From: "Harald Beyer-Arnesen" <haraldba-AT-online.no> Subject: AUT: Re: RE: Hydrocarbons and a New Strategic Region: The Caspian Sea and CentralAsia Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 06:28:59 +0100 Massimo writes: My position is that this oil is part of the plot, just part of it, especially due to the fact that plenty of oilmen are in the administration (and oilmen must be thinking in oil terms). Agreed. But I am sure you would also agree that the main reason bombs are falling now is September 11. They would be falling even without any pipelines on the agenda, while geopolitical reasons beyond pipelines are also surely part of the thinking behind the military campaign. The implication of this - to go back to herald I think - is not only that we "expose" the so called "real aims" of the war (there are others). the left generally always talks about the "greed" for oil without linking it to the boundlesness of accumulation. maybe oil is just another entry point to the question of alternatives, of the world we want to build. Agreed again. Oil is in these times for the US not foremost a question about "greed" but order, securtity and stability. It does not in itself really matter who owns the oil and gas as long as the owner is willing to sell it on a regular basis and safe transportation is provided. If some US company profit can also be gained, that is a bonus. In this sense "greed" also enter into the story, also as a possible reason for future military intervention to reestablish order and "legitimate interests." Oil resources are worthless in money terms if not sold, and that mostly still implies selling to places as USA, Japan and Europe. Iran, might in fact "behave better" than what the Norwegian state does, however much the later is a member of NATO. Oil is today foremost about business as usual, and that is the real problem, not if the shaiks are Texan, Saudi, Azeri or Norwegian. You are of course correct in pointing to that getting out off "business as usual" – or "boundlesness of accumulation" as you more precisely put it – should be our main focus rather than the schemes of inter-capitalist competition, and in that the former brings out the need for the globalisation of mutual compassion, critical dialogue and practical solidarity, as well as havens of shared laughter. As for the Empire debate, the question it seems to me, is not so much if inter- capitalist competition is still mediated through nation-states, but that this competition increasingly are mediated through and takes places within the framework an emerging imperial order, a process similar to the one that brought nation-states into life in the first place. Far more crucial though: It is about time that the left reached a "trade-union consciousnes", meaning in this context that we end identifying with or make into our main focus this or that company (read: nation-state) but address how the capitalist enterprises (states) make up a whole standing in a radical opposition to our freedom. The center of the enterprise-system is never this or that enterprise (state) but the enterprise system as a whole. Its most vital centre is here, there and everywhere it is reproduced, even if this reproduction is also mediated through enterprise (state) competition. What we see emerging is a global employers' association imposing discipline on its affilates and demanding "capitalist solidarity or else ..." on everyone else. In doing so, they are also compelled to impose some limits on the freedom of "mafia-enterprises," while making alliances with as a weapon against others, integrating the former and their mode of behaviour wholly or partially into the normal order of things. Two of the most interesting observation in this crisis has been the position taken by the Russia and China in the ongoing "war against terrorism", and the laters entrance into the WTO. This whole agenda migh fail and break up, but that is hardly anything we should find comforting as it most likely would do so over our dead bodies. So our task must still be to plant the seeds of the future within the framework of the present. Part of this future can surely be discerned within the morally courageous struggle of the RAWA, however much some of its members will find their places in the order following the Taliban. Harald PS. Not too important, but much of the left still cling to this strange idea that oil is sold cheap, while the opposite is the case in exchange value terms. The ruling class in places like Saudi Arabia draw out what in marxists terms often is referred to as a super-profit based on ground rent. Viewed from Norway, which might still be the world's second largest exporter of oil (it used to be at least) this is all too obvious, in particular when taken into account that the drilling is immensely more costly in the North Sea than within the Arabian Peninsula. --- from list aut-op-sy-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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