[Ibon]

I can't remember where I read that line that 1 billionaire consumes far less than a thousand millionaires. That together with remembering Kunstler's reference of suburbia as the biggest misallocation of resources in the world. Pondering over the possible relationship between resource constraints coinciding at the same time that wealth disparity has exponentially accelerated in recent years.

Also considering that in the history of civilization, before the discovery of fossil fuels, the dominant social paradigm was a small elite (kings) ruling over a vast sea of peasants.

With resources in decline in an overpopulated world it seems we are retracing our steps back to the social hierarchies that existed before the energy surplus of fossil fuels.

Is this avoidable? Is this something inherent to the energy dynamics of an over populated world confronted with declining resources that results in wealth and power disparity as in the era of civilization pre fossil fuels?

Another way of asking the question would be to ponder if democracy was only ever possible in an energy surplus environment.

Having tasted democracy can the modern world go into decline and preserve its benefits and avoid returning to a small aristocracy ruling over a large peasantry?

A lot of questions that I don't know the answer to. They have been kicking around in my mind though of late.

Any thoughts?

[rshizzle]

Makes sense to me. I kind of look at it from this perspective, a decline in a resource makes it more expensive. This added expense does basically two things, it either makes the resource completely unobtainable, or causes a greater contribution of what wealth those on the lower tiers happen to have toward their obtaining it.

This would, in our current world, leave very little toward investing/saving and acquiring more wealth. Thus the haves gain, the have nots increasingly lose as the resource is priced out of their range, which also gives an increase in wealth disparity.

Hopefully we have evolved as a society, to find a way to make democracy work with declining resources. As I'm not Nostradamus, I make no predictions.

[prajeshbhat]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'I') can't remember where I read that line that 1 billionaire consumes far less than a thousand millionaires.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('prajeshbhat', '
')People who don't really care about politics or abstract ideas like democracy, do really well. Seek their company. Try to become one of them. These things are way beyond your control anyway. You should be more concerned about how you face collapse and how to survive it.

[EnergyUnlimited]

In all probabilities we will come back to small elites and vast number of peasants set up.
Even worse.
Most of these peasants will enjoy no land at all and (in 1st world) no skill to farm it anyway.
One way or another overshoot will have to be resolved somehow.
These on the bottom of social ladder will find themselves on the receiving end of it.
Any eventual uprisings will only accelerate destruction of modern world with no material gains for revolting groups.
Infrastructure will be crumbling at accelerated rates and revolutionaries will find themselves increasingly distressed due to more and more failures of decaying societal safety nets.
Of course top revolutionary elites might help themselves nicely but this will be only one elite replacing another one deal, without much difference for an average Joe.

As per possibility of democracy to exist in absence of copious FF, yes, it can.
As long as there is not too much peoples in area of question.
Papua New Guinea mentioned by Diamond in "Collapse" is perhaps the best example of egalitarian democracy like system surviving in absence of modernity.

[Outcast_Searcher]

A LOT of the wealth disparity is being brought about simply, by automation -- which is fostered by the new computer technology.

Now, if getting to that point was caused by raping the planet (and BAU growth) to the point of resource shortages including energy -- then yes, a shortage of cheap energy is a primary cause of wealth disparity.

However, I suspect this is just a coincidence.

Suppose we had (say) 5 times as much energy resources easily available on the planet. Unless you are confident that this energy abundance would have caused computer/automation advances to be delayed UNTIL cheap energy was gone -- I say the energy issue is real, but that it is just a side issue of the main "engine" of wealth disparity.

Expensive gasoline/electricity/etc. hurts the poor the most and the middle classs FAR more than the wealthy. However, automation and technology (and a lack of a first world LONG TERM educational STRATEGY to adapt/deal with the loss of low-skill jobs automation entails) is the PRIMARY issue.

Without the will and resource commitment long term to fix this, it will only get worse.

It's not like no one could see the potential for this coming. With the start of the modern PC era with spreadsheets, etc. during the Reagan era, the strong trend became pretty obvious to everyone with a brain. Brilliant authors like Kurt Vonnegut were writing about this (automation causing job and wealth massive inequality) nearly 60 years ago -- example: the novel "Player Piano".

Whether gasoline costs $3.00 or $7.00 or even $12.00 -- I don't see that changing the fundamental issue of the automation low-skill job destroying "engine".

[vision-master]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hether gasoline costs $3.00 or $7.00 or even $12.00 -- I don't see that changing the fundamental issue of the automation low-skill job destroying "engine".

[AgentR11]

The two most constrained places in the world I can think of, North Korea, and Cuba, have catastrophically high percentile-based disparity between the poorest and the richest; but the absolute magnitude of the high side is much lower as measured in convertible currency. OTOH, in both places, the high side is much more able to wield direct political and police power, so it perhaps makes up for not having quite the available playing field as those in the west due. My perception is that its a pretty smooth, sliding scale too; in the US, the high side might get deferential treatment, in modern, but third world countries the high end can get police and military to do things for them, but can't quite issue direct orders, and on the far end, the high ups can just outright order military or police action including the use of force.

So basically, the low end is always screwed, and the high end wields huge power, but its ratio of economic power to force power varies according to the availability of resources.

[The Practician]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', 'A') LOT of the wealth disparity is being brought about simply, by automation -- which is fostered by the new computer technology.

Now, if getting to that point was caused by raping the planet (and BAU growth) to the point of resource shortages including energy -- then yes, a shortage of cheap energy is a primary cause of wealth disparity.

However, I suspect this is just a coincidence.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Outcast_Searcher', 'A') LOT of the wealth disparity is being brought about simply, by automation -- which is fostered by the new computer technology.