Them and us energy markets a cash machine for the capitalists while workers fre

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The article argues that the energy crisis of 2022 is not a natural disaster or a necessary price of geopolitical conflict, but a class-driven redistribution of wealth from working people to the energy capitalist class. The central claim is that the war in Ukraine and the resulting sanctions regime have been used as a pretext for price gouging and superprofit extraction, while bourgeois politicians across Europe — particularly Liz Truss and Boris Johnson — act as direct agents of the energy oligarchy. The crisis is presented as a stark illustration of the "them and us" logic of capitalism: the same system that forces workers to freeze in their homes or choose between heating and eating simultaneously generates record-breaking profits for BP, Shell, Equinor, and their shareholders. The article insists that neither windfall taxes nor price caps can resolve the underlying contradiction, which is the private ownership of essential resources.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is rooted in the Marxist understanding of the state as an instrument of class rule, not a neutral arbiter. The article draws on the classical Marxist critique of bourgeois democracy, showing how the revolving door between corporate power and political office — Truss's Shell traineeship, her BP-linked donor, the appointment of an EDF lobbyist to Downing Street — is not corruption but the normal functioning of the capitalist state. The piece also deploys the concept of parasitism, characterising energy executives as "vultures" whose profits are extracted from the basic survival needs of the population. There is an implicit grounding in Marx's analysis of primitive accumulation and the expropriation of the commons: the article treats energy as a social necessity that has been privatised and monetised, with the working class forced to pay for access to what should be a collective resource. The rejection of reformist solutions — windfall taxes, price caps, state subsidies — is consistent with the Marxist tradition's insistence that capitalism cannot be made to serve human need through regulation alone.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is written in September 2022, at the peak of the first winter of the Ukraine war energy shock. It cites specific data: European gas prices rising 550 percent year-on-year; EU states allocating €500 billion to crisis measures; BP reporting its highest quarterly profits in 14 years at £6.9bn; UK gas producers projected to make £170 billion in excess profits over two years. The piece connects the energy crisis to the broader cost-of-living crisis, noting that the poorest 10 percent of UK households spend 11 percent of their budget on energy versus 4 percent for the richest. It situates the crisis within the geopolitical context of NATO's proxy war with Russia, exposing the hypocrisy of Western leaders who frame sanctions as a "price worth paying" for freedom while protecting energy profits. The article also traces the crisis to its pre-war origins, citing the January 2022 insurrection in Kazakhstan and a study recording 10,000 energy protests across 138 countries between November 2021 and August 2022. The Czech protests in Prague are highlighted as a turning point, where initial support for Ukraine gave way to anger at NATO's proxy war as the cost became unbearable.

Where the Argument Continues

The article leaves several threads open. It does not develop a detailed strategy for how the working class can seize control of energy production, nor does it address the question of what a socialist energy policy would look like in practice — nationalisation without workers' control is implicitly rejected, but the alternative is only gestured at. The relationship between the energy crisis and the climate crisis is noted but not explored in depth. The article's call for "enough is enough" points towards the need for mass action, but does not analyse the concrete organisational forms — trade unions, community assemblies, rank-and-file committees — through which such action could be built. These questions are taken up in other IDOM articles on the cost-of-living crisis, the energy transition under capitalism, and the strategy for building revolutionary workers' parties. The broader theoretical framework for understanding energy as a site of class struggle is developed in Marxist texts on the labour theory of value and the reproduction of labour power, particularly the work of Engels on the housing question and Marx on the conditions of the working class.

Connections

The article should be read alongside other IDOM analyses of the Ukraine war and the energy crisis, particularly those that develop the critique of NATO's proxy war and the exposure of Western sanctions as a weapon against the European working class. It connects to the broader Marxist literature on imperialism and inter-imperialist rivalry, especially Lenin's Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism and more recent analyses of energy geopolitics. The piece also resonates with Engels's The Condition of the Working Class in England in its documentation of how capitalist crisis is experienced as a direct assault on the physical survival of workers. For contemporary context, the article should be read alongside analyses of the 2022-23 winter of discontent in Europe, the wave of strikes and protests across the continent, and the political crisis that brought down the Truss government. The concept of "price gouging" as a form of capitalist parasitism connects to Marx's analysis of merchant capital and the appropriation of surplus value in circulation.

Key Quotes

1. "All the misery at the bottom represents a bonanza for the big energy firms. Last year, the chief executive of British Petroleum (BP), Bernard Looney, described the energy market as 'a cash machine'. With the war in Ukraine driving up the price of oil and gas, that machine is pumping out profits like never before."

2. "But simply taxing the superprofits of the energy companies will make little fundamental difference to the crisis of living standards or the climate. Both result from the private ownership of essential resources, which are exploited for profit rather than utilised for humanity's benefit."

3. "It is little wonder that Truss has taken such pains to protect the energy bosses' profits. After all, she cut her teeth in the corporate world as a graduate trainee for Shell, and her single biggest leadership campaign donation, of £100,000, came from the wife of James Hay, a former BP executive with a luxury goods empire."

4. "The arrogance of these representatives of the ruling class was met by a mass protest on the streets of Prague, which despite its political confusion, clearly directed fury at the government, and its involvement in NATO's proxy war."

5. "The world is facing an unprecedented rise in civil unrest as governments of all stripes grapple with the impacts of inflation on the prices of staple foods and energy… For governments unable to spend their way out of the crisis, repression is likely to be the main response to anti-government protests." (Quoting Verisk Maplecroft risk consultancy)

6. "People are tired of having to choose between eating a hot meal – or at all – and heating their homes, while the energy moguls count their billions. The slide into barbarism will not be endured lying down. Enough is enough."