By: Jože Biščak
What do Kostel, Solčava, and Črni Vrh have in common lately? Protests.
No, people are not protesting high taxes, traffic jams on (motor)ways, dishonest officials in ministries, the bloated state budget, or the wasteful government handing out money to NGOs run by political activists. No, they are protesting because the energy company Petrol has closed gas stations in their areas. And their main anger is directed precisely at the company, which has suffered financial harm due to unreasonable government measures; some gas stations suddenly became unprofitable, so naturally, the company closed them.
“But any form of blackmail at the expense of the people – while Petrol is making record profits, which are apparently still not enough for some of the shareholders pressuring the management – must be nipped in the bud,” commented Prime Minister Robert Golob, clearly striking a chord with the locals, who repeated the line that “Petrol (…) cannot look solely at its profits.” In these regions, which suffered under communist dictatorship for nearly half a century and never truly moved past socialist thinking, this mindset is practically written into their DNA: Profit is bad, profit is a capitalist relic. Their logical conclusion is: if gas stations are being closed and we are being denied access to fuel, capitalism is to blame. This is, to put it mildly, a strange notion, because Slovenia has never, truly never, had a free-market economy. What is written in the Constitution, about “free economic initiative,” has remained nothing more than ink on paper.
Nobody even remembers why Petrol closed the stations. The reason was that Golob, and his comrades passed a decree under which the government extended the regulation of fuel prices and even expanded it to include motorways. Fuel sales are again completely regulated, Petrol’s margins are locked at low levels, which has reduced profit and therefore the company’s ability to invest further. The government’s high-octane battle cry, which stokes protests, is the demonisation of profit.
If anyone thinks this government is motivated by good intentions, even altruistic concern for the people, they are mistaken. The true driving force behind all socialists in disguise is envy. This government is undoubtedly socialist, and full of envy. So much so that, together with its network of NGOs, it not only wants to dictate what level of profit is “acceptable,” but would now like to turn Petrol’s green numbers completely red. And this is the essence of all taxation: Leftists are not righteous thinkers seeking fairness, they want to drag the enterprising down to the level of mediocrity, if not into poverty. Their mission is not to succeed themselves, but to destroy others’ success and redistribute the spoils – to themselves. That is the heart of the so-called “conflict” between the government and Petrol. But this is not really a conflict, it is a frontal political assault on an energy company.
Slovenia’s post-independence left, trapped in a soap bubble, is lost in time and space. Its parallel universe does not recognise profit, believing it still lives in the previous century, fighting class warfare. It exists for its own sake, peddling outdated narratives about what is a fair wage, a decent income, or legitimate business profit, all through the lens of Marxist labour theory of value. And since people are often gullible, easy to mislead, and prone to blaming others (usually targeting entrepreneurs and managers) instead of using common sense, Petrol has become the villainous corporation. Make no mistake: all of Europe is sliding toward a kind of (semi-)socialism, where an enlightened leftist elite would determine how businesses should operate and how much profit is “enough.” The message to the successfully entrepreneurial is clear: Be more empathetic, you psychopathic capitalists and sociopathic profiteers. Your success proves you are corrupt, evil, and selfish. We will take your wealth, and lynch you.