The market will provide...?

Barack Obama is, apparently beholden to the big US ethanol market and people are worried about the possible impact on the price of food.
A German town makes Solar panels compulsory and people are worried about the cost.
James Hanson calls for oil industry chiefs to be put on trial, and people are worried that this would set a dangerous market precedent.
Free-market fundamentalists call for the total deregulation of all trading apart from the state bailing out of their own failed institutions.

Money, eh? Everything - time, food, heat, law -is reduced to its theoretical value as measured in a system of shifting exchange-assumptions. The system is an analogy. It refers to reality but has no direct relationship to the world of objects as we experience it. It exists within, and only within, the agreed beliefs of a particular culture. It seems odd, to me, to base all our real world decisions on the internal logic of this metaphor. The metaphor could easily be derailed and entirely done away with by world events, whereas the real world will remain the real world, come what may. Without abundant cheap energy to power the transport of global trade, the logic of global trade collapses, and yet we plan for it to continue indefinitely because the urgent logic of our common delusion allows for no other interpretation of reality. The economic case is made and reality is expected to fall into line. But the price of a thing is not the thing itself. C'eci n'est pas un pipe!

A rather tortuous and poorly made case for a cartoon that questions the logic of tinkering with consumption patterns (essentially niche consumption cleavages) rather than challenging the entire edifice of consumption itself as a basis for human society.

Any suggestion that I picked on Hair-gel because I am a slap-headed baldy-man will be dealt with in the courts by Messrs Reedham and Wheape. Here are the links.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/fossilfuels.climatechange

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jun/23/solarpower.greenbuilding

http://www.nytimes.com/glogin?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/23/us/politics/23ethanol.html&OQ=_rQ3D2Q26hpQ3DQ26adxnnlQ3D1Q26orefQ3DsloginQ26adxnnlxQ3D1214216133-bzjdpW2CVJ2aZADQ2FC7ikFA&OP=77aed384Q2FiWH,iQ5DQ2FRmKQ2FQ2FsEiEQ60Q608iQ60ZiEfihmiQ27Q2F!PsPRmiEfHsFopQ2F!Q3BFsk!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/73a4f9fc-4063-11dd-bd48-0000779fd2ac.html