[Marxism] Re: Peak oil and politics

[Nick Halliday <halliday.nick@xxxxxxxxx>]

RM writes:

>
> However, none of this has anything to do with the finiteness of oil, and the
> possibility that supplies just may have already peaked.  If peak oil has
> arrived, you won't find the oil companies or Bush and lap-dog Blair making
> any strong statements about it -- that wouldn't be good for maintaining
> profitability.  Panic on the stock markets and consumers withholding
> spending is not necessarily good, even in the short-term, for sustaining
> profits in a capitalist economy.....

Oil is finite in the sense that we can imagine the total amount that
is out there, in the earth, under the seabeds, etc. is indeed an
amount X which will not be added to and can only be subtracted from.
So in fact the overall amount of oil peaked the time period up until 
humans pumped their first drop. Supplies are a function of the ability
to get it out of the ground, refined into a usable form, and into the
market. Supplies are changeable as are demand and consumption.

Again, it is simply a begging of the question to say since oil
production may have peaked, we should act like it has peaked.
Production in fact is still going up (and immediate supplies are,
well, inundated), but some analysts see it being outstripped, sooner
than expected, by demand, much of it coming from China. So the current
price of oil is based on the belief that supplies will tighten and
that the price of oil will continue to rise--even in the face of the
fact that right now there is more oil being produced than consumed.

Does capitalism avoid panics? It depends. US capitalists cheered panic
during the Asian crisis of the late 90s. It led to a collapse in the
price of assets and allowed their interests to take over factories,
real estate, banking and insurance all over Asia. Moreover, much of US
capital thinks it is no longer so vulnerable to shocks on stock
markets, since much of their money is now tied up in entities of
various configurations but all of which act more or less as 'private
equity'.

So let me go back to my other main point: it's just as with the
environment or world poverty. Just because capitalists express a
concern about peak oil, or environmental destruction, or world
poverty, doesn't really mean they have found common cause with
socialism. Socialists need to keep their eyes on the prize. The
current 'peak oil' problem is really just a set of issues within
capitalism (e.g., should the price of oil be driven higher, be kept at
or near where it is now, or go lower; what government policies,
including war and foreig aid to regimes, should help determine that;
what legal and regulatory framework should cover investing in fossil
fuels, from futures and the actual spot market, to investment funds,
to venture capital investing in new production).

Here's a thought, though I haven't done the research to back it up
(just a hunch from a quick mental review of the 'news' of the 90s).
You know when you have the most political and social crises in
countries that are large oil exporters? WHEN THE PRICE OF OIL IS LOW.
A far bigger news story than the price of petroleum products in Yemen
(most likely a price determined almost entirely by the government)
would be things like: when Indonesia became a net importer of oil than
an exporter, civil wars and strife in places like Nigeria, Angola,
Sudan, Ecuador, and Colombia--and now Iraq (though of course war has
been waged against Iraq for over a decade now).

NH

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