To the editors:

The points Rohan R. Gulrajani '01 raises about California's energy crisis (Column, Dec. 18) are well-taken. I strongly contest, however, the idea that the unbridled free market is the answer to this dilemma for several reasons. Ignoring for a minute the fact that Americans' perception of the supply of energy is woefully out of whack with reality (and hence so is the market's), the unbridled free market's effect on the energy situation is nonetheless undesirable. True, demand might go down in response to higher prices, but precisely the wrong group would be affected: as usual, the poor. Do we really want to fall back on the situation of the early 20th century where electricity was a luxury of the rich? There was a reason that President Franklin D. Roosevelt '04 undertook the Rural Electrification Project. He believed that electricity was not simply an amusement but rather a tool that could improve the standard of living of the American people.

Our country does indeed waste energy. But it's not the family that uses their stove to cook food, their furnace to heat the house, and their washer and dryer to clean clothes that should suffer because of that. Sometimes we can't simply close our eyes and hope that Adam Smith's magical, invisible hand will come and sweep away our problems. We're going to have to change our attitudes towards energy and the environment in general, but unfettered capitalism is not the way to achieve that change. The solution to the energy crisis lies in our ability and willingness to prioritize conservation and the environment as a group, and it is precisely here that economic conservatives fail.

Nicholas C. Murphy '02

Dec. 18, 2000

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