Energy Inequality And Energy Poor Are Political Questions
By Farooque Chowdhury
30 October, 2012
Countercurrents.org
The energy crisis in its entirety is fundamentally political in character as the dominating classes in the centre of the world system and their compradors in the periphery (and now the nouveau rich in a few countries that are moving away from the periphery towards the centre) are involved with the crisis, and as these classes and their interests could not have appropriated and squandered the global energy resources without the political mechanism they control, and without the political “game” they play with.
The market mechanism and its “efficiency”/inefficiency are not dependent only on economic and financial factors although market-crusaders always try to present it as independent of politics, which itself is a political act. With autonomy from politics these factors could not have played in the arena of energy, which is intricately connected to geopolitics and with politics in home. Even, market mechanism's capacity to tap technology for competitive energy is ultimately connected to and dependent on politics, and at times to geopolitics. How far and how long, and to what extent inequality in the sphere of access to better energy resources be permitted to widen and deepen are issues related to class war waged by the energy resources owning classes against the classes it subdue. And, class war is a political question. Ignoring the political character of energy inequality is the reflection of ignoring and confusing the questions of class and capital's class war.
To capital, allowing the poor to have a better access to a better energy resource is a question related to regeneration of capital. Energy resources owning classes, with the help of media and academia they own/control, try to present the energy crisis mostly as a crisis of drying up of oil wells. Sometimes, the issue is either tainted or tinted with problem with/limitation of technology. The stark disparity in distribution of energy on a world scale is not presented as also an aspect of the crisis. That would have exposed the utter failure of the world system that has on the one hand squandered the resources and nourished an inefficient energy distribution system, and on the other hand, has deprived the majority in this planet, and now, is trying to put the burden of sufferings on the majority without compromising the energy guzzling life style of the absolute minority. This is being done with multinational initiatives in collaboration with compradors in the world set up, is being done with corporate media and corporate academia, and both are part of the dominating power structure. The entire work is basically political. And, the political task is being performed with so crafty method that the politics involved is not easy to identify. The politics can be found only through a keen observation and after connecting all actors, their interests, relations and functions, factors and institutions involved, and mechanism followed and force applied.
The inefficient energy distribution and use system is described in Our Common Future : “The woman who cooks in an earthen pot over an open fire uses perhaps eight times more energy than an affluent neighbour with a gas stove and aluminium pans. The poor who light their homes with a wick dipped in a jar of kerosene get one-fiftieth of the illumination of a 100-watt electric bulb, but use just as much energy.” The report termed the examples as “the tragic paradox of poverty” and observed: “For the poor, the shortage of money is a greater limitation than the shortage of energy. They are forced to use ‘free' fuels and inefficient equipment because they do not have the cash or savings to purchase energy-efficient fuels and end-use devices. Consequently, collectively they pay much more for a unit of delivered energy-services.”
Whatever it is, “the shortage of money” or “the shortage of energy”, the reality of energy use by the poor is inefficient and the reality has not been made by the poor; rather the inefficient system for distribution was imposed on the poor by the system that governs “the money” and “the energy”, and the two can't be separated from each other, can't be separated from the distribution system the world system has devised.
And, the inefficiency is not at individual or household levels, but in the entire system. Individual and household levels are integral part of the system. The system, on the one hand, squanders fuel for aggrandizement of a few and of a system for dominance, and on the other, imposes inefficient and unhealthy fuel use system on many as that was calculated by capital as unnecessary, actually unprofitable, for capital regeneration.
Blanket privatization, and structural adjustment program (SAP) that included withdrawal of subsidies were imposed by the neo-liberals with their effective tools – the World Bank and the IMF. These have decreased the scope of having better energy by the poor. The neo-libs, the WB and IMF could not have put master strokes with the “kind” hands of market, could not have thrown the poor to the laughing market with an open jaw had not there the political mechanism controlled by the neo-libs in the center and their compradors/local allies in the periphery. These market-friendly, profit-friendly in essence, pushes have worsened the condition of the poor, and have decreased their difficult access to better energy sources. Thus, the aspect also makes the issue political.
Above all, disparity, in this case, disparity in energy use, is both an economic and a political question. In ultimate analysis energy poverty is a part of poverty. Moreover, interference, and pressure, economic and/or political by multilateral lending organizations and neo-libs, on countries in the periphery is a political act and thus a political issue. There were pressures and interferences to accept the prescription of the neo-libs. The prescription was for privatization, was for facilitating private property owners. The energy sector was not spared and the privatization has increased the deprivation of the poor. It was done in one form or other. This has also made the life of the poor difficult in terms of, in this case, energy. They have been denied equality. What they were offered was devoid of equity. Now, even the mainstream can't hide this reality, and has to utter the reality for its credibility. It's a complete political tact.
Ignoring this political aspect of the issues of energy inequality and energy poor creates confusion in the effort at looking into the problem, strengthens mainstream's tact – depoliticize – to confuse the question of illogical distribution system, confuses efforts to identify hindrances – class interests, institutions involved, legal and as a whole governing system – to a rational distributions system, and most importantly, confuses the slogans to be raised – immediate and long-term tasks – by movements and organizations of the poor, of the masses of people.
[ This section follows the introductory part of the chapter, “ Energy Inequality and Energy Poor” in The Age of Crisis (2009) by Farooque Chowdhury, a Dhaka-based freelancer. The section has slightly been modified and elaborated for clarity and completeness. For identification, the section can be considered as part 2 of the chapter. ]
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