Re: Hanson [and Boris's reply]

On Fri, 27 Aug 1999, M A Jones wrote:

> 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). 

[..]

> 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.

Look, I don't know who the hell YOU are, and what your problem with
comprehending the issue at hand is.  I am sympathetic to those subsribers
who either have expertise or interest in the natural sciences, their
desire to learn from and to contribute to the discussion, and I
understand their frustration with the scholastic turns the discussion
frequently takes on this list.  Unfortunately, stasis, turf and ego are
all facts of academic life, and they have to be dealt with, not merely
whined about.  Now, several of these people have (as far as I understand,
though it is far from clear to me) endeavored to introduce topics which
fall outside the bounds of WST as currently expounded.  This can mean one
of three things:

1) They (like Hanson) feel that the social sciences (of which WST is a
part) are irrelevant in the discussion of an impending crisis, and that
the application of natural-scientific reasoning is sufficient in
describing what is at hand as well as dealing with it.  Even if this
viewpoint were correct, I fail to see the necessity of preaching it on
this list, since it is devoted to the discussion of a social-scientific
theory, so the only tangible outcome of such preaching would be the
complete abrogation of the list (if we all suddenly agreed that Jay is
the messiah, or if we concluded, more-or-less correctly, that we are
simply not qualified to participate in that discussion). However, this
viewpoint is certainly not correct, since even Hanson admits that the
issue is at bottom a political one.  You may feel that the excursus on
sociology/sociobiology is a red herring and "ptolemaic" (though without
Ptolemy, no Copernicus), and that any defense of the utility of social
scientific methodology is an affront to scientific fact and to the
pressing issue at hand.  If so, this is just another example of scientific
arrogance about sociology (I won't give you the Durkheim lecture again, I
will simply point out that nowhere do I, or Spector say that the issue of
oil is unimportant, or that it is explicable in sociological terms alone),
and you should go with your first instinct and unsubscribe, since we
clearly have nothing to say to each other.  For my part, I believe that
solutions to the crisis will have to make use of at least some
sociological theory (notably WST), and that rejection of sociology in
toto in favor genetic reductionism is counterproductive, as it denies us
the possibility of coming up with variant solutions to the crisis.
And if you really think that the issue is about labelling everyone a
durkheimian, marxist or panglossian, then I truly feel sorry for you. 

2) The people in question are interested in seeing what solutions
listmembers can propose to problems which they feel do not get adequate
press here, problems, moreover, which they judge to be of crucial
importance.  I have already mentioned why it is unlikely that many
solutions will be coming from the vast majority of the listmembers, most
of whom have social-scientific training, and are thus not qualified to
address purely technical questions.  On the other hand, I have also heard
nothing of substance from either Burton, Hanson, "Dr. Nuno", or you,
nothing aside from preaching and whining.

3) The people in question are interested in a cross-fertilization of
ideas, in, for instance, discussing the viscissitudes of the
coming conjuncture of the trajectories of the WS and of energy
availability.  Though as with 2) I've yet to see anything of substance on
this, if it is in fact what is being proposed, then I'm all ears.  In
fact, I agree for the most part that 

> 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. 

I do question your contention that no other facts are as replete with
significance as this problem for the immediate future because

-energy crises are nothing new.  18th century England was beginning to run
out of wood, and according to Sombart, this spurred the development of
steam power.  Though I agree that the problem is more serious now and
other sources of energy may be economically, politically or
physiologically not feasible, nonetheless the possibility exists that an
alternate energy source can be effectively utilized to keep the
value-added hierarchy roughly what it is today.

-more importantly, the collapse of the USSR has left an impoverished,
still-disintegrating country still in possession of a huge nuclear arsenal
and with little to lose.  In today's pre-election atmosphere, many of the
Russian politicians have already said that their primary goal will be to
increase and modernize the country's nuclear stockpile, as this represents
the country's only trump card in the international arena.  Thus, chances
of nuclear war are on the rise compared to the days of the Cold War, when
the Soviet Union was more stable and averse to taking risks.  There is no
reason to rule out the fact that such a war can take place before the
core runs out of oil, making it at least as replete with significance as
the energy crisis.  

Clearly, the corollary to your above claim is that the energy crisis
cannot be understood without registering the facts of geopolitics and
global economics.  The fact that gas costs 5 times as much in Europe and
in Japan as it does in the US has everything to do with the fact that the
US controls the world's major oil fields and is perfectly capable of
precipitating conflicts (Gulf War) to keep its clients in the Gulf
dependent on its protection and its clients in Europe and Asia forced to
subsidize the low cost of gas at home.  So the question of geopolitical
alignment  - whether any of the core regions will be able to effectively
challenge the US or not  - becomes a crucial question in figuring out the
rate at which oil reserves will be depleted.

Furthermore, even if 

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

there is still the question of the Caspian Sea oilfield, which is supposed
to be half the size of the one in the Persian Gulf, and therefore quite
sufficient to keep the core on life-support for another few decades.  Of
course, there are issues of developing this oilfield and transporting it
to a serviceable port in conditions of great regional instability.  I have
little trouble in accepting that the US gamble in spending the USSR into
the ground in the 80's and then supporting opportunists like Yeltsin in
his plan to let the republics secede so that he could claim control over
the Russian Federation had a lot to do with loosening Moscow's control
over the southern periphery and stepping in to stake a claim on the oil
(many in WST believe that letting the USSR disintegrate was a mistake,
because it increased global instability; I think it was a calculated
risk to keep the US in its dominant position).  In any case, the next
5-10 years will certainly be crucial in determining whether the gamble
paid off.

These issues are all going to be of paramount importance in the next 10
years. They are indeed inexplicable in light of only one trajectory. If
this is in fact the direction in which you want to take the discussion, I
am all too willing to listen to what you have to say.  If not, I agree
that this is all a lot of silliness. 

-- 
Boris Stremlin
bc70219@binghamton.edu