Why Oil Boycotts Don't Work



Anyone remember that whole "don't buy gas on Friday" thing, or any other recent attempts at creating nationwide (or even local) protests about oil prices and the oil industry via not buying gas from specific companies, etc.? I always thought they were dumb, but now I know for sure, thanks to Paul Clementi (J.D.), who's teaching the class on Oil I'm currently taking. This comment is taken from the heart of one of this lectures, so any kudos are his.

Here's the plain and simple truth: They don't care. The worlwide oil market is so huge, consisting of so many different profit making markets, that first of all, any boycott at the pump (at least one that is feasibly successful) won't be felt. In fact, most of the money in oil (including ExxonMobil's current giganto profits) is not in selling gasoline to joe shmoe-- the big bucks come from the production of crude, and its sale on the commodities market. Oil companies are profit making bodies- which means that they make money on everything they can. Everything from shipping crude and the refining process to producing plastics products and chemicals consist of potential profits-- compartmentalized from the rest of the company. So what happens if NO ONE bought oil from Exxon's gas stations? They would sell it to a different distributor, let go of their network of company owned, leased, and franchised gas stations-- and keep raking in the profits (you might notice that they aready have chosen to sell off a considerable amount of their stations). If everyone did a boycott on Exxon worldwide, they could still sell the crude they produce on the commodities market, and make a killing thanks to OPEC's price fixing. Sucking oil out of the ground makes too much money for us to stop them from a mere boycott. Not to mention, we can't afford a boycott. (see also: we need oil way too much).

I used the example from class not just because Exxon is particularly sucky (or because this was the example lectured on in class (: )-- but because of the point it makes about reliance on oil. Exxon isn't really foreign oil. A large amount of its production is in the U.S., and it's not associated with OPEC. In other words, this is the non-foreign oil we've been *dreaming* of. And we still have no control over prices, the environmental impact, or corporate responsibility.

Now why is that again? Oh yeah. What are those socially legitimized norms that we write on paper and are supposed to be enforced called? Laws! That's it. What if we did things like... enforced environmental restrictions properly... and spend significant amounts of government money on using anything but oil? How about this: a government program that promises all new US Government cars and trucks would utilize alternative fuel technology of some sort (ie hybrid for vehicles that must make random trips, fuel cell for standard vehicles like mail trucks that have usual routes) and government filling stations that include hydrogen as an option to support these cars. It would hurt us now, but if the government were to put its money where George W.'s mouth wondered last week, maybe something could change. We are indeed, addicted to oil. I'll skip over the conversation where I ask why it took us to hear it from G. Dubb. to believe it on a national level, in the interest of time.

So what should you do? Threaten your congressmen and senators with a No Solution, No Vote program. They don't vote for solutions, or create them, you don't vote for them of give them campaign contributions. Buy a car that is efficient! And most importantly, flip off Exxon tanker truck drivers when you see them on the highway. That'll do us a lot of good, and will certainly lower the price of gas.

Posted: Mon - February 6, 2006 at 02:02 PM          

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