Jim, I suspect that the main difference between us is the question of 'peak oil' -- though this difference I think is quite important in how we interpret the current situation. I recognize the scientific inevitability of peak oil though I am not sure whether we are at the peak, near it, or past it, or not. What I am convinced of is that the demand for energy is rising faster than the supply of new oil reserves and that means that oil/gas prices are going to continue to increase, (though if there is a major recession and government action and a shift to hybrid cars, gas prices my stabilize or decline in the short run.) The question that is being debated among environmentalists (including environmental economists if that is not a contradiction of terms) is whether we will run out of oil before or after we have generated runaway global warming. You appear to believe that oil/gas prices are not going to skyrocket and that we have sufficient time to adjust via hybrid cars and other medium lifestyle adjustments. I hope you are right, though I am skeptical. The more I read and research the topic, the more pessimistic I become. This is not to disagree that the weakness of the unions means that the squeeze on labour income is unlikely to lead to a wage-price spiral. On the other hand the incredible MA movement going on now around the world attests to an enourmous growth in monopoly powr such that I doubt we can assume, as we have in the recent past, that competition will curtail price increases.
Paul P Jim Devine wrote:
putting the issue of "peak oil" aside, one alternative here is to develop ways to utilize gasoline and other petroleum products with increasing efficiency, getting more "bank" for the "buck" (or Looney). For example, now appearing are hybrid autos that you can plug into the power grid at night, allowing 150 miles per (US) gallon or so. (6) with luck, high oil prices will encourage a slowing down of global warming (and the more efficient technologies of point 5). there is also the largely one-sided "class war" that's been going on for several decades (which was sparked partly by the "energy crisis" of the 1970s). In the rich world, we see this as the "race" (or creep) to the bottom, the downward harmonization of wages and social services in the rich world with those prevailing in the poorer world. It's due to the neo-liberal policy revolution, a response to the failure of the 1950s-1960s "social structure of accumulation" (which was expressed in falling profit rates at the end of the 1960s, i.e., after 1965 and before the 1970s energy crisis). -- Jim Devine / "Force cannot, like opinion, endure for long unless the tyrant extends his empire far enough afield to hide from the people, whom he divides and rules, the secret that real power lies not with the oppressors but with the oppressed." -- the Marquis de Condorcet.
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