"It's really difficult for me to understand why American imperialism would risk a sharp spike in oil prices given the state of the the global economy"
So says Louis Proyect, owner and operator of the Marxmail listserv, film critic ordinaire, and self proclaimed unrepentant Marxist.
Yep, it puzzles an inveterate Marxist[not to be confused with invertebrate Marxist]. It perplexes our aging Fidelista. It beats the hell out of him.....
As if...
1. the US bourgeoisie gives a rat's ass about the state of the world economy when the only world and the only economy it knows is the economy of aggrandizement, exploitation, appropriation, accumulation-- even if, especially when that aggrandizement, that accumulation requires the liquidation of assets.
As if...
2. the bourgeoisie anywhere always act rationally.
As if...
3. that rationality should somehow conform to what an "inveterate Marxist" thinks should be the rationality of capitalism.
As if...
4. the violent fluctuations in the price of oil is not exactly how capital has channeled, allocated, distributed profit among its constituent enterprises.
As if...
5. those fluctuations aren't exactly the way capital has transferred, expanded, and liquidated wealth over the past 35 years.
As if...
6. the 1979-1980 spike in oil prices did not inaugurate the double-dip recession of the early 1980s, suspending for a bit the massive generalized overproduction of capital.
As if...
7. the double recession was not fundamental to capital's assault on the living standards of workers everywhere.
As if...
8. that price spike did not feed US finance capital as petro-dollars recycled through the US banking system.
As if...
9. this particular overproduction of petroleum as a commodity did not resurface as general overproduction through the recycling of petro-dollars.
As if...
9. the general overproduction did not lead to the price break of oil in the mid 1980s, with the subsequent devastation of Mexico, the Soviet Union, the US Savings and Loan industry, and housing markets.
As if...
10. the invasion of Iraq in 1991 was not undertaken to force Iraq's production off the world market, just as Iraq's invasion of Kuwait had been launched to force Kuwait's production off the markets.
As if...
11. the price boosts provided by the war and the coincident "instability" was not short-lived, soon overwhelmed and undermined by the technical advances in locating and recovering reserves.
As if...
12. the decline in global lifting and finding costs coupled with the increased capital expansion had not, once again as always, engendered overproduction, depressing once again as always the market price, the rate of return on investment; leading to the dramatic price break of 1998 when oil prices dropped below $10 per barrel.
As if...
13. the 1998 collapse did not, once again as always, lead to cries of outrage and pain by our oil bourgeoisie about Iraq's increased production.
As if...
14. OPEC had not, once again as always, heard the cries of its most unsilent partner and had not intervened once again as always with production cuts.
As if...
15. the intervention of OPEC did not once again signal an end, but not the end, to a period of capital expansion, to accumulation by increased capitalization, and the approach, once again, of economic contraction.
As if...
16. the economic contraction, the subsequent re-invasion of Iraq, the oil price spikes did not, once again as always, redistribute profit so that the profit channeled to the oil companies was proportionate to the size of the capital invested in oil production.
As if...
17. reestablishing the proportionality of profit to the size of the capital was not inherent in and a refraction of capital's tendency to equalize profit rates over time.
As if...
18. equalizing profit rates did not transform a particular overproduction into general social overproduction; did not signify the overproduction of oil as capital; did not signify that the means of producing oil, regardless of the intensity of the exploitation of labor and because of the intensity of exploitation of labor in the production process, could NOT exploit labor intensely enough to maintain the value-ization process, enough to maintain accumulation.
As if...
19. overproduction is not once again as always behind capital's drive to force Iranian production from the market, and better yet for the bourgeoisie, destroy Iran's productive capacity.
As if...
20. the United States has not reduced its oil imports by approximately 18% in the last 5 years; expanded its domestic onshore production, and increased its total hydrocarbon fuel exports so that exports exceeded imports.
As if...
21. US crude oil production in 2010 had not increased 10% from its 2007 level; the US Energy Information Agency was not projecting an increase in domestic production to 6.7 million barrels per day by 2020 based on the exploitation of "tight oil" [shale formation] supplies.
As if...
22. excess capacity in the global oil industry was not 4 million barrels per day.
As if...
23. between 2007 and 2012 US daily consumption of oil had not declined by 1.5 million barrels per day.
As if...
24. the history of the world we've been living in for 40 years isn't the history of overproduction.
That Proyect is puzzled, confused, is understandable since Proyect has been flogging neo-Malthusian, apocalyptic, peak [snake] oil theories for at least a decade.
That Proyect doesn't understand a bit of what he claims to understand, "Marxism," that is to say Marx's critique of capitalist production, is one thing and a very small thing. Personally, I have nothing against Mr. Proyect, and if he weren't such a
sanctimonious, self-righteous jerk, I'd probably leave his name out of
this completely.
That not a one of Proyect's "Marxmailers"-- not a single mother's son or daughter, not a single so-called Marxist, Trotskyist, Luxemburgist, anti-Leninist, anarchist, Fidelista, Chavezista, Moralesismo-er, not a single one of the professed, professional, and professorial Marxists who occupy the chat room in Proyect's digital retirement home--challenged their host's confusion, sought to enlighten the chat-room moderator is another sad thing altogether.
The point isn't whether or not US production meets, exceeds, or falls short of the US EIA projections and estimates. The point isn't whether global oil supplies are sufficient for 50 or 100 years.
The point is that the production of oil, the increases and declines in production, the increases and declines in prices, the actions and "rationality" of the oil capitalists will be determined by the economics of capitalism, by the social organization of labor that determines accumulation. Oil production conforms to the needs of capitalist accumulation even when, especially when, those needs and that accumulation are difficult for Marxists to understand.
And you can take that to the bank. Or the movies.
S.Artesian February 23, 2012
