はじめに よんでください

原油価格上昇と資源枯渇の神話

The myth of rising oil prices and resource depletion


池田光穂

資源枯渇（この場合は原油）の噂に関して、グローバル経済に大きな影響を与えたのが石油ショック＝1973年の原油危機（1973 oil crisis） である。この経済的パニックとローマクラブによ る報告書『成長の限界』の公刊にはおおいなる関係があるというのが、アカロフとシラーの『アニマルスピリット』所説である。

※ただし山形浩生のあとがき（山形 2009:274）によると「クビにしろ」というのはさすがに著者たちの極論であると論評している。また、私（池田）は、アカロフとシラーのこのマインド （＝「非合理な奴はクビにしろ！」という情動） もまた合理性に裏付けられない、アニマル・スピリットではないかと思われます。「パイオニアたちはしばしば、最終的に損をするんじゃないかという考えに襲 われます（これは経験的に私たちも彼らもまちがいなく知っていることです）が、アニマルスピリットの働きがあればこそ、健康な人が死の予想を無視するよう に、そうした考えも振り払えるのです」（ケインズ 2012:233）

今から考えると、人口は幾何級数的に増えるのに、農業生産は算術級数的にしか増加しないので、人口増による貧困に人類社会は直面するというトマス・ロバート・マルサス（Thomas Robert Malthus, 1766-1834）の20世紀の後半の四半世紀のエコロジー危機を煽るネオ・マルサス的的な警鐘を鳴らしたということだろうか。ちなみに、経済成長を比 較した２枚目の図には、21世紀の世界経済の牽引国とも言える中国の名がない。

ち なみに、アニマル・スピリット（animal spirit）とは、「企業家の投資行動の動機となる、将来に対する主観的な期待。英国の経済学者ケインズが「雇傭・利子および貨幣の一般理論」のなかで 使用した用語。経済活動の多くは合理的動機に基づいて行われるが、その一方で、将来の収益を期待して事業を拡大しようとする、合理的には説明できない不確 定な心理によって左右されるとし」たものとのことだ（出典：「アニマルスピリット」デ ジタル大辞泉）。

●もう少し別の観点から：サステイナブルな安楽死とは？（ソイレントグリーンの思想）philisophy of Soylent Green

Soylent Green is a 1973 American ecological dystopian thriller film directed by Richard Fleischer, and starring Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young and Edward G. Robinson in his final film role. Loosely based on the 1966 science fiction novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison (1925-2012), the film combines police procedural and science fiction genres, the investigation into the murder of a wealthy businessman and a dystopian future of dying oceans and year-round humidity, due to the greenhouse effect, resulting in pollution, poverty, overpopulation, euthanasia and depleted resources.[2] In 1973, it won the Nebula Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film.【Critical response】The film was released April 19, 1973 and met with mixed reactions from critics.[8] Time called it "intermittently interesting", noting that "Heston forsak[es] his granite stoicism for once" and asserting the film "will be most remembered for the last appearance of Edward G. Robinson.... In a rueful irony, his death scene, in which he is hygienically dispatched with the help of piped-in light classical music and movies of rich fields flashed before him on a towering screen, is the best in the film".[9] New York Times critic A. H. Weiler wrote "Soylent Green projects essentially simple, muscular melodrama a good deal more effectively than it does the potential of man's seemingly witless destruction of the Earth's resources"; Weiler concludes "Richard Fleischer's direction stresses action, not nuances of meaning or characterization. Mr. Robinson is pitiably natural as the realistic, sensitive oldster facing the futility of living in dying surroundings. But Mr. Heston is simply a rough cop chasing standard bad guys. Their 21st-century New York occasionally is frightening but it is rarely convincingly real".[8] Roger Ebert gave the film three stars out of four, calling it "a good, solid science-fiction movie, and a little more".[10] Gene Siskel gave the film one-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "a silly detective yarn, full of juvenile Hollywood images. Wait 'til you see the giant snow shovel scoop the police use to round up rowdies. You may never stop laughing".[11] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety wrote, "The somewhat plausible and proximate horrors in the story of 'Soylent Green' carry the Russell Thacher-Walter Seltzer production over its awkward spots to the status of a good futuristic exploitation film".[12] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times called it "a clever, rough, modestly budgeted but imaginative work".[13] Penelope Gilliatt of The New Yorker was negative, writing, "This pompously prophetic thing of a film hasn't a brain in its beanbag. Where is democracy? Where is the popular vote? Where is women's lib? Where are the uprising poor, who would have suspected what was happening in a moment?"[14] On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 72% rating, based on 39 reviews, with an average rating of 6.10/10.[15] A German film encyclopedia notes "If you want, you can see a thrilling crime thriller in this film. By means of brutally resonant scenes, however, the director makes clear a far deeper truth [...] Soylent Green must thus be understood as a metaphor. It is the radical image of the self-consuming madness of capitalist mode of production. The necessary consequences of the reification of 'human material' to the point of self-destruction are forcefully brought home to the viewer".[16]
※人間がいっぱい / ハリイ・ハリスン著 ; 浅倉久志訳, 早川書房 , 1971.4. - (ハヤカワ・SF・シリーズ ; 3269)

Make Room! Make Room! is set in an overpopulated New York City in 1999 (33 years after the time of writing). 30-year-old Police Detective Andy Rusch lives in half a room, sharing it with Sol, a retired engineer who has adapted a bicycle to generate power for an old television set and a refrigerator. When Andy lines up for their continually reducing water ration, he witnesses a public speech by the "Eldsters", older people forcibly retired from work. A riot breaks out after a nearby food shop has a surprise sale on "soylent" (soy and lentil) steaks. The shop is looted by the mob. Billy Chung, an 18-year-old Tawainese-American, grabs a box of steaks. He eats some of them and sells the rest to raise enough money to land a job as a Western Union messenger boy. His first delivery takes him into a fortified apartment block, complete with the rare luxuries of air conditioning and running water for showers. He delivers his message to a rich racketeer named "Big Mike" O'Brien and sees Shirl, Mike's 23-year-old live-in mistress. Billy leaves the apartment, but fixes it so he can get back into the building later. He breaks into Mike's place, but when Mike catches him in the act, Billy accidentally kills him and flees, empty-handed. A piece of evidence may connect an out-of-town crime boss who may be trying to expand into New York City, a threat to Mike's associates. They see to it that Andy keeps working on the case, in addition to his regular duties. During his investigation, he becomes enamored of Shirl. He ensures that she is permitted to stay in the apartment until the end of the month. During this month, they enjoy the luxuries. Afterwards Shirl moves in with Andy. Shirl soon becomes disappointed with how little time the overworked Andy has for her. She eventually sleeps with a wealthy man she meets at a party. To evade capture, Billy leaves the city, eventually breaking into the abandoned Brooklyn Navy Yard, where he comes to live with Peter, who is eagerly awaiting the new millennium as the end of the world. Soon they are attacked and displaced by a trio. They find a new home in a car. Months after the murder, Billy decides to visit his family, believing the police have lost interest in him. Meanwhile, Sol decides he can no longer remain passive in the face of humanity's overpopulation crisis. He joins a march to protest the overturning of a legislative bill that supports population control. Sol is injured in a riot and catches pneumonia. A few days after his death, an obnoxious family takes over his living quarters, making Shirl and Andy's life much more miserable than before. Andy stumbles upon Billy Chung, cornering him in his family's home. When Billy moves to attack Andy with a knife, he stumbles, and Andy accidentally shoots and kills him. The gangsters have lost interest by this point, but his superiors disavow Andy's actions, and he is temporarily demoted to ordinary patrolman. When he returns to his quarters, he finds Shirl has left him. Andy is on patrol in Times Square on New Year's Eve, where he spots Shirl among rich party-goers. As the clock strikes midnight, Andy encounters Peter, who is distraught that the world has not ended and asks how life can continue as it is. The story concludes with the Times Square screen announcing that "Census says United States had biggest year ever, end-of-the-century, 344 million citizens."


リンク

文献

その他の情報

Copyleft, CC, Mitzub'ixi Quq Chi'j, 1996-2099

池田蛙　　授業蛙　　電脳蛙　　医人蛙　　子供蛙


++

Copyleft, CC, Mitzub'ixi Quq Chi'j, 1996-2099