[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]

I can't remember where I read that line that 1 billionaire consumes far less than a thousand millionaires.

That must be due to efficiency. A 1000 MW power plant consumes less coal than a hundred 10 MW power plants.

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 very large percentage of human population is yet to taste democracy. Even the handful of countries that do boast of democracy have serious problems. Most of them are heading straight towards bankruptcy.

I guess, in the long term, people will have much more important things to worry about than the loss of their beloved democracy or republic or empire or whatever. Like.....Survival.

Dmitry Orlov has said that when a nation collapses, the middle aged men become very tedious company. They spend their days mourning and whining the loss of their great system. He has mentioned it in his 5 stages of collapse. I guess this is stage 2 or something.

It has also been documented in psychology. I think it is called the Kubler-Ross model. When faced with a life altering tragedy, people go through 5 stages of grief:-

1. Denial
2. Anger.
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance.

When a nation collapses, the entire population goes through these 5 stages at the same time. The anger stage is especially dangerous. These nations become very notorious places to live in.

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.

[Ibon]

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.

We still do have the luxury to not only contemplate these questions but to try to preserve some of what the fossil fuel age has provided that is worthy of preservation.

I agree about the whining middle age generation in times of constraints. It is the generation born into the constraints that will adapt. But some of the older generation also do well, especially those that for 30 years understood the dysfunction of our modern materialism

I actually don't see the doomer vision of total collapse. Anyway, even if this does come to pass I have already done all I can to prepare. Just click on my link below and see where I am living, off the grid, generating our own power, far from unstable urban areas. We are all vulnerable though, whatever choices we still have. In fact, as long as we still have choice than we still have the luxury of abundance. As you say when we run out of choices and are forced to survive than we are 100% at the mercy of consequences.

I believe that we are now increasingly at the mercy of consequences, still far from 100%, and that this is actually positive in having any hopes of creating a steady state economy and preserving choice since it takes the consequences to impose transition on our modern society fully indoctrinated in the growth philosophy.

The point of this thread is more to see the relationship between constraints and disparity and to what degree they are avoidable. If they are not avoidable than we have an interesting question.

What is the most benevolent and just serfdom we can hope for?

[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]

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".

How about the high-skill jobs to India?

[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]

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.

Yeah, It's a just a coincidence that the leaps and bounds we have seen in the progress of human technology have marched in lockstep with our increasing exploitation of fossil energy resources. I think you may be putting the cart before the horse here.

[Ibon]

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

I agree this is a factor. Automation increases the disparity as it marginalizes the unskilled and even many of the skilled workers. The efficiency gains theoretically add more total wealth but its unevenly distributed and therefore aggravates disparity. This is logical. This problem is then one of distribution of total wealth and finding work for those marginalized.

I say the energy issue is real, but that it is just a side issue of the main "engine" of wealth disparity.

I think energy plays a bigger role, not at the moment in its physical manifestation but rather in the way it orients our politics and society. Consider the following

Resource constraints reduce the total wealth so there is less to distribute. There is economic contraction. During contraction there is a whole shift of orientation.

I am recalling the hording that goes on when a Hurricane approaches the east coast. Stores run out of fresh bottled water and batteries. Let's apply this same impulse to the our global financial markets.

Right now corporations are sitting on trillions of dollars. They are in a sense hording because of a perception of unstable economic conditions. They are risk averse. It is similar to the hording phenomenom. I think this aggravates disparity.

It affects our politics. More money going into defense and less money into social services. It actually creates a psychological orientation where one starts to write off the poorer sectors of society. It affects the philanthropic instincts of the elite.

Even though there is still abundant wealth and energy within the system we find that disparity increases disproportionately to the rate of resource constraints because of this new orientation. The willingness of the body politic to lend support to the disenfranchised. The willingness of corporations to take the risk of reducing profits to keep factories in higher income areas, etc. etc.

A societies orientation and perception of wealth moving forward through time thus has a profound impact on disparity. Long before the resource constraints actually reach levels of having a physical consequence we have already altered our behaviors in their anticipation.

It is similar to the stock market where future bad news is already priced into the value of a stock.

Project this idea to the whole economic system and societies living under the cloud of diminishing resources and we begin to see how disparity starts to grow long before the actual resource constraints themselves manifest as limits.