Jim, Klare's case doesn't really contradict the neoliberal ideology, since, after all, if the price of oil rises, it is argued this provides an incentive to develop alternative energy sources by making it "economic" to develop them.
What contradicts the neoliberal ideology more, however, is that petrol prices have been structurally much higher in Europe than the US, mainly due to a much larger tax impost, but it just hasn't caused a very significant shift to "alternative" energy sources in most places (although such a shift has been gradually and incrementally occurring worldwide since the "oil shocks" of the 1970s and 1980s). Right now US petrol costs about US$0.93 per litre ($3.52 per gallon) while in Holland it costs about $2.35 per litre ($8.89 per gallon!). In other words, petrol in Holland costs 2.5 times more than it does in the US. Increasing oil prices might not change the pattern of energy consumption all that much, except that people would use their cars less, and use overburdened, downgraded public transport systems more. Rising oil prices = increased product unit costs + lowered final demand = persistent high unemployment = fall in modal real wages = reduction in vlp Both in Europe and the US, the PPI has been rising faster than the CPI. Jurriaan _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
