Oil is
indispensable for US capitalism. Black gold is their vital sap. All
of their lavish and unsustainable American Way of Life is based on
the consumption of petroleum. It is the country of the world that
consumes the most hydrocarbons daily: 20 million barrels per day. The
country that follows, the People’s Republic of China, barely
reaches half of this figure: 10 million barrels per day. Between
their immeasurable industrial base, the monumental quantity of
individually owned automobiles and their means of mass transport that
mobilize their population and the gigantic military apparatus at
their disposition (plus a strategic reserve, calculated at 700
million barrels), their thirst for this element is insatiable.
The
petroleum business is in fact one of the biggest in the world: the
second after the military industry (35 thousand dollars per second
spent on arms). The US oil companies, all private, are among the
largest in the planet: mega-monsters of global scope, such as
Exxon-Mobil (the fourth company at the world level), Chevron-Texaco,
Conoco-Phillips, Amoco, Bush Energy, Oxy, and some other lesser ones
(Koch Industries, Apache Corporation, PBF Energy, Alon USA), all have
multimillion-dollar sales, and to a large extent they determine the
foreign policy of Washington.
One
might say that the history of the United States is the history of
oil: of that in their subsoil (60% of their daily consumption) and of
that in the subsoil of other countries, that the ruling class of the
nation still appears to consider their own, with the slight
difference–an “awkward detail”–that it is not within their
borders. Why does the geopolitics of the United States put so much
emphasis on the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, or more
recently–from the Bolivarian revolution onwards–on Venezuela?
Because that is where the greatest reserves of black gold in the
world are. And because, although they are not in their own subsoil,
they consider them their own.
There
are two reasons for which the imperial policy of Washington reeks of
petroleum (and of arms: their military-industrial complex is the
first business of their economy). On the one hand, because they need
to continue maintaining their provision of black gold as the
indispensable oxygen of their capitalist economic system (their
industrial base, the whole huge field of petrochemicals, the world of
the automobile, of transport in general–air, land, sea–, their
military apparatus, the space race... all depend, directly or
indirectly, on oil). Ensuring their access to oil (40% of their
consumption comes from the exterior), it maintains their living
standard, and, fundamentally, it ensures that the mega oil companies
that manage this fabulous business cannot fail.
A
significant fact: the present Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, was
formerly the Executive Director of the mega oil company Exxon-Mobil;
likewise, the ex-Secretary, Condoleezza Rice, used to be a
distinguished member of the directorate of the Chevron oil company.
What does this mean? That the high-level policy of the White House
does not greatly distinguish between a decision-making public
official and the high-ranking staff of their global corporations; in
reality, they are practically the same. Who is running whom?
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