The book really strives to answer only one question: why are our ruling capitalist masters addicted to profits? As I have argued many times in the past, profits are only one source of the addiction puzzle. It is the power of domination over others, over societies, over nations which is derived from huge wealth accumulations that is the most intoxicating ingredient.
Although originally capitalists were merely addicted to profits, nowadays capitalists are more driven by this derivative intoxicant to exploit man and nature and to engage in the grossest of war crimes to gain control of fossil fuels. Thus, it follows that any truly revolutionary movement that strives to save humans from extinction must take as its prime goal the destruction of a system whose primary function is to supply capitalists with the drugs of profits and especially power (hegemony). It also follows that individual or family enterprises for profit can be permitted, but not the huge concentrations of capital as seen in large corporations today.
Referring to our ruling capitalist masters, Empson writes:
The vested interests have no intention of changing their behaviour. While there are profits to be made, coal and oil will be extracted from the ground. The machinery to do so has to make a return and that means production might continue for a very long time. Malm gives one example if an oil platform built in 1982 whose one million tonnes of concrete represents an enormous investment that will see a return only after many decades of use. He quotes David Harvey, “When capitalists purchase fixed capital, they are obliged to use it until its value… is fully retrieved”. But from inside the environmental crisis of climate change, this obligation will doom the entire planet.
.... Even installing renewable energy doesn’t replace fossil fuels on a like for like basis. Malm quotes a study that demonstrates for every one percent increase in renewable energy, fossil fuel generated power only decreases by 0.1 percent. The logic of capitalism is to simply expand. What needs to be done is to “pull the plug” on fossil fuels – the shutting down of the fossil fuel industry; the closure of coal mines and oil fields. It is an inherently revolutionary perspective that cannot wait till after some future revolution, but needs to be initiated today.
