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Oil, War and Global Policy
September 30, 2013 @ 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Invitation to:
The Columbia University Seminar on
Globalization, Labor, and Popular Struggles #671
September 30, 2013
“The Spector of Our Time: Oil, War, and Global Polity”
Professor Cyrus Bina
That the identity of our epoch has not yet been appreciated by either the tutored or untutored is quite remarkable. This lack of recognition is perceptible across all political creeds—from the left to the right, and throughout the world. Many on the right (particularly the neocons) are now doubling down on “American exceptionalism” and keeping their fingers crossed for another “American century.” The left—while justifiably furious at the scale and depth of US atrocities, nevertheless takes its cues from the predominant rightwing conjecture that oil (energy) is the root cause of such aggressions.
The Right emphasizes the need for oil as the lubricant of their “democracy.” They lament that they need to have “access” to it even if the reserves are located underneath other countries. The Left (at least a bulk of it) takes this as a self-evident truth and runs with it in opposite direction through the jingle of “No Blood for Oil.” The right is the primum mobile and in command, while the left glides in-and-out by way of reverse-engineering (of the same dogma) and, advertently or inadvertently, by spreading confusion, untruth, and downright deception.
On a different plane, the Right is the architect of neoliberal policies across the globe—dubbed “Americanization;” the Left takes these policies as a stand-in for globalizationby way of reduction. The Right rides on what it can muster by upping the ante—notwithstanding the loss of American hegemony, subsequent to the passing of Pax Americana (1945-79). The Left regurgitates and replicates the Right’s construction of the meaning of hegemony and global power. Meanwhile, the public, propagandized and perplexed, counts the number US military bases abroad as the rise of American hegemony and thus power. In reality, the train of globalization has long departed from the dusty and deserted era of the Pax Americana (1945-79) and the new polity (and global power) in formation has already crossed the Rubicon.
Based on the book, A Prelude to the Foundation of Political Economy: Oil, War, and Global Polity (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); we will focus on three interrelated issues that have affected the lives of millions across the world in more than one agonizing way. These are (1) the evolution of oil from International Petroleum Cartel (1928-72) to today’s competitive globalization; (2) the real cause of war (and root cause of the US’s unconcealed bellicosity); (3) the post-Pax Americana world and the nature of polity in the post-hegemonic world.
Cyrus Bina is Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Minnesota (Morris Campus), USA. He was formerly a fellow (and research associate) at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University (1990-1995). Bina is a political economist, a pioneering theorist of oil and globalization of energy, and a Middle East specialist. He is the author and/or coeditor of several scholarly books, including The Economics of the Oil Crisis (1985); Modern Capitalism and Islamic Ideology in Iran (1991); Beyond Survival: Wage Labor in the Late Twentieth Century (1996); Oil: A Time Machine (2012); and A Prelude to the Foundation of Political Economy: Oil, War, and Global Polity (2013). Bina has written well over two hundred scholarly articles, policy papers, encyclopedia entries, and spoken widely on radio and television (via satellite and otherwise) across the globe on the issues surrounding oil, energy, and the key to climate change; ‘Arab Spring’; war and peace; and US foreign policy in the Middle East; and the political economy of Iran. The editor of forthcoming 3-vols, Global Economics: An Encyclopedia of Trade, Capital, Labor, Technology, and Innovation, he is also a Fellow of Economists for Peace and Security and an editor for the Journal of Critical Studies in Business and Society.
DATE: Monday, September 30 from 7:15 – 9:00 p.m. in Faculty House (http://facultyhouse.columbia.edu/). The seminar is at 7:15 p.m. in a room that will be announced in the Faculty House lobby. Please look for a bulletin board posting. To reach Faculty House, enter the Columbia University campus via the gate on the east side of Broadway at 116th Street; go through campus and cross Amsterdam Avenue.
Continue on West 116th past the Law School and turn left through the gate, turn right beyond Wein Hall on the right and go down the ramp to Faculty House.
OPTIONAL DINNER: Members of the seminar will gather for an optional dinner in Faculty House at 6:00. The cost of the dinner is $25 per person and payable only by check to Columbia University. (RSVP required – please see bottom of email.)
PLEASE RSVP to Shanna Farrell ([email protected]) by Tuesday, September 24 if you plan to attend dinner and by Friday, September 27 if you plan to attend the seminar only.
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Columbia University Seminar on Full Employment #671
____ I will ____ I will not attend the seminar on September 30.
____ I will ____ I will not join the group for dinner.
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*Please look for an announcement about the upcoming conference celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Columbia University Seminar on Full Employment, Social Welfare & Equity entitled “An Economic Bill of Rights for the 21st Century” on October 18, 2013. Please visit http://www.economicbillofrights.net for more information.
The seminar on Globalization, Labor & Popular Struggles is chaired by David Bensman[email protected]; [email protected] and Sheila Collins, [email protected]; [email protected].