Scarcity,Distribution and Growth: Notes on Classical Rent Theory

Abstract

In the first half of 1983 OPEC was struggling to hold the price of oil near $30 per barrel in the face of dramatic decreases in demand brought on by both price-induced conservation measures and severe world recession. However, the cost of producing oil, even at this late date in the age of convenient fossilfuels, still ranges from afew cents a barrel in the Middle East to $13-$15 per barrel in the North Sea. What does a radical analysis have to say about the forces that permit and regulate the taking of such massive absolute rents? How should the question even be framed? Allthough we are unable to offer a definitive radical study of oil prices over the past decade in this collection (since no one seems to have written it) we are glad to be able to include a prologue to such an analysis. In this essay Leo Cawley outlines some necessary aspects of a Marxian approach to the examination of situations of real or constructed resource scarcity.

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