just one hospital bill or failed harvest away from slipping into it.

The richest continue to enjoy booming fortunes, they are also enjoying some of the lowest levels of tax in decades – as are the corporations that they own. Instead taxes are falling disproportionately on working people. When governments under tax the rich, there's less money for vital services like healthcare and education, increasing the amount of care work that falls on the shoulders of the weakest in society.

At the same time, public services suffer from chronic underfunding or being outsourced to private companies that exclude the poorest people. In many countries a decent education or quality healthcare has become a luxury only the rich can afford. It has profound implications for future generations and the opportunities they will have to live a better and healthier life.

JazakumAllahu Khairan for joining us...

Ummah Voice Podcast
SoundCloud Link: Click Here

Media

Leave a comment

Make sure you enter the (*) required information where indicated. HTML code is not allowed.

back to top

Site Categories

Links

West

Muslim Lands

Muslim Lands