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Page added on March 8, 2015
Max Weber on energy and industrial civilisation
The German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist Max Weber (1864-1920) is often cited, with Émile Durkheim and Karl Marx, as among the three founders of sociology. Weber is best known for his contention that ascetic Protestantism was the driving force behind market-driven capitalism and the rational-legal nation-state in the West. Against Marx’s “historical materialism”, Weber emphasised the importance of cultural influences embedded in religion as a means for understanding the genesis of capitalism. This view was summed up in his magnum opus, The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism, one of the founding texts of Sociology.
But what interests us here is this intriguing passage, which comes towards the end of Weber’s classic book:
“[The tremendous cosmos of the modern economic order] is now bound to the technical and economic conditions of machine production which to-day determine the lives of all the individuals who are born into this mechanism, not only those directly concerned with economic acquisition, with irresistible force. Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt.”
According to John Bradford of the U.S.’ Mississippi State University, “Not only does this passage eloquently articulate the binding imperatives engendered by the “modern economic order”, it also unambiguously contravenes the view that the classical theorists were unaware of the essential role that energy played in the creation and maintenance of that order.”
Reviewing a work on Weber in the Times Literary Supplement, Prof Duncan Kelly of Cambridge University says, ”In The Protestant Ethic, [Weber] wrote that perhaps the mechanization of life would continue unchallenged until the last ounces of fossil fuel had been used up, and the danger was that we might simply fail to notice. In later work, such environmental imagery had turned into a worry about the future as a polar night of icy darkness.”
It’s interesting is that Weber aired this view nearly 110 years ago (The Protestant Ethic was completed in 1905). As Kelly says, ”In our own age, where borderlands between environmental crisis, near-pathological boredom and disaffection with mainstream politics, and tensions driven by religion have if anything become more rigidly crippling than ever, Max Weber looks a more profound guide than we might care to think.” And an overlooked one, we might add.
Download the e-book version of Weber’s classic:
The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism
Read John Bradford’s essay: Energy and Limits to Growth
18 Comments on "Max Weber on energy and industrial civilisation"
Makati1 on Sun, 8th Mar 2015 8:00 pm
From a time when scholars actually thought new thoughts that were not bought and paid for by some outside influence.
Of course Capitalism and Energy are tied like Siamese twins to one heart. One cannot live alone, without killing the other. We are witnessing the death of Capitalism today as cheap, plentiful energy also dies.
The world our grand kids inherit will be one of salvage and survival, if they are lucky.
dave thompson on Sun, 8th Mar 2015 8:38 pm
I hears ya Makati1.
GregT on Sun, 8th Mar 2015 8:53 pm
Your grand kids perhaps Makati. My youngest is 22.
GregT on Sun, 8th Mar 2015 8:55 pm
Sorry, my youngest kid, is 22. The world is going to be a very different place by the time he is in his 80s. If he is lucky.
DMyers on Sun, 8th Mar 2015 10:42 pm
This brings to mind Richard C. Duncan’s Olduvai Gorge thesis. Duncan began with the assumption that industrial civilization would have a duration of about one hundred (100) years, which he plotted as running from 1930 to 2030.
Duncan arrived at the 100 year duration based upon the estimations of various learned spokesmen, who had all estimated that industrial civilization would last for about one hundred years. These estimates all were made at about the start of the industrial age.
Many a wise man and woman saw the futility and self-defeating nature of industrial civilization,from its contour, very early on. This involved the recognition of energy squander and many other phenomena, as well.
Rodster on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 3:35 am
Hmm, the industrial revolution predates 1930.
cOcOxxNuSS on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 4:13 am
@Rodster that is correct. But If I understood the olduvai hypothesis properly it focuses on the electric grid. And that really took off in the early 20th century for widespread use.
@GregT
I watched the documentary Blind Spot some time ago. There is an interview with albert Bartlett in which he states that the young folks out there will experience all of this in the not to distant future.
I am 27 years old…so I think my grandchildren if there will be any, which I highly doubt, won’t know another world.
sunweb on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 4:28 am
Clearly said. I want to know how to share this with more than the choir. It is worth the time or you can scan.
Confronting the Status Quo – Dr Susan Krumdieck
http://youtu.be/M9YRNqewGIY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9YRNqewGIY
theedrich on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 5:05 am
On Duncan’s estimate of 1930 as the start of the hundred-year span of our civilization, see http://www.mnforsustain.org/oil_duncan_r_olduvai_theory.htm, where he says that “Industrial Civilization began when (ê [= E/Pop, where E = world energy production and Pop = world population]) reached 30% of its peak value” — that is, in 1930, according to his calculations. Duncan was writing in May 2001, and could not have anticipated not just fracking, but QE, ZIRP, debasement of the world reserve currency and other smoke and mirrors invented by our Masters of the Universe.
Nevertheless, it is clear that such prestidigitation by our idiots savants is merely an attempt to postpone the inevitable so that the current Wunderkinder and their inept bully-pulpit puppet can maintain and increase the oligarchic stranglehold on us. All for our own good, of course.
Attempting, as did Duncan, to forecast exact dates in a massive and turbulent world system is clearly fraught with difficulty, but the overall curve of things is unquestionably ballistic: what goes up, must come down. In 2001, when Peak Oil discussions were still in their infancy, few people in the financial or governmental media took notice. Today there is scarcely a major financial/political report anywhere that does not mention oil. This is not happening by accident.
Rodster on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 5:27 am
@cOcOxxNuSS
Is there a link to that documentary?
cOcOxxNuSS on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 5:49 am
@ Rodster
Here you go:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yah_a6yz8FI
cOcOxxNuSS on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 5:51 am
Bartletts interview is around 20 mins. But the rest is pretty good too.
Davy on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 6:34 am
Thee said – Attempting, as did Duncan, to forecast exact dates in a massive and turbulent world system is clearly fraught with difficulty, but the overall curve of things is unquestionably ballistic: Exactly Thee, the curve says it all if you have any basic understanding of several scientific disciplines and mathematics. This is the reality of overshoot leading to bottlenecks.
Our exceptionalist BAUtopians believed technology, energy intensity, and complexity could transcend normal natural ecological laws which govern all of nature including humans. This is why the cornucopians here are so absurd to think we can transcend our predicament. IMA a predicament they deny. You can live in your Freddy fluff charts the fed puts out. You can listen to our false gods on MSM and get a feel good sheeple feeling but this is clearly not what competent science in multiple fields tell us.
Our human mind is a dualism of primitive and modern. This is now turning out to be an ecological dead end because we have allowed a myth to be created that says we are special and we can grow indefinitely. When I was a kid it was eventual colonization of the solar system. This is now absurd except for the truly hard core cornucopians technologists. Fusion and the space program are nothing more than one of many final blow offs of entropic decay of living an unsustainable existence.
All competent science and mathematics indicate a predicament with no solution. Even among those in these disciplines generally the specialist are deluded in thinking there are technological solutions. Technology and growth are the problems and degrowth is a problem. Yet, a crisis initiation now offer a possibility of holding on in descent. Continued BAU offers no such possibility of holding on. Continued BAU is most certainly uncontrolled and completely chaotic. Having a seat belt on going 60 into a head on collision with 6 people in the car is likely death for some occupants. No seat belts is likely death for most occupants.
So my conclusion is either friggen enjoy life fully now if you can or let’s get on with the operation with less than 50% survivability for most of us. Many are already in the collapse. The poor are dying but even they face worse. I cannot emphasis how dangerous the next decade is. If we cannot adjust at the top with meaningful adaptation and mitigation policies you best make some efforts at your local level. Otherwise enjoy life. Or get a gun and finish yourself off now because there is no hope for a BAUtopian salvation.
I say the only alternative to that bleak prescription is hope in prepping. I believe in heroics of a higher purpose of giving oneself for others like the soldier in the foxhole that knows all is lost unless he takes the deadly gamble. We are there and the time is now. Are you going to cower in fear or face fear and attempt at something resembling hope?
Dredd on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 7:12 am
The piece points out that Weber wrote “The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism“.
Weber is also quoted as saying “Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt”
That was changed from coal to crude by Winston Churchill’s religious belief in “The Battle of Armageddon” (The Universal Smedley – 2).
The West, influenced by the confusion of Mithraism with Christianity, lunged into crude oil as the lifeblood of its civilization.
That is because, among other things, war was the chief doctrine of Mithraism, the religion of the Roman Armies and their Caesar (The Virgin MOMCOM – 6).
The crude oil wars that ensued still fit that state religion and its economy to this very day.
Religious leaders who challenge that religious dogma can get themselves fired (Christian chaplain fired for preaching compassion and love over violence of American Sniper).
Rodster on Mon, 9th Mar 2015 8:58 am
“Weber is also quoted as saying “Perhaps it will so determine them until the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt”
I read the Mayans realized before it was too late they expanded too much before realizing what they had done by consuming all their resources.
theedrich on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 3:40 am
The fact is that nothing is going to stop global BAU. If the genosuicidal American Left managed to shut down all of America tomorrow, the vacuum would be instantly filled by any number of other postulants. The current jihadism sprouting out of the Religion of Peace is only one such. (Leftists who hate Whites and America prefer to ignore what nature thinks about vacua.) Planetary ecocide is already well advanced, and there is no way to stop it, especially since so many political systems depend on continuing the devastation. Moreover, Western populations appear to have made a collective decision to abandon the will to live, because it is just too nasty and politically incorrect to do so.
As Dredd mentioned, Christianity — that is, Catholicism — is a fusion of an ancient Jewish dying-and-rising man-god myth with Greek mystery religions, especially Mithraism. (Note that the Latin word “sacramentum” is the translation of the Greek word μυστήριον [mystery], as just one relic of that fusion.) It all led to medieval Cæsaropapism, which in the West then produced Protestants who decided to become “Bible-based” ersatz Jews, as though that were possible. The whole religious shebang devolved into fratricidal wars (notably the American Civil War, WW I and WW II) ending in elite rejection of religion in general and the wholehearted embrace of materialism, dialectical or otherwise. The entire world is now hell bent on draining the last bit of life from Gaia, and there appears to be nothing that can stop this process. Except, maybe, genocide.
Davy on Tue, 10th Mar 2015 5:17 am
Thee, you make good points. Some points are debatable but most good points are. You know the problem, it is with linear thought and a nonlinear world that debates find traction. One point I like concerns the defacto religion of today which is exceptionalism of technology, complexity, and energy intensity.
We are driven to control and develop nature in a perceived right of human manifest destiny. Much of this is a corrupted form of the three major Abrahamic religions. We took that perceived divine right of men to pursue the higher power’s will and we became soldiers of progress in the process. This is nothing more than our own hubris in a myth of exceptionalism. What could be more powerful than thinking one is doing God’s work and get f*_King paid for it.
We have a system that has even decoupled and broke out of that basic traditional religious human drive of exploitation. It is now nothing more than the satisfaction of a drive to increased levels of complexity through technology and energy intensity. IMA a drive that has become evil and mean with little compassion or empathy. We have ever more efficiency and complexity in our drive to separate ourselves form our Mother who is nature. We want to control her and manipulate her for our pleasure and desire for titillation of our exceptionality. We have now gone to the level of insane.
This thinking has thrust us into a overshoot with a destroyed carrying capacity. We have gutted the world thinking we were initially doing God’s work then it morphed into false gods of prosperity and progress. All this in an orgy of moral relativism. We are now in a kind of mechanization of the devil where life is now controlled, manipulated, corrupted, and being dirtied. This is being done for individual profit at the expense of the whole. This is happening in an entropic decay of unprecedented proportions where everything is being destroyed by growth and consumption.
We are an extinction species. When we are done with our debauchery we will have taken an amazingly complex and beautiful natural expression of life and returned it to the very bottom of nature’s cycle of life. We will have a globally destroyed ecosystem. Oceans of jelly fish, melted glaciers, strip mines, millions of square miles of rotting concrete, and billions of steel hulks of vehicles. A destroyed atmosphere for normal life. Millions of tons of manmade compounds that are unnatural to nature’s best examples of complexity and beauty.
We are truly an unholy species at the level of the global and BAU. We have the power of good at the level of family, tribe, and small community. This is why BAU globalism will end and the small and local will return. Good overcomes evil eventually in the cycle of life. We humans call it good and evil but in reality it is just nature and her cycles. We are nothing more than her tool of extinction leading to evolution. We are Mother Nature’s hand maiden of extinction.
theedrich on Wed, 11th Mar 2015 3:27 am
True, Davy. Within the past couple of days (Mar 6-9) the stock market took a 300-point dive. Why? Because Yellen & Co. have “tapered” QE down. The markets were addicted to it, and are now suffering from withdrawal. QE (like ZIRP, derivatives, cunningly expanding the world’s reserve currency, etc.) is nothing less than inflation, a form of lying to money-dependent society. The current DC regime is doing its best to divert popular attention from the general decline by focussing on social issues (homosexual “marriage,” free contraceptive stuff for women and, of course, that old standby, race — and anything else where pop-psychological drivel might help).
There is, however, no way that ordinary Americans are going to be able to keep their “good-paying” jobs when they have to compete in the global marketplace against a Dickensian ThirdWorld manufacturing base. To postpone the inevitable, the government will mightily expand the welfare state and featherbedding (under other names) to keep the proles sedated.
We now know that Franklin D. Roosevelt deliberately ensnared the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor so that he could save England and Stalin and end the Depression. It may well be that our Maximum Leader(s) will follow FDR’s lead in that as well. In German there is an old adage: “In der Not frisst der Teufel fliegen” (“In an emergency, the devil eats flies”). Rahm Emanuel was only revealing the political truth when he said that “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”