Energy Crises - I

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Energy Crises - I

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Four Oil Crises

• First Oil Crisis 1973-74
• Arab Oil boycott, 4X OPEC price increase
• Second Oil Crisis 1978
• Iranian Revolution
• Third Oil Crisis 1981-86
• Reagan Depression
• Fourth Oil Crisis 1990-1991
• Gulf War

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Additional Dimensions

• Crisis of Nuclear Power
• Anti-Nuclear Power Movement
• Shut down nuclear power industry
• Crisis of Energy Environment
• Anti-nuclear
• against nuclear waste
• against meltdown
• Anti-hydrocarbon
• against acid rain
• against strip-mining
• Pro-"Soft" Energy Paths
• renewable energy sources
• solar archictecture

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Theory

• Question of Energy Efficiency
• Commoner Thermodynamics
• 1st Law Neither created nor destroyed
• 2nd Law tendency to degrade
• Loses in inefficient energy use, technical issue
• Crisis of Human Energy
• Midnight Notes Political Thermodynamics
• Behind crises of non-human energy
• Lies a crisis of human energy

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Physics Class Conflict - I

• Political Reading not only of Thermodynamics but
  of history of Physics
• 17th C Period of rise of industrial capital
• Newton (1643-1727) development of celestial
  mechanics, problem of irregular gravitational
  impulses required God for solution
• Conflicts w/new labor class required
  regularization via clock, state intervention
• Newton worked at mint, state power to deal with
  counterfieters.

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Physics Class Conflict - II

• 19th C rise of autonomous working class
  movement, unionism
• Physics thermodynamics to deal with dynamic
  systems
• Carnot channel exploding masses for work
• Mayer First Law endless possibilities of
  capturing work
• 2nd Law rising entropy ? decling availability of
  energy for work

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Physics Class Conflict - III

• Threat of revolution (1848, 1870,etc) evokes
  ultimate "unavailibility" of w.c. energy for
  work, revolution parallels "heat death"
• Science Fiction
• Nightland, sun dies, endless night on earth
• Time Machine, eloi morlocks
• Back forth exchange between literature and
  Science

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Physics Class Conflict - IV

• Link between physics social control is emphasis
  thermodynamics gives to technological change
  flexibility in harnessing energy
• Taylorism Fordism
• Post-Fordism Information Society

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Information Maxwell

• Maxwell's Demon requires information to sort
  molecules

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Business Demons

• Teachers
• Professors
• Personnel Officers
• Supervisors
• Quality Control Overseers
• All weed out "high entropy" workers to maximize
  work extraction delay doom

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Energy/Work Crisis

• First Law says
• no "energy crisis" possible
• energy takes many forms
• 2nd Law says real crisis is extraction of work
  from human beings, realization of "working" class
• human energy takes many forms, not all can be
  harnessed for work
• business problem extraction, control

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Work Crisis of Keynesianism

• Crisis of Keynesianism
• acceleration of wages
• decelleration of productivity
• decline in productivity of housework, schoolwork
• i.e., refusal of work refusal to give energy to
  business
• Results
• general problem
• specific problems in "energy sectors"

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Crisis in Coal Industry - I

• W.Cleaver Article on Wildcats in Coal
• came after failure of proverty programs
• linked miners communities
• rupture of old union control
• 1950Bituminous Coal Agreement codified
  productivity deal, massive layoffs, ? K/L
• 1960s absenteeism, refusal of work, anti-union
  organ., repression, poverty aid, but workers use
  CAP's, black lung campaign

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Crisis in Coal Industry - II

• 1970s Restructuring
• coal taken over by oil, steel, utilities
• expansion of strip-mining in Western states
• environmental laws undermined Eastern Coal
• State sanctioned OPEC increases in oil then gas
  etc prices undercut wages
• State push for nuclear power

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Crisis in Oil - I

• 4X Oil Price increase
• result of pressures inside OPEC countries
• result of sanctioning by US from outside
• Internal Pressures
• Decline in real value of oil (terms of trade)
  reduced value of oil export
• Conflicts of modernization required money
• CIA Overthrow of Iranian govt in 1953
• Rural ? urban migration, urbanization pressures

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Crisis in Oil - II

• External Forces
• US had let OPEC know it approved of oil price
  increases (see Oppenheim)
• Europeans not happy, saw advantage to US
• Trilateral Commission saw opportunity
• recycled petrodollars road to conversion of wages
  into capital
• OPEC as global financial intermediary

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OPEC

• OPEC as a "financial intermediary"
• financial intermediaries
• take in large number of small "deposits"
• make smaller number of larger loans

"Deposits"
OPEC/ Banks
Loans
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OPEC Sraffa

• Sraffian economics critique of neoclassical
  microtheory
• critique of "capital theory" aggegation requires
  prices but theory purports to determine prices
• Alternative no aggregation, focus on determining
  power of "basic goods" prices, e.g., oil !
• Manipulation of prices of basic goods can cause
  shift of value from wages to profits

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Wages to Profits?

• Oil price ? achieves shift of value from wages to
  profits if and only if prcies increases are
  accepted via a fall in real wages decline in
  other imports
• But workers refused this decline
• forced money wages up apace w/inflation
• refused austerity programs to reduce real wages
  in other ways
• So, petrodollars financed imports not
  Investments, set stage for debt crisis

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2nd Oil Crisis

• Iranian Revolution
• begun by oil field workers
• revolt against Shah's modernization
• undermined Shah's role for US as sub-imperial
  power to police the Persian Gulf
• OPEC seized cut-off in Iranian Oil exports to
  again increase oil prices
• Workers responded as in 1st Oil shock
• Carter brought in Volcker to attack wages

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3rd Oil Shock

• Reagan retains Volcker, plunges world into
  depression, dramatic reduction in demand for oil,
  oil prices collapse
• Panic in oil industry, not just OPEC but also US
• With low prices, oil production increases,
  causing even lower prices
• George Bush flies to Persian Gulf in 1986 to get
  Gulf States to cut back on oil production

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4th Oil Shock War

• Gulf War can be seen as response to 3rd shock of
  low prices
• Saddam Husein attacks Kuwait for "economic
  warfare", high oil production means low prices
  and Saddam needs revenue to deal with aftermath
  of Iran - Iraq war
• Oil industry at first happy with Saddam's
  assertiveness, likes higher prices (25/b)
• US suckers Saddam/Kuwait? Slaps him down
• Militarization provides ? control of M.E.labor

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Business Gulf War

• Gulf War caused big oil price rise
• Gulf War created opportunity for
• push on North Slope
• push for off-shore drilling
• revival of nuclear power industry
• Gulf War increased local militarization
• Gulf War led to dramatic reorganization of labor
  force (Palestinians out of Kuwait, Yemini out of
  Saudia Arabia)

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