For those who are complaining about higher gas prices, should the government socialize the oil industry?

This answer won't make me popular, but as a former environmental reporter -- as someone who covered the science and politics of global climate change over a period of 25 years -- I think the government should ABOLISH the oil industry.

Not simply nationalize it.

If we're going to have an oil industry -- which we shouldn't, because of how the burning of fossil fuels injects additional CO2 into the global carbon cycle, and because of the way that additional carbon in the atmosphere then feeds "global warming" --through the so-called "greenhouse" effect -- IF we're going to have an oil industry, it probably should be nationalized.

Actually, for purposes of enhancing competition in the market, probably the government in an ideal capitalist welfare state would both (a) nationalize the oil companies and (b) break up their monopoly, by establishing 3 or 4 different government corporations to handle oil & gas extraction, transport, and sales to consumers.

Not just 1 government corporation.

Just having 1 giant oil company - either government owned or privately owned -- is an invitation to monopoly power over the market, and the abuse of that power. A giant monopoly oil company, no matter if it's government owned or privately owned, is going to face a constant temptation to raise prices, just because it can. Every capitalist economist knows theis.

Therefore if we're going to have socialism -- which I favor -- it shouldn't be based on on giant centralized system of government ownership & control, as in the Soviet Union under Stalin. We know how badly that works.

Instead, a socialist economy should have several competing government-owned economic entities that vie with each other for the consumer's dollar in some kind of a market place. The establishment of "socialist markets" in this way will avoid many of the theoretical flaws with "socialism" that were correctly identified 100 years ago by rightwing Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises.

As von Mises understood, centralized government control over the whole economy just won't work -- but nothing he wrote proved that socialist markets & socialist competition would be unworkable.

In addition to featuring competitive socialist markets and some form of choice for consumers, a socialist economy needs to have some form of "workers management" or "workers co-determination" in which the people who work in any big corporation enjoy some form of democratic choice in managing it.

This probably shouldn't mean that the janitors in the headquarters building get to decide every question of sales, marketing and investment in new plant & machinery, of course. Instead, the janitors should only decide directly on those aspects of their own jobs that they know and understand pretty well.

But the janitors and other oil industry workers should at least get a chance to vote for their managers, the same way the people of the Western capitalist democracies get a chance to vote -- at least within limits -- for our political leaders.

In short, in a decent society big oil companies -- like other big companies in other industries -- would be governed by "economic democracy," not capitalist or socialist autocracy. Under "economic democracy," both the consumers and the people who work for these industries would get at least as much decision-making power as private investors do in capitalist industries today.

For the oil industry, this would mean that any government-owned oil company would have to be governed at least in part by its employees, from service station operators and refinery workers, to drilling exploration crews, to geologists and engineers.

Control wouldn't simply be placed in the hands of some government bureaucrat in Washington. Nor would it remain with a fat cat CEO and a board of directors in Wilmington, Delaware or Wall Street.

-- democratic socialist

Before I can give you a good answer on that I would want to know the number of drilling permits issued under the current administration and how it compares with others. This way I can see how well the demand and the supply compare. You should try that too.

We should at the very least require the speculators to use their own money instead of the Fed giving it to them at 0 % interest . Require speculators to be 100 % capitalized . Speculators are directly responsible for inflating the prices .

No. The government should regulate the oil commodities market just as it does other commodities markets and stop the manipulation of oil prices. That's the problem.We don't have a real free market -- and won't until the crooks who are manipulating prices are put on a very short leash.

the price drops about a dollar a gallon the minute that the government takes its hands off of it as the federal tax is removed.

no business can become more profitable by splitting its profits with government.

No we need to drill in every place possible, lift the bans that obama reinstated, and ramp up the war on terror to defeat islam across the globe.

I think we should march across the northern border and just take it from canada. what are they going to do? Whine?

Nope but there are steps that the government can take to influence gasoline prices and Obama has intentionally taken the steps necessary to ensure that they rise.

Oh yea <sarcasm> everything the Government touches turns out to be so inexpensive and runs sooooo smoothly.

I find it to be a waste of time to complain about that.