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May 20, 2004
Cheap oil is not good for us
If bandits broke into your house, destroyed your furniture, garden, and roof, beat you up, and then shamelessly proceeded to auction off precious items left to you from your great-grandparents, which you had hoped to pass on to your children, would you be yelling “cheaper, cheaper, you’re selling them for too high”? And fight with your spouse about who can get them to sell it for cheaper?
That’s the functional equivalent of the dominant debate on the oil prices.
It’s almost surreal to watch the stories in the evening news about politicians trading barbs on who can bring oil prices lower, dotted with “man at the gas pump complaining about the oil prices” interviews.
It’s an open secret that oil is limited and will run out sooner or later, no matter what we pretend. It’s a bit like the truth of death: most people live as if they don’t believe it. Applying induction to human history, we can easily conclude that human thinking isn’t induction friendly -- and that may well be our undoing.
Currently, almost all profits stemming from the increase in oil prices are pocketed by huge corporations and tyrannical regimes, who often do very little to spread the wealth around except in a few democratic countries like Venezuela and, in a few semi-corporatist states like Iran and Iraq in the past. Millions of Nigerians continue to live in dire poverty in the oil-rich Niger Delta; millions of Pakistani, Bengali and other immigrants from poor countries around the world toil under semi-slavery conditions in the oil-rich Gulf countries. Remember the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who were expelled en masse from Kuwait after the first Gulf War? Without an audible peep from the world community, who would surely protest if 400,000 white people were collectively punished and suddenly expelled from the country of their employment, with no due process and no rights? (Kuwaitis claimed that Palestinians supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. I wonder how it feels to admit that Saddam Hussein’s brutality is preferable to yours?)
In contrast to these private profits, almost all the real costs of oil production are public. After 15 years, Exxon Valdez still hasn’t paid damages for the Alaska spill -- it keeps running circles around the $5 billion verdict, modest considering the damage, with its army of lawyers. Back at the ranch, 1,200 of the plaintiffs have passed away and, unfortunately, sea otters and fish don’t yet have standing in human courts. Oil corporations have a sordid history of supporting some of the most brutal regimes and that is not a coincidence. Extractive industries, almost by nature, require suppressing the local population because of the inevitable damage they do the local environment and also because they create a large booty to be shared --especially large if you don’t have to pay the pesky natives-- and thus attract the greediest and the most vicious.
Even under the current scenario of private profits and public costs, high oil prices are good for us because such pressures force people to choose more efficient vehicles and give impetus to the search for alternative energy sources. In fact, that’s why oil prices will come down. OPEC knows full well too high prices will inevitably cause alternative sources to be promoted.
Of course, a just society would not let the poorest pay the highest cost for the oil prices and would subsidize reasonable and unavoidable living costs during the transition to sane energy sources -- and penalize their wasteful use. Why should a hummer owner pay the same price for gas as a hybrid owner? It’s like using high taxes and levies on cigarettes to pay for lung cancer treatment. It’s good because it cuts down on smoking, especially among teenagers who are the most vulnerable and most price-sensitive segment of smokers, and limits private profits made at the expense of such public detriment.
And last but not least, oil is part of earth’s wealth. It should benefit first and foremost the people who live in oil rich regions, since they have to put up with the conditions of its production, and then be used very judiciously with the awareness that it’s part of the inheritance of future generations.
$40 a barrel? Higher the better.
Posted by zeynep at May 20, 2004 09:16 AM
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Comments
Sort of OT:
*Attention Bloggers*
I am currently compiling a sort of "War on Terror" primer to dispel commercial war propaganda and to quell the jingoistic neo-fascist tide that has adopted the Nick Berg beheading as its crest and shield.
I'm requesting substantive contributions from free-thinking bloggers and their readers, particularly related to the rampant and naked contempt for Arabs and Muslims expressed in much of our popular media...its roots, its application past & present, and its implications for the future. Some of the sharpest voices in the media are outside the media, as you well know. Perhaps with a single voice, we may be heard.
The first nodule, in rough, is linked to my name after this posting.
Full credit given, additional source material (potent quotes, images, etc.) welcome.
When fully compiled, I'll submit the primer to a number of popular sites for publication under the name:
"Subverted Reality: A Primer on Terrorism, Western Foreign Policy, and the Latest Crusade"
Selections will be made in the interest of coherency under the umbrella of that heading.
The destination of any resultant proceeds is up for debate. The project may take a while, but I'll update you at my site as we move along. Copies to all contributors.
Hope to hear from you,
Damon McNally
Subverted Reality
submissions to tikitikitumboo@yahoo.com
Posted by: Damon at May 20, 2004 12:00 PM
Problem with raising the cost of anything far above its costs of production -- besides the depressing effects it has on related production/consumption -- is that at the very least it creates a black market and smuggling, etc. Another swarm of mafia activity is created in the world. Hijackings. Adulteration. Money-laundering. Murder. What else? The mess in the world increases.
The problem with the logic here -- the flaw found everywhere on the liberal left these days (especially including the blog phenom) -- is that it accepts as a given, that, one way or another, capitalist market/production relations are the only possible way to produce and distribute goods in this physical universe. Amen.
Whether the liberal left understands it or not, accepts it or not: they'll have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, to a realization that only a world socialist economy will be able to properly allocate resources.
It'll all be more wonderfully democratic too.
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Better leave the oil and turn to solar power
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