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Does Big Oil's Apathy Justify Proposals to Tax Windfall Profits?

Oil companies are in business to make legal profits for their shareholders. They are, just as their names imply, oil companies, not social responsibility, "do gooder" companies (although they do a lot of good of their own free will through contributions to charity and community projects). The owners of oil company stocks, union, teacher, and various retirement funds, in addition to millions of individual owners, would be very upset if a company's management strayed away from its basic business to develop alternate energy resources, when the financial return was not promising now, or in the future.

If "Big Oil" has such tremendous power to control oil prices, why haven't they done so in the past?

The world was awash in oil in the 50's. Oil companies were having gas wars, putting air in tires, washing windshields, checking the oil, giving green stamps and free glass ware in an attempt to obtain business. In my graduating class of 132 geology majors, only two were offered jobs in 1958.

The oil bust of the 1980's resulted in over 600,000 people losing their jobs and hundreds of oil related companies going out of business.

Does this sound like something that was being controlled?