Workers World, Vol. 21, No. 26
June 26 – At the present time, there is an almost universal condemnation of the oil companies and the Carter administration for the chaos, havoc, and suffering which millions of people are experiencing as a result of the gas-oil crisis. There seems to be no real relief in the very immediate future.
The giant oil companies in particular seem to be coming daily under increasing attacks from almost all sectors of the population. Even among the right-wing Republicans there is growing disquiet about the “performance,” as they put it, of the oil monopolies. Indeed, Senator Baker, speaking “as a friend of the oil companies,” warned them publicly over a nationwide telecast that if they don’t “change their ways” they face grave danger “from the public and the government.”
There is scarcely a politician in the country who wouldn’t go out of his way to put some blame on the oil companies. There are daily tirades in and out of Congress. Last Sunday, Senator Church, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, denounced the oil companies over NBC’s Meet the Press, virtually accusing them of trying to run the government and asking for public support to show that “the oil companies aren’t going to run the United States.”
It need hardly be added that so far as the workers and oppressed people are concerned, they’ve known from the very beginning that the oil crisis has been rigged, that it is a conspiracy of the oil monopolies. Hardly any worker will deny that the gas and oil situation is one big rip-off by the oil companies. There are very few among the hundreds of thousands of capitalist politicians who will deny this or will not find some way to harshly denounce the oil octopus.
Yet the paradox of the situation is this: When all the talk is heard, and it continues to be louder each day, what actually is being done about the oil companies? Have any measures been introduced in Congress against the oil companies? Not one!
This is the basic point to bear in mind. Except for double-talking about “restraining” the oil companies through a so-called windfall tax – a tax which takes a tiny slice from the extortionate super-profits of the oil companies – nothing has been introduced in Congress to curb them, to really tax them, or to take them over.
So the situation at the moment is this: Out of the 435 Congressmembers and 100 Senators, no one, notwithstanding all the talk against the oil companies, has introduced anything which would really infringe on the marauding and criminal activities of the octopus. In other words, the source of the crisis is left untouched.
The oil companies are sitting pretty, garnering billions from the crisis and cynically watching the process. “Sticks and stones can break our bones, but words will never hurt us,” they say contemptuously to the capitalist politicians.
There is no possibility of adequately dealing with either the current or the long-term gas and oil crisis unless one first takes into account the source of the crisis – the oil companies themselves. It is necessary, for the moment at least, to isolate the oil and gas crisis from the general crisis of capitalism as a whole.
The oil companies are not an empire unto themselves. They permeate every sector of society, both military and civilian. They control the destiny of millions upon millions of people. Their domination extends from the oil wells scattered over the globe all the way to the pumps at the local gasoline station.
They have been known to topple governments abroad and more frequently than not have dictated fundamental policy to presidents the way one does to a stenographer. They explains why, despite the hundreds of capitalist politicians who inveigh against the oil companies, there has been to date not one single bill introduced in Congress which calls for a takeover of the oil companies.
But the oil companies are not omnipotent, are not invincible. The strange phenomenon of seeing virtually the whole country up in arms against the oil companies because of the terrible hardships they have inflicted upon the people, and yet nothing being done to alleviate the situation, can only be explained by the fear the capitalist politicians have of actually doing something to alleviate the crisis, since that means striking at the oil companies.
But this is precisely what must be done. No program for working class action to deal with the current crisis can possibly be formulated except by striking at the very source of the crisis. Everything else will reduce itself to minor administrative adjustments, which at best would mean distributing an onerous and unjustified burden among the masses, to in fact in the long run severely cut the living standards of the bulk of the workers and the oppressed people.
To seriously deal with the crisis it is necessary to think in terms of a takeover of the oil companies. This is fundamental This is also recognized by the oil companies and by all segments of the ruling class and the capitalist government. That is why the word “takeover” is a forbidden word in the halls of Congress. That is why no one has even ventured to say he is for takeover. It explains why to date no one has introduced such a bill.
But the idea of a takeover immediately brings to mind the general conception of a nationalization by the government. In both European and U.S. history, nationalization has turned out to be not a true takeover by the people but a change of ownership from the oil companies to the capitalist government. In fact, as twentieth-century capitalism has shown most graphically in Europe, when a capitalist government takes over (whether it be a Labour government or a Conservative government), it takes over as trustee for the monopolies. It’s often a change of the name, but not of the game.
Yet the European working class has learned much in the course of the struggle against the private ownership of the basic means of production by the monopolies, as well as from the capitalist government’s administration when it nationalized some of the industry.
It is necessary to present the question of a takeover of the oil industry in an entirely new way, based upon a set of wholly new circumstances in which the American working class finds itself. The idea of taking over the oil industry from the monopolists would find favor with the majority of the working class and oppressed people. The real problem lies in “taking over from whom to whom?”
Under the circumstances of contemporary American capitalist politics, there is probably as great a distrust of the capitalist politicians as there is of the oil companies. This distrust is fed first by the experience of the mass of the people. It is also fed in a large part by the ruling class itself, which is forever preaching distrust of the capitalist politicians whenever any progressive measure is pending in Congress which threatens to take even the most minimal slices of their super-profits.
Right-wing distrust of the capitalist politicians is also very formidable in large sectors of the petty bourgeoisie. This is due to the fact that the capitalist government unloads the heavy burden of taxations, which should properly be borne by the ruling class, onto the petty bourgeoisie, and of course the workers.
The question is how to implement an approach for a takeover of the oil industry which would not necessarily be a transfer from the oil monopolies to the capitalist government, for the latter would merely administer the oil industry and deposit the profits in the form of compensation into the same coffers as before.
It is necessary to start from the principal contradiction in which the working class finds itself at the present time in relation to the developing oil and gas crisis, as well as to the more general crisis of capitalism in this country. (If reports are correct, still another recession is in the offing before the old one has really been exhausted.)
The contradiction is this: The deterioration of the capitalist system in its present phase of development has been so rapid and the crisis it has engendered promises to be so severe that it requires extraordinary measures, measures which the ruling class will not and cannot carry out.
In a general way, the contradiction should be resolved by a politically awakened and class-conscious working class which by its class struggle can enforce a solution on the ruling class. But the capitalist economic deterioration has advanced far more rapidly than the necessary political awakening and class consciousness of the working class. Material conditions have moved far faster than ideology, which throughout history generally lags behind changes in the material conditions.
It is necessary to elevate the consciousness of the working class by injecting a political program which stimulates political action and brings them an awareness of their potentialities, their central role in the present crisis: The fact that the working class by its action can demonstrate that it has the power to bring the oil monopolies to heel and not necessarily crown the capitalist government and its politicians as the new trustees of the oil industry.
How is this to be done? In the first place, the oil companies must be under attack not just because they are avaricious and greedy, not just because they rip off the people. All this is true and must be pointed out constantly. But the attack must show that the root cause is the private ownership by a handful of people who run them for profit. The attack must be on private ownership and must be contrasted with public ownership. This may seem old and hackneyed but it is the solution if properly approached.
In the present conjuncture in which the working class finds itself, its attention must be focused on the government, on Congress which has the power to pass laws, to enact legislation. No matter what kind of activity is stimulated among the workers, they will still in the present stage of development look to the government to either initiate action or validate by law the actions they have taken.
Since, as we said, not a single Congress member or Senator has committed himself or herself to a takeover of the oil industry in spite of all their attacks on it, it would be necessary to demand that Congress immediately enact a law which declares the oil and gas industry the public property of the people of the United States. Not that it shall say “the people” – not the government.
If you should ask any of the capitalist politicians about the practicality of such a measure, he or she would tell you that this is impossible, that it is a utopian measure, that Congress would never do it, not only because they are beholden to the oil octopus itself but out of sheer fear. But this is precisely why such a measure ought to be vigorously pushed in the working class movement.
It is well to bear in mind that this measure does not transfer the ownership of the oil companies to the government or entrust it to administer them. The law merely divests the oil companies of their ownership of the oil industry and declares it to be public property. The working class and the oppressed people are the majority of the public.
As to who should manage the oil industry, that’s another aspect for a second stage of the struggle. The first stage is to around widespread public sentiment, especially among the workers, on the need to divest the oil companies of the ownership of the oil industry and turn it over to the public, to declare it public property.
This struggle alone, if properly conducted, could arouse the millions and put the struggle on a class basis. It would bring consciousness to the struggle. The way the struggle is now being conducted shows incipient signs of civil war, but it is directed in the wrong channels – against gas station attendants and gas operators, not against the central enemy.
Unless the oil companies are attacked in a fundamental way, unless they are attacked as a monopoly under private ownership, and unless the solution is posed as the collective ownership by the public, that is, by the mass of the workers and oppressed people, all else will prove illusory. Therefore, a two-stage struggle must be developed.
The first stage envisions a broad popular campaign for a Congressional declaration that the oil companies and all their facilities become the public property of the people of the United States. This is a simple and wholly progressive measure which can scarcely be opposed by any who consider themselves progressive. This campaign, once it gets going, will not only generally stimulate political education on the nature of the crisis, but will have the possibility of moving millions into take tremendous initiatives on their own in order to force the capitalist government to make the necessary declaration, a declaration which divests the oil companies of ownership.
The second part deals with the creation of popular committees from the masses who can employ whatever technicians and managerial staffs are necessary to run the industry.
What is contemplated by the demand is for the government to validate a takeover that leaves the question of ownership and control to the people. Too much detail for such a plan is of no practical use. Such details are easily developed once mass enthusiasm develops for the plan, once the creative initiative of the people asserts itself and proves its capabilities in contrast to the soulless governmental bureaucracy which shuns all intervention by the masses.
What is needed at the start is to frame a resolution, printed and circulated in the millions, in the form of a petition by the people which asks that Congress intervene in the present crisis and that the form of its intervention should be the swift and speedy enactment of a law which divests the oil companies of all ownership and invests it in the people of the United States.
Certainly the progressive movement in this country could scarcely oppose such a measure. All who say that it is impractical, goes too far, or is unreachable, have an opportunity to test it in practice. None can deny its progressive character. Whether it is practical or not depends on whether the masses can be aroused to its necessity.
Merely berating the oil tycoons, merely writing about the suffering and the frustration of the masses is very important but not enough. It is necessary to do something, however little that may appear at first. It has been well said that it is better to light one small candle than to merely curse the darkness.
Last updated: 11 May 2026