Re: Re: Oil

[DMS <dmschanoes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

See, I told you this was fun:
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LP writes:

What is missing entirely from DMS's calculations is the *use value* of
oil, which far transcends its value as a commodity.
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OK, here's my new approach.  First I agree with the criticism,
then while you're still in shock, I respond.

Well, not really.  I agree with part of the criticism.  I
don't think the use value of oil is missing entirely from
my calculations, it's simply not the driving force for
the OWNERS of the property of oil production.  In the
immortal words of the M. King Hubbert Center at the
Colorado School of Mines:  "First, oil companies don't
have the slightest interest in producing oil.  They are
interested in making money."  This by the way was his
lead into talking about estimating reserves and why those
estimates were in continuous reappraisal.

Secondly, I think LP's point about the political struggle
around oil has great validity, but that validity is separate
and apart from the issue of looming scarcity and depletion.
The struggle has gone on continuously in greater or lesser
acuteness for 80 years, regardless of reserve estimates.

I myself brought up the issue of the Caspian Sea and that
a real target for the US bourgeoisie was ringing that area,
ringing Russia AND Iran with US bases to secure its control.
But again, I would express that as a function of PROPERTY and
profit, and not geological reserves.

Thirdly, the point about the military's reliance on oil is
also well-taken-- and also a point in favor of the solution
to the oil issue being a socialist revolution, as the US
military consumes about 22% of the total US daily requirement
and abolition of that military would release 4-5 million
barrels per day, thus increasing world supplies by about 5-6%
at no additional cost.

And finally, now that the shock of agreement has worn off
I would like to add that the conflict in the Gulf-Caspian Sea
regions is more accurately explained by the demands of profit,
the vicissitudes of overproduction than by looming shortage.
The first thing overproduction creates, the initial response
to the falling rate of profit is MORE overproduction as each
particular capital struggles harder to garner a portion of
the total socially available surplus.

See, I told you this was fun.

Yours truly in use and exchange,
dms