Re: Hanson [and Boris's reply]

----- Original Message -----
From: elson <elson@azu-boles.net>
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Sent: Thursday, August 26, 1999 11:27 PM
Subject: Re: Hanson [and Boris's reply]


> But the debate isn't about whether oil is depleted or not.  Of course, we
> all know it will run out sooner or later.  In the long run, we're all
dead.
> But neither is this a question of whether or not new technologies will be
> developed once again to adapt to the scarcity.  I think capitalism has
> demonstrated that it can adapt technologically rather well, though most
> people are worse off, without destroying humanity.  If we make out of
global
> warming, I'll be convinced.
>

Actually, this is simply the same wall-to-wall silliness, sorry to be abrupt
about it. If the debate is not about the constraint on social reproduction
posed by impending energy famines, then what the hell is it about,
if it is not just not a truly ptolemaic waste of time. Almost
nothing - no historical facts whatesoever, including those
adumbrated by Chris Chase-Dunn about the US v the Rest,
is more replete with significance than this probability,
no certainty, (which even Chase-Dunn unfortunately doesn't get, altho
one can only respect the man's prophetic courage in general). What
on earth consolation does saying 'Of course, we  all know it will run
out sooner or later' give when faced with these truly terrifying facts -
facts  which are no longer seriously denied even by the US Geological
Service and US Department of Energy, both of which are well-known
foci of clerical obscurantism on petroleum matters,
for the very simple reason that if they spoke truth the Dow would be
languishing at about 1500 instead of where it now is, and the final crisis
would already be visible in the streets of New York?

Oil output is peaking and more importantly, the inability to extract more
than 25bn or so billion barrels a year has formed a radical constraint on
world growth for almost three decades, and is the formative instance of the
ongoing tectonics of world system transformation and crisis. If you want
read off this 'natural limit' in social terms, then you have to do something
like Henryk Grossmann did in his 'Law of Accumulation', and you can
certainly model valorisation crises emerging from technological failure
to overcome energy deficits, which is the actual situation we are in;
or if you want another take on the social relations of anthropogenic
climate change based on fossil carbon depletion, try reading
Vladimir Vernadsky, whose original work on biospherics is still a
proper start-point. But in either case, try also actually sitting down to
read the last few USGS, DoE and US Dept of Energy
Information reports (all on the net), then we shall have a serious
common ground to this debate; and do no so easily ignore
Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere either - Nature, Scientific
American and the International Energy Agency didn't and they
can't ALL be less informed than Boris Stremlin, whoever
he is.

In WST terms, it is impossible to understand anything at all about
what is happening in the peripheries - whole continents, not  only
Africa, are sliding off the economic maps - without registering the
facts about energy famines. It is impossible to even half-seriously
scrutinise the literature and still have the kind of confidence
about capitalist technology which you do, and which spawns a
complacency which is, pardon me, is simply unofrgivable in light
of the facts.

There are no viable substitutes for oil, whose deployment can prevent
radical, even catastrophic crises of reproduction in the foreseeable future.

I cannnot be bothered to rehearse the arguments which are very
familiar. As for your idle talk of 'making out of warming', you obviously
have not the faintest conception of how serious that matter is or
how conclusive is the science: we are not going to 'make out' of
it, on the contrary, we have already affected global climatic systems
in ways which will take not centuries or even millennia to self-correct,
but which will go on affecting climate for millions of years, and
which may never be corrected.

As for all this empty-headed piffle about genetics, Dawkins and
socio-biology, whether or not Hanson can be properly so labelled is
completely besides the issue; homing on it in this way is merely to pursue
red herrings because neither you now Boris nor most discussants here, as far
as I can see, want to face the alternatives. Obviously, Jay Hanson is not a
world system theorist or a weberian or durkheimian, let alone a marxist. So,
for chrissake, what?

And now, I'm outta here.

Mark Jones

> Rather, Boris's point, as I read it, is that the natural resources issue,
> among others, is not a question of humans ignoring the physical world.
> Rather, these issues are (1) part of the social world, created by the
social
> world, and (2) that the social world and its problems, including these, do
> not essentially stem from our genetic structure such that we ignore the
> physical world -- a grossly absurd thesis, hence the sarcastic remarks on
> Hansen's superior genetics.   The last and the next oil shock(s) are
> problems of the social-HISTORICAL system.  To predict the effects, trends,
> and demise of our current world-system (as the transition to another
> world-system(s), it is much more convincing and fruitful to study the
> history of this one and not simply eliminate historical analysis, and
> thereby ridiculously reduce social problems to human genetics.  (And I
> thought AG Frank was taking an overly long-run view!)
>
> In short, Boris's comments were right on target.  Hansen should read
> world-systems analysis, starting with Wallerstein in my view.
>
> Elson E. Boles
> Assistant Professor, Sociology
> University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma
> elson@azu-boles.net
> facbolese@usao.edu
>
>