Oil-Fueled Accumulation in Late Capitalism: Energy, Uneven Development, and Climate Crisis Roberto J. Ortiz, California State University, Long Beach, USA ABSTRACT Capitalist development since the 1940s has been fueled by global oil extraction. Cheap oil was the core energy input in the post–World War II expansion. By the 1970s, the limits of this oil-fueled accumulation regime began to appear. During that decade, a series of oil price hikes combined with other sources of tension to form a deep accumulation crisis. The crisis of the 1970s showed the effects that a strategic circulating capital—in this case, petroleum—has in shaping profitability trends. Today, the possible recessionary effects caused by oil price hikes are joined on the environmental side by another problem: the continued burning of fossil fu- els exacerbates the climate crisis. To address this double contradiction, I revisit the Marxian theory of crisis in a world-historical and world-ecological framework. With this framework, I unpack the historical connections between petroleum, un- even development, accumulation crises, and climate change. B eginning in 2008, petroleum output in the United States registered a long upswing after decades of decline. By 2014, American production sur- passed the earlier high point of 1970. A new expansion in American extrac- tion is underway. 1 The new boom contradicts climate scientists’ calls to prevent further warming via significant reductions in carbon emissions—reductions that I wish to thank Jason Moore, Diana Gildea, Leslie Gates, Pedro Vieira, and the members of the World- Ecology Research Group at Binghamton University for the conversations about, and constructive criticisms of, the ideas put forward in this essay. 1. In the United States, twentieth-century oil production peaked in 1970 at 11.2 million barrels per day (mbd). By 2008, output had declined to 6.7 mbd. With the shale oil revolution, by 2014 output had climbed to 11.7 mbd. See British Petroleum, Statistical Review of World Energy 2017 (London: BP, 2017). Critical Historical Studies (Fall 2020). © 2020 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 2326-4462/2020/0702-0001$10.00 205