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The Need to Set a New Direction for the Economy Say No! to Business as Usual in the Energy Sector
Canadians have no control over how much oil and natural gas are produced, their market prices, where they are sold and end up, and what happens to most of the new value oil and gas workers produce. After years of hype of how wonderful the future will be for the energy sector if only Canadians produce more and more, a monumental crisis has gripped the sector worldwide with unprecedented layoffs, bankruptcies and collapse. And the best the Canadian ruling elite can come up with is to clean up a fraction of the environmental mess those who own and control the industry have caused and for which they refuse to pay, and declare business as usual when the crisis eases. Anarchy of Production and Its Disastrous ConsequencesThe economic base of the social relation in Canada regularly falls into crisis. Look at the energy sector. The sector has not even emerged from the collapse in 2014 of market prices for oil and natural gas when it finds itself in yet another even more serious crisis. Then and now those in control refuse to address the recurring problems and map out a new direction. They engage in perseveration, constantly bleating the same thing when life itself has proved that what they are pushing does not work and needs to change. The imperialists in control of the already-produced value have said that the road to prosperity is for workers to produce more and more oil for shipment to the U.S. and beyond with pipelines going south and west to tide water, and this would secure the future of the energy sector. The result does not match the hype. What good is a pipeline if no buyers exist or, if they do, the market price of the product is close to zero?
In Alberta, the working class faces 25 per cent unemployment or worse, businesses are going bankrupt and people confront a spectre of wrecked social programs and public services, which have been starved of investments for decades. The environmental damage left behind, which was never addressed even when the sector was so-called booming, poses serious risks to the social and natural environment. The imperialists in control refuse to admit that they have no solutions except more of the same, which is no solution at all. The energy oligarchs cannot even control the market price of the precious natural resources the workers produce. Futures traders in Chicago and elsewhere engage in parasitic speculation in the trade of energy commodities worldwide. The producers flood the market with carbon commodities to defeat their competitors and then throw up their hands in disbelief when prices collapse, blame others for the disasters they have participated in causing and even call for war in the Persian Gulf as a solution to eliminating 25 million barrels of oil a day from global supply. The response of those in control cannot be considered serious, only self-serving and dangerous in the extreme. Their narrow aim for maximum profit cannot bring under control the immense productive forces that have been unleashed. They will not admit the obvious that the imperialist system has failed and is in one crisis after another and the economies need a new aim and direction. They deny that the sellout of Canadian resources and their refusal to build a dynamic diverse pro-social economy are wrong and must be changed and that control of the economy must be handed over to the actual producers, to those who do the work and have a stake in production and its planned distribution and are deeply concerned for the future of their communities and country. What a sad joke to suggest the way out of the crisis is more of the same and business as usual with endless handouts to the self-same energy oligarchs through government buyouts of their failed projects such as the Keystone XL and Trans Mountain pipelines, and public payments to clean up the mess they have left behind along with additional public money to deal with issues such as methane gas escaping into the atmosphere, which should be dealt with as a part of the normal production process. The Necessity for a New Direction for the
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The current
direction of the energy sector throughout
Canada has proved disastrous for the economy, the
environment and
those who do the work. The Trudeau government's
announcement on April
17 of
$1.7 billion to clean up orphan wells left behind
by
irresponsible owners of oil companies is further
proof of the
necessity for change. The government action seems
pathetic in the
face of the tens of thousands of layoffs in the
sector, the
economic damage to the communities affected by the
crisis, the
suffering of the people, the out-of-control market
price for oil
and natural gas that is well below the price of
production, and
the grim prospects for the future when those in
control present
business as usual as the only option.
The anarchy and
boom and bust of uncontrolled oil and natural
gas production in the U.S. through hydraulic
fracturing has led
to unprecedented global overproduction and other
problems. The
doubling of U.S. oil and natural gas production in
just ten years
coupled with the coronavirus pandemic have
collapsed the trade
and speculation in oil and its market price is
close to zero with
no place to store the unsold production.
Discussion and
exchange of views on a new direction for the
energy sector must begin now. Questions have to be
asked as to
what has happened to all the new value that the
big oil and gas
companies have expropriated. Why has that value
not gone into
building a dynamic diverse economy immune to world
prices and
demand? Why do Canadians not have any control over
how much oil
and gas they produce, where the energy commodities
go and their
market prices?
Fundamental
questions must be answered as to what are the
needs of the Canadian economy for energy and how
can they be met
with Canadian production in a planned way, and
what practical
politics are necessary to bring in the New. Enough
of this
uncontrolled anarchy of production that only fills
the bulging
pockets of rich oligarchs whose sole aim is
maximum profit and
regularly leads to crisis.
Discussion and
exchange of views have to take place to develop
a lifestyle and enforce a Canadian standard of
living, working
conditions and security for those workers who
construct the means
of production, produce the oil and natural gas,
and refine and
transport those commodities to consumers.
