{"id":283858,"date":"2023-10-18T19:53:30","date_gmt":"2023-10-18T17:53:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=283858"},"modified":"2023-10-18T19:53:34","modified_gmt":"2023-10-18T17:53:34","slug":"ayn-rand-on-energy-disruption-arab-embargo-turns-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=283858","title":{"rendered":"Ayn Rand on Energy Disruption (Arab Embargo Turns 50)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Alisa Zinov\u2019yevna Rosenbaum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 1973 Arab Oil Embargo: Arab oil producers cut off exports to the U.S. to protest American military support for Israel in its 1973 war with Egypt and Syria.\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Cars line up at a gas station in New York City on Dec. 23, 1973. The Arab oil embargo caused gas shortages nationwide and shaped U.S. foreign policy to this day.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

From \u00a0Master Resource<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Robert Bradley Jr.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

The Arab oil embargo was not the cause of the energy crisis in this country: it was merely the straw that showed that the camel\u2019s back was broken. There is no \u201cnatural\u201d or geological crisis; there is an enormous political one. It is in the nature of a mixed economy that its policies are rationally inexplicable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Ayn Rand, The Energy Crisis, Part I<\/a> and Part II<\/a> (November 1973) [1]<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Alisa Zinov\u2019yevna Rosenbaum, known to the world as Ayn Rand<\/a>, (1905\u20131982) was a philosopher attuned to the workings of the mind, the economy, and politics. Best known as a novelist, she wrote fiction based on fact and wrote on contemporary issues later in life. She is the inspiration of \u201cfree minds and free markets\u201d through her philosophy of Objectivism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When asked by a Random House salesman to summarize her philosophy \u201cwhile standing on one foot,\u201d she answered:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

1. Metaphysics<\/em>: Objective Reality<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Epistemology<\/em>: Reason<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Ethics<\/em>: Self-interest<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Politics<\/em>: Capitalism<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Rand translated her response into simple language in her inaugural column for the Los Angeles Times<\/em> in 1962:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

1. Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed, or Wishing won\u2019t make it so<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. You can\u2019t eat your cake and have it too<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Man is an end in himself<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Give me liberty or give me death [2]<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Rand\u2019s commentary about Richard Nixon\u2019s wage and price control program of August 1971 (the public acceptance of which represented a \u201cmoratorium on brains\u201d), remains biting. [3]<\/strong> And from Nixon\u2019s beginning, she diagnosed the \u201cenergy crisis\u201d in terms of the failed mixed economy where distortive regulation expands from its own shortcomings.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If only Ayn Rand were here to write about the global warming\/climate crusade. And the energy industry\u2019s back-pedaling and \u201cgreenwashing\u201d of the issue, trying to placate its enemies. (It did not work, and signs of change are in the air.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Energy Crisis\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Excerpts below come from \u201cThe Energy Crisis,\u201d published just weeks after the Arab Embargo in 1973. As you read Rand below, substitute \u201cfossil fuel\u201d for \u201coil\u201d and \u201cclimate regulators\u201d for \u201cArab OPEC\u201d to come to the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe oil industry is being destroyed by a bombardment of paper\u2013of governmental rules, regulations, directives, edicts, commands. But that bombardment is more effective than other kinds of air raids: it blasts your power stations, extinguishes your lights, freezes your homes, stops your motors, locks your factories, wipes out your jobs, and leaves a barren land on which nothing will grow again for generations.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe result of our present economic system is that the men who do the work \u2013 in this case, the oil industry \u2013 know the state of their production at a given moment, but do not know what edict will shatter them next month or next year. The government officials do not know the state of the industry they are controlling \u2013 nor what edict they will feel like issuing next week.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cThe Arab oil embargo was not the cause of the energy crisis in this country: it was merely the straw that showed that the camel\u2019s back was broken. There is no \u201cnatural\u201d or geological crisis; there is an enormous political one.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cIt is in the nature of a mixed economy that its policies are rationally inexplicable, that there are no identifiable causes, no accountable initiators, no ascertainable villains\u2013and that you are losing your jobs, giving up your automobiles, catching pneumonia in unheated bedrooms, not because some giant evildoers are plotting your destruction, but because some seedy hack wanted an unearned salary, and some crummy professor wanted an undeserved prestige, and some measly shyster wanted a chance to fish in muddy laws, and none of them cared to or could watch the state of the country\u2019s economy, and the sum of such termite aspirations has eaten through the pillars of the structure so that one kick from a sheik was sufficient to make it crumble.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cPrice controls have wrecked the natural gas industry, stopping exploration for new domestic fields; at present, we import increasing amounts of [liquified] natural gas from Algeria, at prices substantially above the price permitted to domestic producers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/strong> The Ayn Rand Institute, copyright holder of these two essays, has chosen not to make the content from the Ayn Rand Letter<\/a><\/em> available online. Formal citations are as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Ayn Rand, \u201cThe Energy Crisis: Part I\u201d (November 5, 1973). Reprinted in The Ayn Rand Letter: Volumes I\u2013IV (1971\u20131976)<\/em>. Palo Alto, CA: Palo Alto Book Service, 1979, p. 258.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ibid., p. 260.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

[2] <\/strong>Rand, Ayn. \u201cIntroducing Objectivism\u201d (1962). In Rand, ed. The Voice of Reason: Essays in Objectivist Thought<\/em>. New York: The New American Library, 1989,  p. 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/strong>\u00a0Rand, \u201cThe Moratorium on Brains: Part II.\u201d\u00a0The Ayn Rand Letter<\/em>. Vol. 1, No 3 (November 8, 1971). Republished in The Ayn Rand Letter: Volumes I-IV, 971\u2013976. Palo Alto, CA, 1979, pp. 9\u201314, at 13.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 1973 Arab Oil Embargo: Arab oil producers cut off exports to the U.S. to protest American military support for Israel in its 1973 war with Egypt and Syria.\u00a0 From \u00a0Master Resource By Robert Bradley Jr. The Arab oil embargo was not the cause of the energy crisis in this country: it was merely the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":283865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"The 1973 Arab Oil Embargo: Arab oil 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Credit Henry Kissinger\u2019s diplomacy for convening oil embargoed allies in 1974 and founding the International Energy Agency (IEA) at the State Department, where\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"1973 oil crisis\"","block_context":{"text":"1973 oil crisis","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?tag=1973-oil-crisis"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0-The-Politics-of-Oil-and-the-Origins-of-the-IEA1.jpg?fit=784%2C1168&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0-The-Politics-of-Oil-and-the-Origins-of-the-IEA1.jpg?fit=784%2C1168&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0-The-Politics-of-Oil-and-the-Origins-of-the-IEA1.jpg?fit=784%2C1168&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/0-The-Politics-of-Oil-and-the-Origins-of-the-IEA1.jpg?fit=784%2C1168&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/121246920"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=283858"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283866,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283858\/revisions\/283866"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/283865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=283858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=283858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=283858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}