The Specter of Our Time: - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The Specter of Our Time:Oil, War, and Global Polity

Professor Cyrus Bina

Columbia University Seminar on

Globalization, Labor, and Popular Struggles #671

Faculty House, Columbia University, New York

Monday, September 30, 2013: 7:15 PM – 9:00 PMSlide2

OIL, WAR, and GLOBAL POLLITYThe Evolution of Petroleum: An Overview Early Cartelization Era (pre-1928)The Achnacarry Agreement (1928): Full ControlThe International Petroleum Cartel (1928)Colonial Oil Concessions: The ME’s Middle NameThe Rise of Independents: Challenge to Full ControlOil, Colonialism, and NationalismThe So-called 50-50 Profit Sharing

Oil and the Overthrow (1953 CIA Coup)

Formation of OPEC (1960) and an Inner Fracture

The 1973-74 Oil Crisis: Defeat of Monopoly by Competition

The Collapse of International Petroleum Cartel (1972)

Decartelization, Spot & Futures Markets, Globalization (1970s)

Slide3

International Petroleum Cartel (1928-72) The Achnacarry Agreement MAINTAINING the market shares of members – ‘As Is’

;

PROVIDING

Facilities belonging to members must be made

available

, but

not

less than the actual cost to the owner;

ADDING

new facilities only as actually needed to supply

increased demand

;

MAINTAINING

for each producing area the financial advantage

of

its

geographical

location;

DRAWING

supplies from the nearest producing area;

PREVENTING

any surplus production in a given geographical area from

upsetting

the price structure in any other area;

OBSERVING

of these principles would benefit not only the

industry

but

consumers

as well. Slide4

Periodization of Petroleum I.

The

Era of Colonial Oil Concession

Vastness of Area

under Concession, often Whole Country;

Lengthy Interval

in Excess of Fifty or Sixty Years;

Handful of United, Interlocking

National Cartels

;

Display

Little

Payment on Oil

Royalty

;

Uniformity

of Feature and

Homogeneity

of Royalty Payment;

Little Change

in Terms or Length of

Concession

.

Extra Judicial

Practice in Settling the

Disputes

.Slide5

Periodization of Petroleum cont. II. Transition Period Toward Decartelization

Nationalist Awakening and

Colonial Barriers;

50-50

Profit Sharing in Calculation of

Oil Royalties;

1951

Nationalization of Oil

in Iran Under Mossadegh;

1953 CIA Coup d'état

Against Premier Mossadegh;

1954

Denationalization

of Oil in Iran;

1960

Formation of

OPEC

in Response to Price Cut;

Rise of

Independent Oil

Companies.Slide6

Periodization of Petroleum cont.III. Globalization of OilDecartelization

and Competitive

Globalization

of oil;

1972 Collapse

of International Petroleum Cartel (

IPC

);

Objectification of

Highest Cost

Oil Producer (US Oil) as Center of Gravity of

Long-Term Price

;

Spot (Futures) Markets

and Abolition of ‘Posted Prices’;

Arbitrary ‘Royalty’ Gave Way to

Differential Oil Rents

;

Parodies

of ‘Security’, ‘Dependency’, ‘Physical Access’, Need for ‘Oil War’, and ‘Energy Independence’;

Birth of

Global oil

, Hoax of ‘National Security’ and

Cut off of

US Foreign Policy from

Umbilical Cord

.

Slide7

Transformation of Global PowerHegemony and Hegemonic Leadership Hegemony and Nature of

Leadership

Drawing

on Antonio Gramsci’s View

Spontaneously

Consensual

Internally

Arisen

Historically

Sanctioned

Holistically

Undivided

Structurally

Synthetic

Institutionally

Mediation

Hegemony arises from

mutuality

of system as the

whole—

NOT

separate property of the hegemon.Slide8

Postwar Pax Americana (1945-1979) Hegemonic Economic Institutions The Bretton Woods

Monetary System (

1944-1971

)

Direct Dial with

God

Gold – Dollars: the

Messenger

International

Monetary Fund

(IMF)

World Bank

and Affiliated Channels and

Institutions

Marshall Plan

for the Postwar

Reconstruction

General Agreement of

Tariffs and Trade

(GATT)

Agency for International

Development

(AID)

Universal

Land Reform

Programs in the ‘Third World’

Unfolding

Spread

of Capital and

Capitalist Relations

Incubator for

Transnationalization

of Social

Capital Slide9
Slide10
Slide11

Postwar Pax Americana cont.Iron Curtain Speech (

March 5,

1946

)

– Going for Jugular

Soviet Atomic Bomb

– the ‘Monkey wrench’

Three-Prong

US Cold War Strategy of

Containment

:

Containment of the

Soviet Union

Containment of

Nationalist & Democratic Movements

,

thus ruining the roots democracy

in the ‘Third World’

Containment of

US Progressive Political Movements

, including

Labor Unions

, Etc.

Strategy of Détente

vis-à-vis the Soviet UnionSlide12

Globalization and Downfall of Pax Americana“What is done cannot be undone.”

Eurodollars and

Unraveling

of the

Bretton Woods

System (August 1971)

US Balance of Payments

Suddenly Turns

Red

International

Monetary Fund

Wobbling and

Limping

World Bank

Becomes a

Relic

of the Past

The 1973-74

Oil Crisis

Leads to

Globalization

of Oil

Multinational

Capital Sheds

Its

Nationality

Transnational

Social Capital is

Born

US ‘Plants Closing’:

Mop-up

Operation of the 1980s

Economic Crises

Are Now Interdependent &

GlobalSlide13

Globalization and Downfall of Pax Americana cont.

With the

1972 Collapse

of International Petroleum

Cartel,

‘Postwar

Petroleum Order’

Comes to an

End

With

Revolutions in Iran

and

Nicaragua

, The ‘Third World’

Client Sub-System

Virtually Ends in

1979

The European Community Turns to

European Union

Euro

is Born and

US Dollar

is No Longer Lonely!

Globalization

Germinates Amid the Outmoded

Polity

Globalization

is

NOT ‘Americanization’ as Economy and Polity are

Now

Marching to a

Different Drummer

Hegemony

is

NOT

Domination By

Force

American Hegemony

is Contradiction in TermsSlide14

Rightwing Theory and Leftwing Regurgitation“The United States has gone to war now [in the early 1990s], and the American people presume this will lead to a secure oil supply

. As a society, we have made a choice to

secure access

to oil by

military

means. The alternative is

to become independent

to a large degree of what that

secure access

(

Challenge

, 1991)

.”

—James Schlesinger,

Economist with a Harvard Ph.D. and First US Secretary of Energy

A September 2013

E-mail

Received from one of my dearest

leftist friends at URPE

:

“Cyrus, you

have a lot of interesting things to say, but in this invitation you are once again being rather

insulting

to the Left

! Why would a leftist listen to you if you are calling us all stupid? I have said this before --

while these wars are more than oil wars, oil is certainly an important part of them, and of US imperialism in

general.

Calling

a war an

‘oil war’

I believe

opens people eyes to broader dimensions of US foreign policy.

It's a slogan.

A slogan is supposed to arouse interest, not explain the world.

Just because there is a world oil market, doesn't mean that political influence has no effect on future access

, how the industry is developed, whether a country can actually produce oil or whether it is blown to smithereens, and where the profits go.

It seems to me that a market is a temporary arrangement, which changed in the past and can change again

.”

Slide15

Oil: The Mismeasure of “Blood”?

“Oil is not an object but

a trajectory, indeed a constellation of exigencies, events, actions and reactions, disputes and refutations, disparity and deviation, and, above all, contradiction and conflict across historical time and

social relations fused and conjoined

.... This is the story of old colonialism bleached in neocolonialism … and carried over and conveyed by the schizophrenic rubric of

Pax Americana, before becoming history in past tense. This was the end of a history

and the beginning of a new one. [Thus, the end of history did not turn up] in the intended

fashion of Fukuyama’s

jovial ruse. The irony of history … would make

the ‘last man’ the very last US president in charge of the now defunct Pax Americana.”

Oil, War, and Global Polity

(Bina 2013)Slide16

Conclusion:Toward A Multipolar Global PolityGlobalization of Oil is a Critical Lenz for:

Assessing the Rise and Fall of American Hegemony

Appreciating of Capitalist Competition in Presence of Integration

Understanding of OPEC and Its Today’s Role

Grasping that Speaking of the Middle East ‘Oil Dependency’ is a Babble

Accepting that ‘Energy Independence’ is a Wishful Thinking

Realizing that If ‘Fracking’ Displaces the Old US Domestic Fields, Long-Term Global Price of Oil is Still Determined Within the US Oil Region

Globalization is the Negation of American Hegemony

Hegemony Belonged to the Defunct Pax Americana (1945-1979)

Pax Americana Collapsed By Internal Forces

The Real Cause of the War is the US Reaction of to Its Lost Hegemony

By Military Domination, US Will Dig a Deeper Hole for Its Further Decline