Re: flaring off

[DMS <dmschanoes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect has submitted a portion of a text designed to prove that the
bourgeoisie are in fact driven by shortages of energy and that WWII was
the first energy war.  Careful reading of the full text makes it very clear,
however, that neither the actions of the Japanese, nor the US were driven by
a natural shortage of petroleum, but by economic competition, that is to say
profit, exchange value, capitalism, commodity production.

Louis has confused the natural, or use value, with the social, or exchange value,
and it is the latter that determines the directions of capital.

It makes little sense to talk about the causes of WWII, or any war for that
matter,  without discussing the period leading up to that war.  How a Marxist
can pose WWII as a battle for scarce petroleum while ignoring the decade
long economic depression leading up to the military conflict is baffling. To
talk about that depression without analyzing the massive overproduction
leading to that depression is equally baffling.

And so what's the difference?  Just this (and this is where we get to "future
trends" and practical differences)-- to posit the actions of capital as triggered
by "natural" scarcity, a scarcity that is final, non-social, and not based on the
production of exchange values, the expropriation of profit, makes AT BEST
opposition to that process  Moral, Ethical, and Ahistorical.  The entire criticality
of history, of revolution, the NECESSITY of revolution with a specific
embodiment in a CLASS, disappears from analysis and program.

Which might explain why we get URLs to articles that don't prove what they
are supposed to prove, instead of answers to Michael's original inquiry.

As I said, I do not want to engage in the great hydrocarbon debate, and this,
the citing of articles that don't do what they are thought to do, is exactly the
reason why.

dms