On 9/8/07, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Assume, for the sake of argument that you know the total quantity available > -- let's > say it's a gallon. Each period you remove some until you reach some point > where it > is uneconomical to continue. At some point, you reach a peak. Of course, it > is > probable that the decline will not be monotonic, but the peak will remain the > peak.
what if the amount you take out gets smaller and smaller over time, as the price rises? that is, as it slowly becomes "uneconomical" to take oil out of this fixed pool, people find substitutes for oil and figure out how to use oil more efficiently (driving Priuses, etc.) With increases in efficiency, the pool of oil may be constant or shrink, but the effective benefit received can increase. the issue about the meaning of inevitability is crucial. Sure, the collapse of capitalism is "inevitable," since the system is anti-human. It will kill either itself or humanity. If the latter goes, so does capitalism. QED. However, there are _counteracting forces_ which should always be remembered. Abstract tendencies can be expressed very differently in practice. -- Jim Devine / "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." -- Aristotle.
