The Lean Years: Politics in the Age of Scarcity (Abacus Books)

340 Pages·1981·20.16 MB·English

by  Richard J Barnet

THE LEAN YEARS-
POLITICS IN THE AGE OF SCARCITY
Richard J. Barnet
co-author of G LO BAL REA CH
Richard Barnet, the distinguished economic and political analyst, has in his
recent books defined the major challenges facing modern civilization in a
fascinating, readable authoritative style. In Global Reach (written with
Ronald Muller), he dramatised the unprecedented power of the multi
national corporations. In The Giants, he dissected the complex relationship
between Russia and America.
Now, in The Lean Years, Barnet brilliantly analyses the crucial issues we
face in the immediate future: the scarcity of natural resources, the depletion
of energy supplies, and the new world economic, political and military order
that is rapidly emerging in response to these problems.
Richard J. Barnet
THE LEAN YEARS
Politics in the Age of Scarcity
J
I
ABACUS edition first published in Great Britain in 1981
by Sphere Books Ltd
30-32 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1X 8JL
Copyright © Richard J. Barnet 1980
Published in the United States in 1980
by Simon and Schuster, New York
• This book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or
otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or
otherwise circulated in any form of
binding or cover other than that in which
it is published and without a similar
condition including this condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser
Set in Lasercomp Times
Printed in Greal Britain by
©ollins, Glasgow
..
,
Acknowledgments
Many individuals have helped me with this book. Mary Waters was a
brilliant research assistant, and Ann Wilcox, Rachel Fershko, and Lynn
Kitzmiller worked devotedly on the manuscript at different stages. The
following gave tirelessly of information, advice or criticism: Eqbal Ahmad,
Ann Barnet, Solon Barraclough, Philip M. Becker, Marjorie Craig Benton,
Susan Berner, Herbert Bernstein, Hal Bernton, Brent Blackwelder, Robert
Borosage, Joe Browder, Joseph Collins, Gail Daneker, Dave Danning,
Arthur Domike, Erik Eckholm, Robert Engler, Richard Falk, Joseph Filner,
Robert Goralski, Denis Goulet, Richard Grossman, Hazel Henderson,
Mark Hertsgaard, Helen Hopps, Kent Hughes, Helen Ingram, Ed Janss,
Gary Jefferson, Henry Kelly, Gordon Kingsley, Thomas J. Knight, Janet
Kotler, Saul Landau, Eleanor LeCain, Joseph Legett, Mike Locker, Ted
Lockwood, Jerry Macafee, Harry Magdoff, Lindsay Mathson, Michael
Moffitt, Dan Morgan, Prexy Nesbitt, Jeremiah Novak, Nicki Perlas, Marcus
Raskin, Steve Roday, Rustum Roy, John Saxe-Fernandez, Bill Schweke,
John Sewell, W. Y. Smith, Paul Streeten, John Tilton, Louis Turner, Francis
J. Vastola, Howard Wachtel, Daniel Walden, Bethany Weidner, David
Weiman, Peter Weiss, Stanley Weiss, Jack Willis, Rex Wingate, Jayne Wood,
and Michael Zimmerman.
William Shawn encouraged me from the beginning, and Alice Mayhew
provided inspired help at exactly the right moments. Without the intellectual
support of the Institute for Policy Studies and its director, Robert Borosage,
this book could not have been completed.
'/.
For Dad
Contents
PART ONE
THE COMING OF THE POSTPETROLEUM WORLD
~.
CHAPTER I The Scarcity Puzzle IS
CHAPTER 0 Oil: Enough/or What? 21
CHAPTERID Oil: The Politics o/Transition 38
CliAPTERIV Energy: What Is to Be Done? 66
PART TWO
GUNS. BUTTER. AND OIL: THE CHANGING FACE OF POWER
CHAPTER V Minerals: The Rocks o/Civilization 113
CHAPTER VI Food: Sowers, Reapers, Ranchers, and Eaters lSI
CliAPTERVII Water: The Springs 0/ Life 191
CliAPTERVIII Scarce Resources and the New International
Military Order 216
PART THREE
THE GLOBAL FACTORY: THE PLANNING OF SCARCITY
Multinational Corporations and the World
Employment Crisis 239
CHAPTER X The Internationalization 0/L abor: Jobs and the
New Economic Order 267
CHAPTERXl The Politics 0/ Survival 295
Notes and Bibliography 319
Index 337
THE LEAN YEARS
PART ONE
THE COMING OF THE
POSTPETROLEUM WORLD
CHAPTER I
, .
The Scarcity Puzzle
THE PROMISE OF THE INDUSTRIAL age has been tempered by many dis
appointments, but none so devastating as the growing belief that our
civilization is out of control. By every conventional measure the postwar
world born in 1945 was a huge success. More goods were produced and
sold than ever before. More people were working; the standard of living
had never been higher. Yet as the suspicion grows that the era is ending,
there is a pervasive sense that something is deeply wrong. We are used to
rapid change, but there is a new and uncomfortable feeling that we are in
a racing car without a driver.
The new mood is no conventional pessimism, but rather a loss of faith
rooted in a sense of betrayal. We worked hard. We educated our children.
We believed in the future. We followed all the rules of success. And,
somehow, it has turned out wrong. As the postwar era began. economists
promised a managed prosperity through "fine-tuning" of the economy.
and as it ended, they threw up their hands. The remedy for galloping
inflation and nagging unemployment had yet to be discovered. Econo
mists catalogued reality in a series of exchange transactions. counted
them up, and arrived at an astronomical figure they called the "gross
national product." It was big enough to make anyone feel rich. But much
of what they counted-the automobile accident industry. the cancer
economy, the costs of pollution, crime, and welfare-though they put
money in a variety of pockets, made the society poorer, not richer. As
f~' The Wall Street Journal summed it up, "The economic ideas and policies
employed during the Great Depression and through a long era of Post
World War II prosperity seem to have worn out. "
Scientists had promised to break the bonds of human finitude, to open
the secrets of the cell, and to unveil the mystery of the planets. Instead of
the boundless horizons they had promised, limits popped up everywhere.
The symbol of the new world without options was the Energy Crisis.
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