EDITORIAL - The Catch-22 of oil dependence

When government controls prices, as in oil products, it is effectively interfering in market forces, which should not be interferred with, especially by governments. But governments are essentially in place to establish control, otherwise there would be chaos.

And there lies the dilemma. To what extent can government establish control? And over what should such control be extended? There are at least two government controls against which no one can do anything about — the power to impose taxes, and the power to punish crime.

Beyond such powers, it is government that has little or no control over anything for as long as the thing can be contested, if not in a court of justice, then in the superior logic of free enterprise.

Back to oil prices. Any government with enough decency left to look after the well being of the governed cannot stand idly by as rampaging oil prices take over what is left from the rampaging floods of natural calamities.

Such a government will eventually succumb to the urge to step in as opposed to step back and just let market forces dictate how misery chooses to exact its toll on the ravaged. Some will naturally call it interference. Others will call it politicking. Others just plain stupid.

But sometimes interference, politicking and plain stupidity are all there is to buy time, if only for how long it takes to struggle back to one's feet. In boxing they call it the long count. And a referee can lose his job for it. But he can also save a life by it.

There are things against which governments are powerless to deal with. One is the oil industry, for the simple reason that it is a monopolistic cartel existing in a dependent vacuum. Do not ever believe in deregulation when all you have are different players but the same oil.

Oil companies big and small operate out of the same mental frame, which is to rake in the profits while the oil lasts. Nothing differentiates them apart. Control their prices and they cry interference in market forces. When that doesn't work, they simply turn the pumps off.

And when that happens, it is government that takes the rap for doing the only thing it can do under the circumstances. The other course of action is to do nothing, in which case the government still gets the rap for inaction. All because we have not found the sustitute for oil.