Jim, > One of the nice things about this is that some of the scarcity-rent > can be wasted without it being a horrible thing, though obviously the > less waste, the better.
It may be my temperament, but I tend to stress the exact opposite: The horrible thing about these oil rents is that they lead people to complacency by creating the impression that waste is affordable. The oil rents appear to buffer or insulate the economy from the competitive pressures of the world market (which we may view as a subset of the pressures of the overall class struggle). But those pressures don't disappear just because you don't have them in sight. You ignore them at your peril. In fact, when they're visible it may be too late. If the economy is not becoming more efficient (productive) at the pace of those leading the world market (actually, faster when you're trying to catch up), then it's effectively losing ground. And, of course, the other challenge is to *correctly* answer the question "productive of what?" -- which is the substance of the economic and political strategy of the revolution. (And strategy is not only *outcome* but also *process*, an aspect about which Michael Lebowitz should have much to say.) IMO, the most strict economic vigilance has to be in force all the time, whether the oil price is low or high. Julio
