shattered
In the 1970s, the monarchies of Saudi Arabia and Iran were one pillar of US power in the region. The other was Israel.
Savage military power was only one aspect of imperial rule. Also important, Haniyeh argues, were changes in economic relations and the financial system that maintained control over oil revenues.
In the 1960s, the governments of oil-producing countries led by Venezuela forced changes in oil prices that were disadvantageous to powerful US companies with interests in oil fields.
The Saudi monarchy also demanded a bigger slice of the cake. The United States responded by changing its own tax system, allowing the biggest oil companies to continue to earn record profits while more oil money flowed to Riyadh.
In the 1970s, price shocks disrupted the monopolistic pricing system that had served large corporations.
currency
Actions by producing countries, coordinated through the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), have taken control of prices out of the hands of multinational corporations. Oil prices quadrupled from 1973 to 1974 and doubled again in 1979.
More significant changes occurred in the 1980s. Oil increasingly became a traded commodity. Wealth and power were poured into intermediary trading companies. Oil profits that once flowed primarily to companies in rich countries now flow particularly to Gulf states.
These “petrodollars” flowed in unprecedented quantities to countries outside the imperialist powers, and were driven by financialization (the expansion of international financial markets enhanced by computerized transactions) and globalization (the tightening of capital controls and other trade barriers). (minimization) was a major factor. associated with neoliberal economics).
Forty years later, this trend is stronger than ever. Gulf countries are Estimation In 2022, when oil prices skyrocketed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the current account surplus was two-thirds of $1 trillion.
The “petro dollar” became the “euro dollar,” and funds denominated in that currency were collected in markets outside the United States. When the United States left the gold standard in 1971, the dollar’s status as a reserve currency was in jeopardy, but its status was strengthened.
terrorism
“The form of money and the rise of the euro market, the status of the dollar as the international reserve currency, the dominance of Anglo-American financial institutions, the chain of debt and the rise of neoliberal orthodoxy: It was not an automatic outcome of the process.”In North America and Europe, oil geopolitics and the US presence in the Middle East are closely linked. ”
By focusing on these “roots of the global underground” of the new financial system, Haniyeh writes, “it is possible to change the way we usually think about managing oil.”
“This is not just an issue that can be reduced to territorial power or ownership of foreign oil fields; it is also an issue of oil control.” wealth. ”
To understand the scene of slaughter in Gaza, we need to think about US military supplies to the Gulf states and Israel, on the one hand, and the crazy ideology that drives Israeli soldiers to commit massacres, and on the other hand, their “underground roots”. be. It runs through banks, financial centres, trading houses and the City of London.
We are dealing with a many-headed hydra with a complex mix of wealth, power, and fear. These relationships defy conventional wisdom, such as the idea that our enemies go to war over and over again for oil. In reality, they almost never do.
force
In a footnote, Haniyeh reminded us that the disastrous 2003 U.S.- and British-led invasion of Iraq “was less about seizing Iraqi oil and more about protecting the Gulf monarchies.”
He quoted Toby Craig Jones, another Middle East historian, saying that the occupation of oilfields and fields was not part of US war strategy, “but to protect oil, oil-producing countries, and the flow of oil. That was not part of U.S. strategic logic.” ”.
Oil doesn’t just create cash wealth. Once it’s out of the ground, it’s usually shipped long distances by ship (which is a hellishly oil-guzzling business in itself). It is refined into products called pavers and asphalt. Fuels from gasoline to aviation fuel. Its supply has shaped military, industrial, agricultural practices, and consumer markets for a century. Feedstock for ethylene and other petrochemical plants.
In contrast to other major oil historians, Mr. Haniyeh puts this “downstream” aspect to the fore. He showed that from the beginning, the strategy of major oil companies in the United States and Europe was to vertically integrate, that is, to control the entire process all the way to the gas station.
This story features the ultimate consumer product, the automobile, which consumes large amounts of oil. The same goes for burning oil in power plants.
production
Haniyeh takes up the petrochemical industry for a more detailed treatment. In the petrochemical industry, petroleum is used as a raw material rather than as an energy carrier that can be converted into mechanical motion, heat, and electricity.
He traces the origins of petrochemical processing in Germany. It was developed (if that’s the right word) as a weapon for the Nazi military machine during World War II. Then, after the war, the United States acquired German technology through theft and expropriation.
The petrochemical industry was dominated by the United States and Europe until the late 20th century, but has expanded rapidly in the Middle East and China in 2021.
Haniyeh argues that fossil fuel-based plastics and other synthetic materials have been replaced by natural materials such as wood, cotton and rubber.
“By separating commodity production from nature, the time it takes to produce a commodity is significantly reduced and there is no limit to the quantity and variety of goods produced.”
Astonishing earth tremors
This was a qualitative change. Petrochemistry helped capital achieve a revolution in productivity, labor-saving technology, and mass consumption. “Born in a time of war and militarism, it contributed to the creation of a world order centered on the United States.” Our society is tied to an endless supply of cheap, disposable petrochemicals.
I hope that Haniyeh’s discussion of petrochemicals will be placed at the center of discussions about the transition away from oil and what it means for the project of confronting and overthrowing capitalism.
Firstly, the flow of oil as a feedstock through the petrochemical industry is not so much a huge flow through a capitalist economy of extracted materials, including metals, minerals, concrete, asphalt, living things such as biomass and biological resources. It needs to be placed in a broader context. farm animals.
The team recently led by Fridlin Klausmann Estimation The total flow of these materials has increased 12 times between 1900 and 2015. Mr. Eric Pinault tried Drawing on this research and the work of environmental economists, we will develop a Marxist perspective on this aspect of capital’s extraordinary expansionary drive.
Second, there is the issue of interpretation. I do not believe that the petrochemical industry “decouples” production from nature. The petrochemical industry is another way to process and reprocess materials obtained from nature.
technical
However, Hanye makes a very important and dangerous point in that synthetic substances corrupt and transform humanity’s relationship with nature. Pinpointing exactly what we should all be concerned about.
In the final chapter of crude capitalismMr. Hanye investigates oil companies’ responses to the threat of climate change. They spent decades denying climate science, but in the last decade they have shifted their public stance and accepted global warming as fact.
They are now “enthusiastic converts” to the concept of “net zero” distorted by politicians, replacing real greenhouse gas emissions reductions with chimeric technological fixes, especially carbon capture.
Haniyeh argues that oil companies “not only hide their continued centrality to the fossil economy by presenting themselves as part of the solution, but also frame society’s response to climate change. “We aim to make a decision,” he warned.
Companies have adopted technologically incorrect solutions such as biomass, electric vehicles and hydrogen, which have moved to the center of established climate policy. They are betting on the expansion of a petrochemical-fueled consumerist dystopia.
horror
And their Orwellian control over politics, hand-in-hand with the dictators of producing countries, has so far been evident in the Conference of the Parties (COP) international climate negotiations held in Abu Dhabi last year and in Azerbaijan this year. It has been demonstrated more than that.
Ecosocialists, who seek to link the fight for social justice with the struggle to overcome humanity’s disastrous disconnect with nature, argue that energy production and infrastructure are “firmly held in the hands of the largest oil conglomerates. Hanye argues that we must first face up to the fact that
But secondly, we need to recognize that while these companies are a “major obstacle” to moving away from oil, they are “a manifestation, not a cause, of fundamental problems” in capitalist social relations.
Don’t just cower in the horrors of genocide, dissect and better understand the many-headed hydra. This book is helpful.
this author
doctor Simon Pilani He is an emeritus professor at Durham University in the UK and the author of the following books: Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption (Pluto, 2018). He blogs at peoplenature.org. Follow him on Twitter: @SimonPirani1.
Crude Capitalism: Oil, Corporate Power, and the Making of World Markets Adam Hanieh’s work is now available from Verso.
