The Use of Gasoline: Value, Oil, and the "American way of life"

• Published in: Antipode 2009-06, Vol.41 (3), p.465-486
• Main Author: Huber, Matthew T.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: "American way of life"; American studies; Attitudes; Commodities; Consumption; Discourse; gasoline; Human geography; Oil; Petrol; Petroleum; Political Power; Prices; Production Consumption Relationship; Quality of Life; U.S.A; United States of America; use-value; Value; value theory
• ISSN: 0066-4812; 1467-8330
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8330.2009.00683.x

:  While the critical literature has focused on the geography of oil production, the politics of “outrageous” gasoline prices in the United States provide a fertile path toward understanding the wider geography of petro‐capitalism. Despite the deepening contradictions of US oil consumption, “pain at the pump” discourse projects a political sense of entitlement to low priced gasoline. I use a value‐theoretical perspective to examine this politics as not only about the quantitative spectrum of price, but also the historical sedimentation of qualitative use‐values inscribed in the commodity gasoline. Gasoline is analyzed both as a use‐value among many within the postwar value of labor power and as a singular use‐value fueling broader imaginaries of a national “American way of life.” While use‐value still represents an open site of cultural and political struggle infused within value itself, the case of gasoline illustrates how use‐values are not automatically mobilized toward politically savory ends.