[lbo-talk] Kevin Phillips: declinist

[Steven L. Robinson]

Two points, 
Responding to Charles Brown - specifically, as far as socialists were concerned I was referring to the late Walt Sheasby, a socialist whom I otherwise muc admired, who essentially said just that in a writing that was widely distributed on a number of lists some years ago.  Others have echoed that point, including some on this list. As far as the mainstream itself is concerned, I recall generally hearing the claim that market forces will resolve the issue from a number of places over the years. Such commonplace orthodoxy should need no citation, but if required I will certainly review my notes and provide the citation.

As to an earlier pont that Charles Brown made, we may well be at the brink of a dire situation - if oil peak is approaching and the market  behaves as predicted in response.  I am not at this time prepared to accept the claim of  Kunstler et al that we as a national or global society do not have the technical means to resolve the issue. (To be fair, Kunstler does not say there is no solution, he does advocate a stop gap solution, which he claims as being very limited, of wholesale expansion of nuclear power.  One wonders if the cure is worse than the disease?)  We should take the claims of "no alternative" seriously when and if someone with the technical training and knowledge comes forward to say that the technologies of solar, wind, hydrogen power are not viable and cannot be made so with the resources available.

      Much of the literature on peak oil reminds me of that put out by writers - mainly conservative -warning investors about how hard times are coming and how the only survival available is a specific investment portfollio or stratagy (i.e. put everything in gold). Such books commonly bear the title of  "How to Survive the Depression of 199x"  Kunstler fits squarely within that genre, as can be seen on his article warning of the real estate bubble bursting that I posted to this list yesterday. SR           

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "Charles Brown" <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> 


> 
> Jim Devine: 
> did anyone say that "the market" was "trustworthy for solving" 
> [allegedly peaking oil]? 
> 
> ^^^^^ 
> CB: They didn't say precisely "the market is trustworthy for solving " it. 
> I don't attrbute this claim to Steven Robinson , but he referred to "some" 
> 
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