[Marxism] Fw: Peak oil redux

[S. Artesian]

Expense is a social category, a function of economic and technological 
development, not a geological category.  Actual costs of production have not 
increased dramatically.  Indeed since WW2 they have been remarkably stable, 
declining actually in the 80s and 90s.

18 months ago, oil was at $140 a barrel, in Dec 2008, $40/barrel.  Now the 
price is back to $70 and we get the redux of peak oil-- transparently a 
market driven ideology.  Same thing happened, twice, in the 1970s.  How many 
times do we need to have this repeated before we can see it for what it 
really is.

Price as a result of shortage?  Come on-- if that's the case, then a year 
ago we must have been facing a devastating shortage of dry bulk maritime 
transport ships, only to run into an absolute surplus, only to be running 
back into another shortage as daily rentals for the capesize ships have 
increased.

We may have reserves to 2040, 2050, 2060... whatever, but the peak oil 
theory does not do what it claims to do; the peak oil theory does not 
explain its own repeated additions, adjustments to its previous reserves 
estimates; the peak oil theory does not explain increasing reserves 
coincident in time and place with declining production, much less increasing 
reserves coincident with increasing production.

If Marxists have an obligation to serve as prophets of humanity that 
obligation begins distinguishing the social, class, roots of  problems from 
the "natural" "ideological" ideologies designed to obscure those roots.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Lause" <markalause at gmail.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Saturday, June 13, 2009 5:02 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Fw: Peak oil redux