RALEIGH – Although we all have good reason to be frustrated at $4 a gallon gasoline, it’s important to put the price jump into perspective so we don’t draw erroneous conclusions.

To begin with, this is a global phenomenon, not a local one. Commodities such as crude oil trade on a world market. Their constantly changing prices are set by a complex interaction of myriad buyers and sellers that will always be impossible for a single actor or cartel of actors to control for long. In short, it’s not a conspiracy.

A closely related point to remember is that it makes no sense to talk about “energy independence” when producers have the freedom to sell on a world market. That is, imagine that the U.S. produced vastly more oil, as much as was consumed domestically. Americans would still pay the market price for oil — because if we did not, the oil would be exported to consumers willing to pay it. When politicians of any party or ideology promise to fight for “energy independence,” you can assume they are either trying to mislead you or, more likely, just don’t know what they’re talking about.

The real issue is the global increase in energy prices, particularly for petroleum. The real causes are surging demand for both gasoline and diesel, primarily in East and South Asia, and various constraints on supply and refining, ranging from turmoil in Nigeria and the Middle East to poorly run state-owned companies in Russia and Latin America to wrongheaded bans on drilling in and around North America. Dollar inflation is no doubt a factor, too – and truly the deleterious handiwork of Bush appointees, though Bush-haters never seem to aim at the right targets – in that excessive monetary creation by the Federal Reserve has fueled a general worldwide inflation in commodity prices as investors seek safer harbors than money markets.

If you recoil from $4 gas, imagine that you lived in one of the countries in this Christian Science Monitor list of the most-expensive markets for gasoline, in dollars per gallon:

1. Eritrea $9.58
2. Norway $8.73
3. Britain $8.38
4. Netherlands $8.37
5. Monaco $8.31
6. Iceland $8.28
7. Belgium $8.22
8. France $8.07
9. Germany $7.86
10. Portugal $7.84

This list was based on March and April prices, and pegged the U.S. at 108th in the world with $3.45. Since then, you can bet that all these prices have risen still further. The point is, American motorists are still paying far less for gas than are their counterparts in most developed countries. As the Monitor reports, in some places rising energy prices (as well as rising food prices) are sparking riots and sabotage.

Finally, consider that many of the politicians and political activists currently engaged in thunderous denunciation of the Bush administration on the issue of gas prices have for years been urging said Bush administration and Washington as a whole to enact new policies on air quality and climate change designed to increase the price of gas and other fuels. Indeed, quite a few of them are still pressing for regulations that would inevitably boost gas prices to $5 or $6 a gallon, which they would view as helpful in getting people into mass transit, onto electric grids powered by expensive alternative fuels, and out of detached, single-family homes in the suburbs. Their position was always that fossil fuels were too cheap, but they clearly aren’t above using the recent gas-price surge as a political bludgeon.

If we could harness hypocritical hot air as an energy source, our troubles would be over.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.