Crooked Capitalism
Translation: Stefán Ingvar Vigfússon
Sometimes shipping companies throw their ships away in the Indian Ocean. The company sells a used ship to a third party that specializes in discarding it in a cost-effective manner. The buyer promises to take full responsibility for the action, thus absolving the seller of any wrongdoing. When the ship is chopped to pieces in India, it has been sold twice.
The media sometimes catches wind of this practice. That is really unfortunate. There are many indications that there are better ways to dispose of these prized stallions after they’ve fulfilled their service to Queen and country. There are, for instance, organizations whose sole purpose is drawing attention to this issue. Perhaps it might be better if these cargo ships' final journeys took them to the shores of more developed nations, where someone could vouch for the quality of the work being done. The media might point out the fact that the people working in the ship-graveyard do not, sorry to say, work under good conditions. And that environmental issues might not top the list of priorities on the coast of India.
Graphics / Margrét Aðalheiður Önnu Þorgeirsdóttir
“We didn’t sell the ship to be torn down in the third world, where poor people fry in the sun and injure themselves while taking the ship apart,” say the company figureheads. “Didn’t you know where the ship would end up after you sold it?” asks the reporter. “Yes, but he seduced us. It’s the middleman's fault. He’s the one who bought the ship, after all. We had nothing to do with it when they tore it apart. He entices the poor people and pays them to pollute land and sea.”
That’s all well and good, say corporate social responsibility organizations. They aren't here to monitor companies' shady dealings, they’re here to accept money from companies that promise to behave themselves. The committee understands how simple companies belonging to islandfolks can be. The international middleman is the evil one. We Icelanders are environmentally friendly people. The wheels of our economy are powered sustainably. It was just an accident. The shipping company gets a slap on wrist and maintains its status as a model company in the Icelandic business world.
There’s just no way that Icelanders would do such a thing. We are the most eco-friendly nation in the world. So eco-friendly, in fact, that international heavy industry comes here to produce aluminum using green energy. So eco-friendly that international coal-fired power stations and nuclear power plants buy certificates of origin from us for green energy, thus becoming eco-friendly coal-fired power stations and nuclear power plants. By wiring money to Icelandic energy producers, bad energy becomes good energy, at least on paper. Some might say this is dishonest. Can heavy industry no longer tout their use of green energy? Of course they can; anyone who comes to Iceland can see that we have no coal-fired power stations or nuclear power plants. It just doesn’t make sense to say that in Iceland, aluminum is produced using coal or nuclear energy. That’s nonsense. We’re eco-friendly.
Our goal is to profit as much as possible from our green image. It’s best to have our cake and eat it too. We can’t handle the temptation, just like the ship-breakers in India. You can’t expect us to turn down money. The offer is simply too good to refuse. You just need to have the right attitude to make it work.
Environmentally speaking, when something goes wrong in Iceland, it’s usually people abroad who are to blame. We’re so small and so cute, and we don’t stand a chance against the big fish abroad. Being green is all we know. International capitalist powers that be use that to their advantage. We didn’t dupe the people in India, the foreigners did. The Icelandic economy is so tiny in the big picture. We’re just pawns in international capitalism’s game of chess.