As oil hits a record high at over $71 per barrel and gas hovers at $3.00 a gallon, the “price-gouging” meme is making a comeback.
It is true, of course, that oil companies make ridiculous amounts of money and that high gas prices make life difficult for many people. But the way that Democratic politicians insist on framing this issue is not only cynical but dangerous in the context of peak oil. Capitalizing on frustrations at the pump only serves to reinforce the notion that gas prices should inherently be low, and postpones the coming collective realization that we have made the catastrophic error of building a society on the assumption that a non-renewable resource was infinite.
The reality is that barring a massive, worldwide depression (and most likely not even in that case) the price of oil is never going to go down again to historically “cheap” levels. Even in the unlikely event that peak oil is not imminent, the relentless explosion of demand from China and India virtually guarantees ever-increasing energy prices.
A truly courageous politician would explain this to the American people; a wise politician would do everything in his or her power to help society radically reduce its consumption of oil and find alternatives. But the fact that neither party has the guts to even suggest that people might want to think twice before buying an S.U.V.—much less explain that globalization must be reversed, the national railroad system must be rebuilt, and cities must be redesigned to function to a great degree without cars—is a grim sign.
By failing to explain the real nature of our predicament and promoting pseudo-populist resentment, politicians who harp on “price-gouging” are in fact stoking the flames of what could be dangerous political unrest.
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