Peak Oil, Power & Potatoes

Balancing Old & New, Big & Small As Money & Energy Decline

The power of concentrated money – capital as we usually call it – is clearly enormous. Some things have to be done with collected resources if you want civilisation to continue, especially things to do with transport. But then there is the fact that if someone is doing it (using concentrated resources) and you are not, you will most likely be pushed out of the game, which is what the Luddites were protesting against. They have been much maligned, but they were not against technology or the future per se, they were against losing their jobs and a modest way of life that was probably a lot more sustainable than the Industrial Revolution which pushed them out. Capital, be it wielded by state socialism or more likely capitalists, is hostile to certain kinds of diversity, both human and bio.



…We are stuck with some difficult and surprising contradictions. Like it or lump it we need concentrated resources – such as lots of money – to do useful things, even though it is quite clear that we so often use such resources for bad things, such as wars and other forms of violence. At the same time, because we are reaching the limits to growth, have exceeded Earthly carrying capacity, and are tipping over peak oil into petroleum decline, we also now need rather urgently to rebuild a system of distributed generation of food, fuel and other vital needs. So we need some big and a lot small, and currently the big gets in the way of the small.

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