Judging from the agenda of their annual get- together, which is taking place this weekend in its usual location - the luxurious winter resort of Davos, Switzerland - it's business as usual for the world's rich and powerful.
The 40 heads of state and 2,500 businessmen gathered for the occasion are supposed to focus on "climate change". This would be an important meeting if these people were in the least concerned with the future of the planet's population. But are they? No. As they showed time and again in their endless series of "world summits" on the subject, all they've ever been concerned about is to find ways of generating profits out of "green energies".
Never mind if, in the meantime, their profit system is precipitating the planet into barbarism.
Of course, fringe meetings will be held between the heads of states on what they call the "threat of terrorism". The drone industry and other death merchants have juicy contracts to look forward to!
But don't hold your breath. There will be no meetings about how to contain the rise of poverty, caused by their crisis. Nor will there be any time devoted to the tens of millions who have been turned into refugees by the wars which are raging across the planet!
Their world is sliding into barbarism
Yet, since World War II, there have never been as many wars as there are today, even if, of course, many of these wars are conveniently hidden from our sight by the western media.
Here, we have polemics in the papers over Prince Andrew representing Britain at Davos, given his sexual record. But which paper mentions that in the 2-decade-long war in the Democratic Republic of Congo, rape has been a common weapon used to terrorise the populations into submission? And who exposes the fact that behind the warring factions, are western mining companies - and governments - fighting for the country's huge mineral reserves?
Meanwhile, a social and political catastrophe has developed from Afghanistan to Yemen and the Sudan, from Iraq and Syria to Libya, from Nigeria to Mali and the Central African Republic. Whether through direct military interventions or indirectly, the rich countries have only managed to cause mayhem in poor countries which were already poverty-stricken - for the sole purpose of propping up regimes expected to ensure that profits keep flowing into the coffers of western multinationals.
When their aggressive policies caused the rise of the likes of Isis, in Iraq, the only response these rich powers have found was more aggression - drones in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen, bombings in Syria and Iraq. And after that, they claim to be surprised and outraged when the wars they wage on the poor populations of the world spill over into the rich countries, as they did in France earlier this month!
But the real criminals, those who have the most blood on their hands because their profit system means horror and death for tens of millions across the world, are those gathered in Davos!
The parasites need to be kicked out
As to their crisis, they won't talk about it because they're doing so well out of it.
The report published by Oxfam as a sort of ironical introduction to the Davos summit says it all: by the end of the year, the world's richest 1% will own more wealth than the other 99% - a 15% increase in their share of the world's wealth since 2008. In Britain itself, the richest 100 families, who own almost one-third of the country's total wealth between them, each became £150m richer during the crisis!
There's no coincidence here. In this capitalist system which can only manage to limp from crisis to crisis, these crises are just another way for the capitalist class to increase its wealth - by using the threat of unemployment to tighten the screw of exploitation on the working class majority - and not just here, but across the world.
In the rich countries, which would easily have enough wealth to cater for the needs of all their inhabitants - and many more - contrary to the scare stories peddled by politicians against immigrants, this means the rise of joblessness and under-employment, together with the rise of poverty. In the poor countries, this means that entire populations are driven into destitution and despair.
Yes, this capitalist system, in which the affluence of the few feeds on the misery of the vast majority, needs to be overthrown. And the only obstacle to this is just a tiny layer of parasites, represented by those gathered in Davos, which will be no match for the collective strength of the world working class, the day it chooses to use it!