Is he saying that the automobile was invented because the industry was subsidized by the government?
Yes, I guess that’s what he means. Quote: “many of the major transitions in history have come about as a result of political decisions. Do you believe the transition to the oil age just happened by chance? How about the transition from horse and wagon to cars?”
Well, they didn’t happen by chance. They happened because entrepeneurs were able to piece together several inventions previously concocted into a sellable product. The automobile is probably one of the most relevant examples of the market at work, given that automobiles became relatively affordable relatively quickly thanks to the amount of competitors in the market. Automobile technology, during the early 20th era, advanced rather rapidly actually, due to this very fact.
From Wikipedia, on petroleum:
The modern history of petroleum began in 19th century with refining kerosene from crude oil. While Russian Dubinin brothers purified kerosene on their factory (1823) directly from petroleum, in 1846 the process of refining kerosene from coal by Nova Scotian Abraham Pineo Gesner was discovered and only Ignacy Łukasiewicz improved Gesner’s method to develop a means of refining kerosene from the more readily available “rock oil” (“petr-oleum”) seeps in 1852 and the first rock oil mine was built in Bóbrka, near Krosno in Galicia(Poland/Ukraine) in the following year. In 1854, Benjamin Silliman, a science professor at Yale University in New Haven, was the first American to fractionate petroleum by distillation. These discoveries rapidly spread around the world, and Meerzoeff built the first modern Russian refinery in the mature oil fields at Baku in 1861. At that time Baku produced about 90% of the world’s oil.
I don’t see any hints of government funding.
The first oil well in North America was in Oil Springs, Ontario, Canada in 1858, dug by James Miller Williams. The US petroleum industry began with Edwin Drake’s drilling of a 69-foot (21 m) oil well in 1859, on Oil Creek near Titusville, Pennsylvania, for the Seneca Oil Company (originally yielding 25 barrels per day (4.0 m3/d), by the end of the year output was at the rate of 15 barrels per day (2.4 m3/d)). See also the Pennsylvanian oil rush The industry grew through the 1800s, driven by the demand for kerosene and oil lamps.
Wikipedia on why petroleum demand skyrocketed:
It became a major national concern in the early part of the 20th century; the introduction of the internal combustion engine provided a demand that has largely sustained the industry to this day.
Can your friend substantiate his claims? It seems that what he is saying is akin to saying, “The government subsidizes agriculture, thus agriculture exists only because the government subsidized it.” Although the first part is true, it does not follow that the second part is true.
None of these projects were supported by governments?
i’ll add. I’ve been to the museum there in Titusville. It is north of me. There are some old towns from that era in the woods that are no longer connected to the urban life. Decades or over a century ago these towns died out, and the only way to get to them now is to walk miles into the woods by foot. There is fallen debris with some foundations, and here and there half a wall standing. anyways… The main point is: the European/American settling into this area noticed Amerindians using oil for fire (not exclusively but it has been known for a long time to be of good use). Oil naturally comes to the surface at times. Thus the name “Seneca Oil Company”. Named after the Seneca people a tribe of the Iroquois. The Seneca were influencial in this region of Pennsylvania. This is not to say that Europeans learned from the Amerindians about oil (i don’t know), but it is known that Amerindians were using oil before the Europeans even came to this continent.
Also here’s the link to the Titusville Museum website with pictures. This was a private venture: the Drake Oil Well. William Smith who did the well, even made his own steel tools for the job by blacksmithing. And a quote from the website, pertaining to one thing a person can do there when visiting:
“Walk the path along Oil Creek to the Oil Pits where Native Americans collected oil even before Columbus came to the new world.”
This.
He’s right.
After all, we could’ve made a dragon by now: http://blog.mises.org/archives/006512.asp
But honestly, the point is that he’s advocating force to achieve development of green energy. How does he justify this? If utilitarianism, apply the law of unintended consequences (or argue against utilitarianism).
He’s a socialist, so basically his argument is that we all have to contribute, and that if we don’t act now, we may destroy the future of our children.
he’s scared, and trying spreading it. i don’t trust scared people.
“For the children” arguments are a kind of continuum fallacy. Those children and their children and so on will be in the same boat. So, the present is forever sacrificed for a never arriving future.