The crazy curse and crude domination: Toward an anthropology of oil Stephen Reyna and Andrea Behrends Abstract: Oil has turned out to be something of a curse. Most developing petro- states have found that their economies have worsened, their political regimes have become more authoritarian, and their conflicts have intensified. Further, this curse is a bit crazy because oil brings wealth, which would seem to bring peace and pros- perity, not the trouble that so often accompanies it. The goal of this introduction is to propose a research strategy for the anthropological analysis of oil. It does so by examining existing oil literatures, discussing the implications for research aris- ing from the articles contained here, and, finally, formulating an anthropology of oil in a turbulent world. This formulation proposes a ‘crude domination’ approach to explain oil’s crazy curse. Keywords: anthropology of oil, development, conflict, domination approach, Africa, Latin America The oil price is very high, it’s crazy. There is no additional supply. —Pumomo Yusgiantoro, OPEC president, in 2004 Immanuel Wallerstein has written of a “system- Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the U.S. ic crisis” that he believes will produce “disinte- Federal Reserve, respected elder statesman of U.S. gration of our existing historical social system” finance, and an architect of neoliberal global- within twenty-five to fifty years (1997: 1256)— ism, has written The age of turbulence: Adventures strong rhetoric from a person dedicated to pain- in a new world (2007). Here he suggests that it is staking investigation of the longue durée of the now a time of instability, a world of turbulence. modern world system and not to histrionics. It Naomi Klein, a journalist covering global calami- might be objected that Wallerstein is to the left, ties, has written The shock doctrine: The rise of and besides, that he is an intellectual and so not disaster capitalism (2007), in which she strips a practical person of the world. Consider the away neoliberal cloaking rhetoric to reveal con- practical world of government and journalism. temporary capitalism in shockingly complicit Focaal—European Journal of Anthropology 52 (2008): 3–17 doi:10.3167/fcl.2008.520101 4|Stephen Reyna and Andrea Behrends bondage with disaster. So there you have it. On rising transportation costs. Furthermore, reduc- the left and right, academics, statesmen, and tion of petroleum supplies will compromise food journalists currently talk of systemic crisis in a production, giving rise to possible mass human world of turbulence characterized by disaster starvation, because contemporary industrial ag- capitalism. Why? riculture is dependent on cheap oil (for fertil- Responding to this question brings us to oil. izer, herbicides, pesticides, and machinery fuel). Oil is the key scarce, strategic resource needed Additionally, the carbon dioxide released into for almost all capitalist enterprise (Homer-Dixon the atmosphere by the utilization of fossil fuels 2001; Klare 2002). It is not renewable. One con- is a major cause of global warming. This means cern of those studying oil has been how to con- that global warming will accompany consump- ceptualize its supply. M. King Hubbert sug- tion of the remaining oil supplies “during the gested in the 1950s that it might be imagined as 21st century” and “could lead to a relatively a bell curve. This meant it would have an as- abrupt lowering of the ocean” temperature due cending slope as output increased; a highest point to melting ice packs, which, in turn, could lead before decrease set in; and a descending slope as to “harsher winter weather … , sharply reduced output decreased. The high point has come to soil moisture and more intense winds,” leading be known as Hubbert’s Peak. Hubbert’s work al- finally to reduction in “the human carrying ca- lowed yearly projections of what the oil supply pacity of the Earth’s environment” (Schwartz bell curve would look like. In 1956 he predicted and Randall 2003: 1). It should be noted that that U.S. oil production would peak around 1970 the preceding judgment does not come from and decline thereafter (1956). He was correct. ‘radical’ ecologists. Schwartz and Randall work His simulation methods have been improved for the U.S. Department of Defense. Under such and found to be reliable (Deffeyes 2006). Thus, conditions, according to one observer, “If the the approach helps answer the question: what U.S. controls the sources of energy of its rivals— years will be those of Hubbert’s Peak, after Europe, Japan, China and other nations aspir- which production subsides? Available evidence ing to be more independent—they win” (Daya- suggests that Hubbert’s Peak is fast approach- neni and Wing 2002: 2). Thus, there is a gather- ing. There are 98 oil-producing countries in the ing turbulence due to systemic crisis because, as world; 64 of these are believed to have passed the head of OPEC put it in 2004, there is “no their geologically imposed production peak; additional supply” of oil—“it’s crazy” (Trotti and of those, 60 are in terminal production de- 2005: 2). cline (Deffeyes 2006). Oil prospecting has turned One point to draw from the preceding is that sour. Nine barrels of oil are consumed for every in some sense the future of the world depends new one barrel discovered (ibid.). Peak oil spe- upon oil and how humans use it. As the past cialists predict that Hubbert’s Peak has occurred, and the present are the only predictors of the fu- or will occur, between 2000 and 2010 (Kunstler ture, this means to some extent that the fate of 2006). Indeed, Deffeyes has asserted that it oc- humanity depends upon inquiries into how oil curred in 2005 (Green Car Congress 2006). affects the dynamics of human social forms. As Consumption of oil, on the other hand, is pre- we shall see below, anthropological inquiry into dicted to rise 60 percent between 2003 and 2025 oil is limited, while that of other social sciences (IAGS 2003). So, oil production declines, very is richer. So the goal of this introduction is to soon, under conditions of rising demand. Its re- propose a research strategy for anthropological placement is theoretically possible, though not analysis of oil. It will do so by interrogating find- currently economically or technically feasible. ings of existing oil literatures, discussing the re- What will the loss of oil mean? There is a gen- search implications of the articles that compose eral concurrence that there will be severe and the offerings of this section in Focaal, and fi- lengthy worldwide depression resulting from nally sketching on the basis of these analyses an shrunken economic activity, high inflation, and anthropology of oil in a turbulent world. This Introduction: The crazy curse: Toward an anthropology of oil |5 sketch, offered in the third section, will propose triple conjunction in petrostates of stagnating a ‘crude domination’ approach, whose goal is social development and poverty; high conflict, explaining oil’s crazy curse. often violent; and a tendency toward authori- tarian regimes. The preceding suggests a paradox: If money The crazy ‘curse’: Current approaches is a condition for development, and it surely is, why do petrodollars buy petrocurse rather than The oil literature to be discussed is that in eco- petro-utopia? Because this paradox is so puz- nomics, political science, and anthropology zling—what is supposed to create prosperity in starting in the 1970s, because it was at this time fact produces the reverse—let us recognize that that the current turbulence began. The turbu- oil producers suffer from a crazy curse. Crazy lence began on a high note. Oil prices boomed phenomena, important for human welfare, beg in the years following the early 1970s, bringing, for solution, and, accordingly, investigation of according to one oil minister,“more money than oil’s crazy curse is the research object of this an- we ever in our wildest dreams thought possible” thropology of oil. Some major contributions to (Karl 1997: 3).‘Petro-states, as understood here, this literature are considered next. are capital-intensive oil exporters with high ra- tios of oil to total exports, petroleum industry enclaves, and enormous rents or royalties (from Resource curse, Dutch Disease, and greed oil sales), which accrue directly to the central government. Social development is any sequence Economics, often labeled the dismal science, of events that leads to beneficent, sustainable strengthens this reputation with its handling of economic, social, and political change for all seg- oil’s crazy curse. Classical economists in the ments of a population. The 1970s boom meant eighteenth and nineteenth centuries first formu- that oil rents became enormous. Petrodollars, lated theory relevant to the curse. They observed people dreamed, would buy petrostates’ devel- that Spain and England had marched down opment. Dream and reality marched down dif- vastly different developmental paths—Spain to ferent paths. decline, England to growth. Adam Smith ex- Oil turned out to be a development “curse” plained this with a theory of resources, which (Auty 1993; Ross 1999). Most developing petro- warned of the perils of natural resource rents. states found that their economic performance Rents or royalties are payments to owners of worsened in the 1990s (Attiga 1981; Gelb 1988; land for using its various raw materials in the Karl 1997, 1999). Some ‘oil-rich’ petrostates production of goods and services. Economies found themselves ‘dirt poor’ in the sense that based on renting natural resources motivate their poor became poorer (Gary and Karl 2003). rent-seeking behavior and not profits from pro- Michael Ross (2001) found democracy unlikely ductive activity (Smith 1776). Further, raw ma- and authoritarian regimes likely in petrostates. terial rents were exhaustible and, thus, experi- Worse, oil is ‘black gold’ over which social pi- enced diminishing returns (Mill 1851).