You Want to Talk "Change"?

I have finished my guitar stand and am back into the blog. A “stand” makes it easier to just grab the guitar and start playing and singing; and that’s good for my soul. If it’s packed away I tend to forget about it; and that’s bad. Now on to “change.”

A few days ago Charlie Rose had the President of Shell Oil, Mr. Hofmeister, as his guest. Hofmeister had interesting things to say about the impending energy crisis. He acknowledged that we are in the time zone of peak oil. He talked of Shell’s extensive effort at finding new sources. He acknowledged that there is oil, but the cost of extraction will continue to contribute to increased cost at the pump.

Hofmeister did not hesitate to accept Charlie’s suggestion of $4’s a gallon. He went on to say that all oil products would go well beyond the $4 mark to $5’s and $6’s a gallon. Keep in mind that Diesel is already well beyond $4’s and the independent truckers are blocking roads in protest. He added that people will have to learn to “drive less and find more fuel efficient vehicles.”

For the first time in a long time I heard a major capitalist player use the phrase “social unrest.” The President of Shell Oil said he had real concerns that higher oil prices could lead to social unrest that could be a real threat to society.

In Sweden, back in the fifties, the phrase “social unrest” was very much part of the thinking of Swedish capitalists. I had been in Sweden at the invitation of the Work Institute looking at some of their experiments in self managing work teams. The Swedish government’s economist, Mr. Meisner, had asked me to go up north to spend some time with the miners in Lulea as they were having production problems. Upon returning to Stockholm I spent an evening with Meisner. I reported my impressions of the miners’ dissatisfaction as quite normal considering the kind of work they do. His position was that the government could not afford to have social unrest in one of its critical sources of energy. And so began a lengthy discussion of the social unrest phenomena.

Meisner thought that American capitalists were less concerned with social unrest because of their distance from the Soviet Union. He believed that Europe’s fear of social unrest grew out of the events that lead up to the Russian Revolution.

My own experience with social unrest comes from the great depression in the thirties. We had almost daily examples. There were marches on Washington, demonstrations that occupied Union Square on a regular basis, unemployment sit-ins at welfare bureaus and in the labor movement, and sit down strikes that occupied factories. People were marching--250 thousand in a May Day Parade. There were mass demonstrations that could turn out thousands on a day’s notice. Now that was social unrest on a grand scale, and it scared the life out of the ruling class. That’s what brought about all those New Deal changes--unemployment insurance, home relief, social security, workers compensation, etc.

I do indeed agree with Hofmeister that social unrest is what scares the life out of the system. I probably have said this before, but the problem for now is the lack of an organizing catalyst to funnel the discontent into organized actions. As I watched the independent truckers block highways over the high cost of diesel fuel, I saw the first signs of Hofmeister’s concerns regarding the rise of social unrest. I believe that kind of protest will wake up the need for change. Nothing short of a heavy dose of fear will move those in power to begin to make the changes we dream of. But it will not happen unless there is action that forces it. So as peoples’ homes are foreclosed, gas and food prices rise, and people can’t afford heat, we will see more signs of unrest. As a famous movie actress descending a staircase observed, “Fasten your seat belts. We are in for a rough ride.”

Thanks Kate. N.H.W.Y.