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

Abstract:  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.     

西安大唐芙蓉园国内游憩利用价值评估

近年来,旅游资源的游憩价值评估受到越来越多的关注,对旅游资源进行评估是对其合理开发利用的前提。西安大唐芙蓉园是以唐文化著称的主题公园,本文选用基于分区的多目的地旅行费用法(MZTC)对其国内游憩利用价值进行了评估,由评估结果可知,大唐芙蓉园的旅游资源具有相当大的游憩开发潜力,为国内TCM今后的研究提供案例和借鉴。另外,基于分区的多目的地旅行费用法(MZTC)在此处应用相对合理,对于与大唐芙蓉园所处区位类似的历史文化主题公园或旅游地也可应用此方法进行评估。