Peak Oil and Peak Capitalism - Professor Richard Wolff

Nate Hagens posts and comments on Peak Oil and Peak Capitalism - Professor Richard Wolff as well as pointing to a video lecture called Capitalism Hits the Fan also by Professor Richard Wolff.

Prof. Wolff concludes:

Might we consider a mutually beneficial alliance between critics of abusing our energy resources and critics of abusing our productive capabilities? How about an alliance focused on a radical, democratic, and therefore anti-capitalist reorganization of production? The point would be to make citizens and workers – those who must live with the results of what enterprises do – conjoint decision-makers focused on meeting collective needs, both productive and environmental.

Emphasis Mine

Hagen was impressed by Wolff's graph of real wages vs productivity for manufacturing in which the peak in real wages coincided with the peak in US oil production, dropping of the gold standard. Hagen concludes:

This is all linked. More and more I am thinking the largest aspect of upcoming energy resource constraints is going to be the social inequality that results. The 'free market' will not work if 80-90% of people are broke, and unable to afford the price that energy and other natural resources companies require to make a profit. I suspect that the next round of GINI coefficient and wealth disparity calculations will show a moonshot towards the right tail. How to keep social stability in this environment will be a herculean task, and likely require new institutions, though I personally see some socialistic safety nets, I don't find Prof Wolffs suggestion ultimately plausible.

Emphasis Mine

The highlighted quote points to one of the critical roles of the proletariat in the Capitalist system: that of ultimate consumer.

In the discussion thread that follows, there is no mention of class. That no-one sees the class war at all is a testament to effectiveness of US Corporate propaganda. People know that devil exists, but class divisions do not exist in the mind of these commentators. Satan is unable to compete with the US Capitalists.

I get the impression that the commentators at The Oil Drumm see themselves as the vanguard of the peak oil movement. Some of the sins of vanguardism are starting to appear: elitism, intellectual snobbery, hopelessness. However, there are commentators who are struggling against these sins by relating the movement back to the lives of ordinary people. This has always been a problem for Communist parties and the remedy is the same.

Although many commentators seemed to dismiss the idea of worker-controlled economy, Jason Bradford pointed to Jack Stack's success at International Harvester.

From Critical Numbers: With Jack Stack, I found the story of The Turnaround.

You've got to get people involved

Emphasis Mine

Read more!