Michael Klare: The Coming World of "Peak Oil Demand," Not "Peak Oil"

Michael Klare writes that The Coming World of "Peak Oil Demand," Not "Peak Oil".

At the beginning of this century, many energy analysts were convinced that we were at the edge of the arrival of “peak oil”; a peak, that is, in the output of petroleum in which planetary reserves would be exhausted long before the demand for oil disappeared, triggering a global economic crisis. As a result of advances in drilling technology, however, the supply of oil has continued to grow, while demand has unexpectedly begun to stall.  This can be traced both to slowing economic growth globally and to an accelerating “green revolution” in which the planet will be transitioning to non-carbon fuel sources. With most nations now committed to measures aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases under the just-signed Paris climate accord, the demand for oil is likely to experience significant declines in the years ahead. In other words, global oil demand will peak long before supplies begin to run low, creating a monumental challenge for the oil-producing countries.

This is no theoretical construct.  It’s reality itself.  Net consumption of oil in the advanced industrialized nations has already dropped from 50 million barrels per day in 2005 to 45 million barrels in 2014. Further declines are in store as strict fuel efficiency standards for the production of new vehicles and other climate-related measures take effect, the price of solar and wind power continues to fall, and other alternative energy sources come on line. While the demand for oil does continue to rise in the developing world, even there it’s not climbing at rates previously taken for granted. With such countries also beginning to impose tougher constraints on carbon emissions, global consumption is expected to reach a peak and begin an inexorable decline. According to experts Thijs Van de Graaf and Aviel Verbruggen, overall world peak demand could be reached as early as 2020.

In such a world, high-cost oil producers will be driven out of the market and the advantage — such as it is — will lie with the lowest-cost ones. Countries that depend on petroleum exports for a large share of their revenues will come under increasing pressure to move away from excessive reliance on oil. This may have been another consideration in the Saudi decision at Doha. In the months leading up to the April meeting, senior Saudi officials dropped hints that they were beginning to plan for a post-petroleum era and that Deputy Crown Prince bin Salman would play a key role in overseeing the transition.

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Overall, this is relatively good news for the environment as less oil consumption means less carbon-dioxide emissions. However, the amount of carbon-dioxide is still far too high to stop the onrush of global warning.

On the geopolitical front, this drop in oil consumption is bad news for the Venezuelan Revolution as there is not enough money to pay for the needed social reforms. This will sharpen the class conflicts there as the wealthy can no longer be tolerated in a contracting economy. The wealthy are banking on the myth that they are better managers of the contracting economy in order to seize power back from the revolution.

In the USA, this oncoming peak in oil demand means the end of the shale oil goldrush and the decline in fracking. Both of these were extremely bad for the environment. Yet, the political establishment was wedded to the idea of energy independence. Ideology is going to collide with reality over this.

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Peter Dorman: The Lesson of Carrier: America Needs a Real Socialist Agenda

Peter Dorman writes that The Lesson of Carrier: America Needs a Real Socialist Agenda.

To put it in a nutshell, the actions of Carrier and the rest of corporate America reflect a system in which investors come first, and the primary goal of business is to maximize profits. We need a system in which investors are just one of many constituencies, and the financial goal is to maximize the probability of remaining profitable over an extended time horizon. Profit has to become a means, not an end.

The socialist agenda, as I understand it, is about the many reforms that move us closer to such a world. It includes worker participation in corporate governance, but also representation of other community interests. It can include measures to broaden ownership, including a role for public and social ownership vehicles along with private ones. Financial reform also has a large contribution to make, especially if it expands the role of public and cooperative banking. Consideration should also be given to measures that would alter the incentives to issue preferred rather than common stock or otherwise attenuate the connection between ownership and control—in other words, perform a Reverse Jensen.

And this is just the beginning: once you start thinking about it, you can see the agenda is enormous, especially because it’s been in mothballs for generations. I wish there were a socialist running for president right now.

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Dorman is not yet appreciating the political context (Marxism) in which his observations arise. It is almost like Marxism has faded into the background and yet informs all political and economic commentary. This would be a shock to the Ideological State Appartuses (ISA) who have been actively suppressing Marxism for over 150 years.

Dorman's observations need to extended with a class analysis to explain why these actions make sense to Capitalists, and why the proposed remedies make sense to workers.

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Chris Dillow: Hillsborough: the class context

Chris Dillow writes about Hillsborough: the class context.

In all these cases, the police were brutal enforcers of this class-based hatred — and unlawfully so. After the battle of Stonehenge in 1985 Wiltshire Police were found guilty of ABH, false imprisonment and wrongful arrest. And after Orgreave South Yorkshire Police — them again — paid £500,000 compensation for assault, unlawful arrest and malicious prosecution. As James Doran says:

The British state is not a neutral body which enforces the rule of law — it is a set of social relations which uphold the rule of the capital. Law is a matter of struggle — ordinary people are automatically subject to the discipline of the repressive apparatus of the state.

All this poses a question. Have things really changed? Of course, the police and Tories have much better PR than they did then. But is it really a coincidence that the police still turn up mob-handed to demos whilst giving a free ride to corporate crime and asset stripping? When the cameras are off and they are behind closed doors, do the police and Tories retain a vestige of their 1980s attitudes? When Alan Duncan spoke of those who aren’t rich as “low achievers”, was that a minority view, or a reminder that the Tories haven’t really abandoned their class hatred?  

Many younger lefties might have abandoned class in favour of the politics of micro-identities.  For those of us shaped by the 80s, however, class matters. And I suspect this is as true for the Tories as it is for me.

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Despite the efforts of the Ideological State Appartuses (such as Universities) to convince us that identity is important, I agree with Dillow that we should focus on class as the battleground for ideas in our struggle against Capitalism.

Even Clinton's campaign is part of this distraction away from class and concentrating on her identity as a woman. This is why the continuation of the Sanders' campaign is so important — it pushes class warfare to the forefront of politics.

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Tom Engelhardt: Has The American Age of Decline Begun?

Tom Engelhardt asks Has The American Age of Decline Begun?.

And yet in recent years it has become a commonplace of Republicans and Democrats alike. In other words, as the country has become politically shakier, the rhetoric about its greatness has only escalated in an American version of “the lady doth protest too much.” Such descriptors have become the political equivalent of litmus tests: you couldn’t be president or much of anything else without eternally testifying to your unwavering belief in American greatness.

This, of course, is the line that Trump crossed in a curiously unnoticed fashion in this election campaign. He did so by initially upping the rhetorical ante, adding that exclamation point (which even Reagan avoided). Yet in the process of being more patriotically correct than thou, he somehow also waded straight into American decline so bluntly that his own audience could hardly miss it (even if his critics did).

Think of it as an irony, if you wish, but the ultimate American narcissist, in promoting his own rise, has also openly promoted a version of decline and fall to striking numbers of Americans. For his followers, a major political figure has quit with the defensive BS and started saying it the way it is.

Of course, don’t furl the flag or shut down those offshore accounts or start writing the complete history of American decline quite yet. After all, the United States still looms “lone” on an ever more chaotic planet. Its wealth remains stunning, its economic clout something to behold, its tycoons the envy of the Earth, and its military beyond compare when it comes to how much and how destructively, even if not how successfully. Still, make no mistake about it, Donald Trump is a harbinger, however bizarre, of a new American century in which this country will indeed no longer be (with a bow to Muhammad Ali) "the Greatest" or, for all but a shrinking crew, exceptional.

So mark your calendars: 2016 is the official year the U.S. first went public as a declinist power and for that you can thank Donald — or rather Donald! — Trump.

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A great power in decline is dangerous. This has been evident for the past fifteen (15) years. Irrational wars have been commonplace. Disregard for international law is rampant.

The more the USA flails around, the quicker it sinks. The faster it sinks, the more urgent the need to demonstrate power.

Whomever is elected president will face the same pressures to demonstrate US power and relevance to the world. The danger lies not in who is elected, but in the failure of the US political and economic system.

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Sanders' Presidemcy Would be a Disaster

I think that a Sanders' presidency would be a disaster for the Left.

The primary reason for this opinion is that the American civil service is politicized in that the top positions are vacated on the election of a new president and filled by appointment and confirmation by the Senate.

Unfortunately for the American, there is a severe lack of suitable candidates to fill this positions with sufficient competency.

Were Sanders to become US President, filling this patronage positions would be very problematic and fraught with ideological intrigue. Trump would have the same, but not to the same extent as there are far Capitalists than Socialists among the upper echelons of the technocracy. Clinton would have the easiest task of filling this positions because of her deep and wide connections throughout the establishment.

Even if Sanders were to find sufficient competent people to fill this positions, he would suffer the same fate as SYRIZA when it tried to implement a Socialist agenda in a Capitalist society.

Power in a Capitalist society does not reside in the State. This is the mistake that killed Allende back in 1973 in Chile.

Power in a Capitalist revolves around control of the means of production. This is where the Venezuelan Revolution is stalled. The State is supposed to serve the Capitalists, not the other way around.

An electoral victory for Sanders would lead to disillusionment among his supporters as happened in Greece and in Venezuela. It is this despair that drains the life out of the Left.

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Seth Godin: The tidal wave is overrated

Seth Godin writes that The tidal wave is overrated .

We can definitely spend time worrying about/building the tsunami, but it's the drip, drip, drip that will change everything in the long run.

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We have had several potential tsunamis in recent years:

1. Anti-globalization protests from 1999-2001
2. Largest anti-war protest in history in 2003
3. The Occupy Movement from 2011-2012

But Godin is correct in saying that the steady building up of movements and training of cadre is far important than hoping for the next political and social tsunami to occur. Waiting for the general strike is the primary weakness of the Anarchist position.

As Mickey Z once said, "Building a social revolution is marathon rather than a sprint". We should pace ourselves accordingly.

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Nina Leger: France: With Nuit debout, a new mass movement rises

Nina Leger reviews recent events in France: With Nuit debout, a new mass movement rises.

How do we create a democratic space that would involve as many people as possible?

It is important to highlight that things have never been that easy on the technical front. Citizens who are competent in the field are currently trying to create digital tools in order to extend the debate online. A few have already been set up.

In the square, people are talking about how to bring these discussion spaces together. We can also be certain that Nuit debout has a lot to teach us on this subject.

How do we create a democratic space that would involve as many people as possible in its tangible construction as well as its actions and decisions? This is the question that needs to be answered.

Admittedly, not being able to see past structural issues can seem like an obstacle. But beside the fact that this issue is not unusual for a mobilisation that has lasted only two weeks, this question can actually be seen as preliminary to all others that follow. The content of discussions will depend on the importance given to each and every one of us, and creating a framework together is the only way to ensure the greatest possible involvement.

This new, horizontal way of debating and taking action and the coming together of thousands of people to think collectively is something worth learning from as much as it is worth participating in.

Because this is where we belong; because these goals are the reasons why we decided to become involved politically; because we are fighting precisely in order to give a voice and power back to the people — and, lest we forget, we too are the people.

That is the reason why we can say “us” when we talk about the citizens gathered on the square, and we will not be able to reinvent the world without this plural “we”, which encompasses a large group of diverse and creative individuals.

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Nuit Debout is a worthy successor to the Occupy Movement. It has taken some important lessons from the latter:

• Horizontal decision-making — still a work-in-progress
• General assembly
• Occupation of public places — although more as a guerrilla tactic

Leger also makes a very important point that activists should involve themselves in such movements in order to learn over that of preaching. Lenin was continually interested in knowing the mind of the people as accurately as possible in a timely manner. Without this, the 1917 Revolution would have failed.

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Dan Little: Large structures and social change

Dan Little examines the relationship between Large structures and social change.

The core they identify has to do with the "ways in which multiple relations of domination, subordination and exploitation intersect with and reproduce each other".

From this perspective we argue that capitalism is best understood as a set of configurations, assemblages, or bundles of social relations and processes oriented around the systematic reproduction of the capital relation. (8-9)

Robert Brenner's treatment of the emergence of English capitalism is particularly instructive (link). (Anievas and Nişancıoğlu offer considerable criticism of Brenner's approach.) In two important articles in the 1970s and 1980s Brenner cast doubt on the classic Marxian derivation of capitalism from feudalism; he argued that it was precisely differences in feudal regimes that accounted for the different trajectories taken by English and French capitalism. Ironically, the social power held by French peasants impeded the emergence of managerial farming, which was itself an important step on the way to industrial revolution. As a consequence the proletarianization of English peasants proceeded much more rapidly than French society.

There is an important historiographical issue here that is illustrated in these works by Dobb, Anievas and Nişancıoğlu, and Brenner: to what extent is it feasible to look for large macro-processes and transitions in history? Should we expect large social and economic factors writing out social change? Or is history more contingent and more multi-pathed than that? My own view is that the latter approach is correct (link). Neither technology (link) nor population (link) nor class conflict (link) suffices to explain large historical change. Rather, large structures and small innovations add up to contingent and variable pathways of historical development. We've gotten past the "agent-structure" debate; but perhaps we still have the "large factor, small factor" debate standing in front of us (link). And the solution may be the same: both large structures and contingent local arrangements are involved in the development of new social systems.

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I am somewhat confused by Little's argument. It is quite possibly my ignorance that is standing in the way of enlightenment.

My understanding is that classes are indeed large-scale structures. Class is an abstraction that encapsulates how people view the world in similar ways. The existence of a Capitalist class does not mean that every Capitalist is identical. There is sufficient similarity of world-views among Capitalists for such an abstraction to be useful.

This similarity of world-views forms the Capitalist class consciousness. That is, when Capitalists talk to each other, they can rely on shared assumptions about the world, and on shared interests in the world.

This does not mean that they are all united in action. There are serious differences about what actions to take in order to defend their shared class interests.

These differences arise out of the historical trajectory of a particular subgroup of Capitalists. Capitalists in Sweden are more open to higher taxation than those in the USA or UK. The primary reason is to do with historical experiences and the lessons learnt from those experiences.

I think Little misrepresents Marxism as being formulaic. It is not difficult to understand that there are many Socialist and Communist parties that think in that way.

Marxism is about placing the class struggle at the centre of history. In doing so, one must look for classes and understand why there is a struggle between them. This struggle is informed by history and creates history. And the struggle in centred around the mode of production and where the classes fit into the mode of production.

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Chris Dillow: Why not full employment?

Chris Dillow asks Why not full employment?.

And, they say — channeling Kalecki:

Guaranteed employment does not conform to the dominant ideology of capitalist societies which is generally internalized by practically everyone in the society, including workers.

This ideology, they say, manifests itself in several ways hostile to full employment policies. For example, the unemployed are blamed for their plight; governments are deemed to incompetent to implement proper macro policies or a jobs guarantee; and there’s a fear that union militancy will price workers out of jobs. In this sense, the lack of demand for full employment policies is another manifestation of the political dominance of the 1%. As Steven Lukes wrote:

Is it not the supreme and most insidious use of power to prevent people, to whatever degree, from having grievances by shaping their perceptions, cognitions and preferences in such a way that they accept their role in the existing order of things, either because they can see or imagine no alternative to it, or because they see it as natural and unchangeable? (Power: a radical view)

All this raises a thought. Could it be that the main obstacle to full employment policies is not so much one of technical economics so much as ideology and politics?

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I agree that the consciousness of the working class is utterly dominated by the Capitalists. This has impeded the development of SYRIZA, the Occupy Movement, and unions as they try to reform the system. There comes a point when their demands threaten the system. At that point, most people want to preserve the system rather than overthrow because they reasonably see chaos in the collapse. They have no faith in any alternatives.

The examination and publicity of alternatives, such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Rojava (Kurdistan), are important. When people see alternatives existing and surviving against enormous odds, they can see options for themselves.

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