'The World After Oil' by Bruce NussBaum

Book Title; The world after oil. The Shifting Axis of Power and Wealth.

Author; Bruce NussBaum

Published By; Simon and Schuster, New York, NY. 1983.

ISBN; 0-671-44571-5

Language; English

Pagination; 319

Review; Iroabuchi Onwuka



Introduction.



The book is arguable prophetic given the current sales issue of GM and the automobile industry. The book deals seriously on the changing dynamics of power and wealth through technology and how the advances in science and technology, especially Medical sciences has made life easier for people and generated wealth for the champions. The American influence in the world was due to its pivotal position as the oil magnet of the world. It achieved this reputation in the world through the power of oil, but the rise of OPEC as a trading block, paraded to the world by 'Swiss bankers' and new technology not only changed the price of crude oil, it raised the game of crude oil price to a very new level. The price of that endeavour was the attempt at alternative energy and technology which the author is basically arguing represented the new world. In a sense, a new world in the 80's was emerging as a counter weight to oil and as such the pioneers of any new technology in world or newer advances in technology were laying the foundations for a new world altogether.


The book traces the root of new world power to alternative energy and information technology, emaniating from countries like Europe and Japan, with Russia seeking to change their new attitude towards Robots. Other frontliners of that world in the 80's was a country like Japan and their intent on technology which has harried away the like of Kodac into holes of esponiage on very extensive FBI files, and from a well of an emerging US market driven to core by mostly data market, a quake in ground movement is felt allover the world in the 80's.



Body



Point of correction, this book is nothing about oil. It is nothing about the growing competition in the world as at 83, the book does not encourage any form of escape from reality, that oil then and now is matter too great for common market, rather the book is about the power of dumping the extensive reliance on oil. The world as at the early part of the 80's was still used to power new advances in technology which were mainly mechanical and rely on oil. But that world was getting old by 1982. In leaps and bounds, the world has gotten away from the huge emphasis that was placed on machination and oil. In a sense, the book had been written as a 'boom' or 'doomsday' prophecy on the shifting ground of world market power from Crude oil, which represented all sorts of power and which the author argues against the newer realities of world technology.

There was a tendency towards information system which was foremostly led by a certain enterpreneur, Steve Jobs. There was IBM, Cisco, and other American companies that were focusing their research mainly on information technology. In 1983, the World history and Sciences were just waking up to newer realities of discovery. So rapid had been those newer breakthroughs that the whole lifestyle of information system which was still far from many Americans and the rest of the world, had deepen, complicating the human of fear of technology that was eventually recognised as cyberphobia. There was the cyberworld of technology whose primary circle of data minning had set the stage for the future and was intent of remaining the same.

There was also the Robots to consider, and according to the book, the world was guzzling away its energy and "in an era of high priced energy, robots meant higher productivity, lower costs, and even better quality." The price of oil at the inception of OPEC moved from $2.10 to about $13 in 1979. Perhaps Bruce Nussbaum was right that "by raising the price of energy so sharply and so quickly, OPEC transformed the entire base of world economy. By increasing the price of oil fifteen folds in less than a decade, after nearly a century of stable cheap energy, OPEC changed the technological foundations of Western society and set in motion vast social and political changes that are now coming into focus". We can guess that the author is implying the fact that shifts in oil power bases and control, led to new frontiers of technology and new appetite in sciences.

It was also observed in the book that the world of Cybernomics once all American have yielded some ground to Europe and Japan. In fact, Russia in 1983 led the world on many fronts of war technology, began to tune their attention to information technology, sharing with Americans who were doing their own bit mainly in terms of 'C & C' computer and communication and in terms of genetic engineering. In terms of network and communication Russia was very backward at least on head to head match with the world and with Europe. The major area of importance was Robots which were destined to gradually replace the workmanship of human resource. Alchohol played itself out in Russia as a disease, and that meant much trouble for the working population of Russia. The country was still very isolated and by that issue of job creation and manpower basic to communist societies, Russia had little reasons to consider Robotics as replacement for humans, and if they accomplished this with 'Unimates' Robots, they were seriously backwards in information technology and it was going to hurt them strategically in the future.

The author used several examples to illustrate the power of technology in the modern world, citing for instance the use of information system in the Isreali war against Lebanon in 1982. Lebanese Russian made SAM (Surface to Air Missiles) were completely destroyed by Isreal before the war even began. That incident raised the question of new age technology that the world was getting stormed by systems of information that made the unimaginable possible through its electronic feedback. The author also cited the example of Telegram, an information dispatch technology which by itself is a breakthrough, given the advances in technology, had become rlatively obsolete in 1980's, much easier to make the connection between one part of the country to the other. No business man and woman who wish to continue their existence in commercial industry should forgo the new issue of imformation technology. In a sense, emails and Fax machines might be taken for granted today advances but in terms past, it was a thing for upper society.

There was also the quest for better communication in at the time of the writing. Television were set to get a better attention in terms of ECB, an abbreviation for Electronics Communications Box. The impact of information technology in the 1980's was so great that many analyst were willing to bait their career on the future of American banking system, where it is believed that in near future Americans can buy and sell products without living their houses and have a securitized access to their bank acount, from which payments are made. To many Americans then, this was insane since the idea of electronic payment much more popular today was still limited in scope and in hindsight, it posed all kinds of challenges to other semi government controlled American businesses. Yet the book cited that Citicorp, the 'holding company for Citibank' had private communication agency within their companies and so did Texas instrument and IBM. These companies had very useful information mining data that kept them ahead of the world but in the breakthroughs of information network in the 80's, these companies will have let go of the monopoly of private network world.

Data Minning in America has been a center of gravity for information related agency. In terms of US Treasury advisorial and former Central intellingence agents, data mining and storage is Americas greatest security weapon. That world of security was in the 80's also changing from entirely mechanized arms to wars that can be fought with digital computers. Silicon Valley in California for the most part became the center of excellence in computer science and gradually adapted itself to the center of information minning. Silicon Valley also attracted the greatest minds of that era and became home to technology giants who cared more for themselves and themselves alone than the rest of the country. Such idea of having an area entirely dedicated to an industry played out its huge dividend in output and in excellence.

The role of an academic institution in nurturing the breakhroughs in sciences and technology have long lived the reality of everyday Americans. American institution for sciences and technology like Berkeley and MIT, have added their degree of discipline to the world of science.
To further buttress the example we can refer to the book's quotation that "from Stanford, Berkeley and Caltech has come a rush of scientist to set up Cetus, Eugenics, and other tiny biotech companies. On the East coast, the Cambridge area of Boston, home to Route 128 and its myriad Computer companies, is now a hotbed of new bioengineering activity."

Breakthroughs in drilling and maping out areas of crude oil had been started through the university and then the rest of the world. The connection between American Universities and industries have always remained the secret of sucess for the Americans. Just like the advances in Petroluem and Crude oil were made possible by studies in the Universities, these Institutions
were also pioneering breakthroughs in other areas unrelated to oil. For instance information technology and T.V communication and Bioengineering were to conform to major patterns of business administration and unmanned Robots replaced human hands in Major industries in the world.

Commentary and Conclusion

It is import to note that this book, which is an 80's example of Thomas Friedman's "World is Flat" of 2005, did not only intend on providing information about businesses, newer technology and Robot, rather a world as we know it that was gradually surplanted by man made. Like 'Friedman' of 2001 'Lexus and Olive tree', this book 'The worl After oil', a forerunner of the above books, looks at that changing dynamics of the world and how those changing dynamics of technology dictated the world power.

If the book is tireless informed, it does not mean that the very author himself is an economist, neither can it be said that the author understood the nature of U.S Banking and Investment.
The huge expansionary nature of Japan's economy may or may have been influenced by American investment banking. By that, it is possible to argue that Japan's technological improvement represented everything that is mainly American in essence, it represents the common grounds of international banking and finances.

Despite the deficit in the America and the rising tide of manufacturing around the world, emerging economies in the 80's world were bound to simultaneously support the American economy. In the argument about the power of technology improving lives could be the case, when in times past, there was a balance of power and market forces were subjected to what group produced the larger size of production. We have however come to understand that productive capacity of any country should not entirely reflect its market hence its value.
Rather, production curve of any civil society should be made to graph in such a way as to suggest the 'fundamental value' of the existing market.

If he has a prediction for future years, then there is a tendency to evaluate his theory in the context of electronic age video games and in terms of Network that has taken a whole new color since the 80's. As much as crude oil has played a major hand in determining the direction of US dollars, it can also help to sponsor new frontiers of venture captalism to which Americans had more than once demonstrated leadership. It is this unique possibility of converting much profit from oil to business and using 'cash receivables' of any country in lending that such wonderful frontiers of technology can be made possible.

The major lesson from the book is not that people should fear new advances in all classes of technology rather, emphasis must be placed on advances in sciences and technology and the institution or nurture grounds for it, which will not only solve the problems of dependence on foreign oil but will serve to creat the path for future advances in anyother field like Medicine and so on. The shift on the dependence of oil for business or other growth technology is seriously inevitable. The natural question is what to do with that shift in technology.

Thus we can conclude this book with this example "in 1975, just two years after Dr. Charles Boyer of University of California at Berkeley and Dr. Stanley N. Cohen of Stanford discovered the technique for gene splicing, Boyer met with a venture capitalist to set up the new company, Genetech, to commercialize the budding new technology" of gene splicing and eventually hormone treatment.