he cartel of oil-producing nations, after bickering for two decades, has finally agreed on a formula to cut world oil production. Not surprisingly, the result is a dramatic rise in the price of gasoline.
Demand for oil is, as economists put it, inelastic. Unlike increases in, say, the price of lobster, price hikes of petroleum products fail to dissuade consumption, because gasoline is mostly a necessity.
We wince and pay the higher cost.
The last two times OPEC pulled this trick, in 1973 and in 1979, the result was first inflation, then stagnation, then very high interest rates, and finally the end of the Democrats' long reign as majority party.
The economy is not as dependent on oil as it was three decades ago, but a doubling of gas prices still has serious political fallout.
Whenever something goes wrong with the economy, it's tempting to look for scapegoats. The Bush campaign, echoed by the right-wing press, is trying hard to pin the rising gas prices on Al Gore. Wasn't he the environmentalist fellow who argued that we needed to reduce dependence on fossil fuels? Wasn't he once in favor of higher taxes on gasoline? There have been Republican speeches in Congress about the administration's ''failed energy policy,'' as if this had anything to do with OPEC.
The right also mounted an abortive attempt to repeal the 4.3 cents-a-gallon federal gas tax that was imposed as part of the 1993 budget deal. But that ploy fell apart when (mostly conservative) trucking and construction interests warned that a cut in the gas tax would come right out of federal highway funds.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page, in a screwball medley of right-wing themes, tried to pull the whole chorus together last Wednesday in an editorial ''Al Gore's Favorite Tax.'' According to the Journal, Gore has long advocated taxes on carbon products in order to reduce dependence on pollutants. True to form, Gore is opposed to a repeal of the 4.3 cent tax. This nicely identifies Gore with higher prices at the pump. Voila! It's Gore's fault.
The editorial concludes, ''If there's a silver lining in getting whacked at the gas pump for the foreseeable future, it's that it makes for a nice clean subject by which to compare presidential candidates,'' namely the former oilman George W. Bush and the environmentalist Al Gore.
But this rather lame attempt to turn Al Gore into Jimmy Carter doesn't compute. For one thing, cutting the gas tax would not provide any relief to motorists. OPEC, by definition, is charging as much as the market will bear. Cut the tax by 4 cents and OPEC will just hike prices by 4 cents and the money will go to the coffers of oil-exporting nations rather than the US Treasury.
Moreover, it's hard to blame rising oil prices on Washington's energy policy, because there really isn't one. In the 1970s, there were substantial regulations and price controls on oil products. No longer. The deregulators of both parties, cheered on by the same Wall Street Journal, won that debate. Gasoline prices today are set by the free market, Republican-style, except when the oil cartel intervenes.
If one wants to ascribe blame for shortsighted policies, here are two more fruitful places to look: Americas oddly passive policy toward OPEC and its dependence on cheap fuel.
Diplomatic historians will long ponder why the West did not move more aggressively in 1973 when OPEC first got away with quadrupling the price of crude oil. One explanation is that Richard Nixon, preoccupied with the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam collapse, and the terminal crisis of the Bretton Woods world monetary system, was otherwise engaged. Another is that oil-exporting nations were seen as national security allies against the Soviet Union and radical Arab nationalists.
So we rolled over for OPEC in 1973, and neither political party seems willing to play hardball with OPEC member states now.
A second question is why we didn't impose much higher gas taxes, the better to discourage consumption, during the years of truly cheap oil. If we had, we would be even less at OPEC's mercy today.
The answer, of course, is that Americans remain addicted to gas-guzzler cars, and few politicians have the nerve to challenge that habit.
Al Gore, back when he was a bolder advocate of energy taxation, was on the right track. But Gore was overruled by the voters. So when the economy is periodically hijacked by OPEC, we should blame ourselves, not the vice president.
Robert Kuttner is co-editor of The American Prospect. His column appears regularly in the Globe.
