Allow capitalism to spawn creativity

As I continue to watch the price of gasoline drop, I can't help but reflect on a speech given on national television on April 18, 1977. President Jimmy Carter cautioned that the oil and natural gas we relied on for 75 percent of our energy was running out. He called for conservation, alternative energy and a greater production of coal. Yes, coal.

A few days ago, Bill Golton, Exxon's chief strategist, stated, "Peak oil theorists have been run out of town by American ingenuity." According to him, the United States is currently awash in fossil fuels and will be a net exporter of natural gas by 2025. He attributes this success to new methods of drilling in hard rock and extreme locations.

These two diverse views, one predicting a virtual depletion of oil by 1985 and the other projecting we will be an exporter of energy in the near future, can be explained by a separation of 37 years. Carter was viewing his world through a 1977 lens, whereas Golton's predictions are based on modern knowledge developed by technological advances we have currently achieved through an oft demonized capitalistic system motivated by profit and self-interest. Some naysayers would call it greed.

It seems this situation is another example of stifling excessive regulation resulting in a static, uncreative mediocrity found most often in proponents of liberalism verses the unharnessed entrepreneurial spirit grounded in a conservative mindset.

We must identify the punishing excesses of unbridled capitalism while simultaneously rewarding the creative risk takers who are searching for ways to create a better life for the masses. Or we can choose to live collectively in a world devoid of inspiration, creativity and constrained with old ideas but flush in mediocrity most often associated with the micromanagement and excessive regulation of big government.

Gerald Wester

Mount Prospect