[Quinny]

POPS,wedges,Kopits,purpose end of capitalism EROEI et al

Couldn't decide where to put this, so started a new one.

The above threads all got me thinking about where we are heading.

It looks to me as if we are post peak and fast reaching a stage where it's nor going to be profitable to get new stuff out of the ground. If effectively the driving force behind the world economy is no longer economic, it definitely puts us in predicament rather than problem territory.

Now TPTB must know what's going on so - What next? Seems to me if the Market cannot get the oil out, then there's gotta be a plan B. We can do things that aren't profitable (even under capitalism (but not for ever)), look at Pyramids Cathedrals etc hardly necessary, but someone managed to harness that surplus labour at some time. I believe to get this unprofitable oil out of the ground, a command economy is going to be necessary.

3 obvious candidates spring to mind for implementing a Command Economy.

1. Socialism - obviously my favourite

2. Fascism - probably most others favourite

3. War - putting countries on war footing allows 'market conditions' to be overridden.

Going off past history and looking at the interests of TPTB despite being a Socialist if I was a betting man I would unfortunately be putting money on 3. I've never been a conspiracy theorist, but when you look at the machinations of the ultra rich it sometimes seems someone is pulling the strings.

[ROCKMAN]

Q - Your #3 doesn't require TPTB to manipulate the public to push them in that direction IMHO. They'll fully support (if not demand) that we force "them" to supply "our" oil to us. There's a reason China bought that aircraft carrier from Russia and developed an ICBM that can take out an opposing carrier despite the best defensive systems on the planet: no one is going to get "their" oil.

[Quinny]

Unfortunately ROCKMAN I think you are right. Going off some of the Gung Ho comments even in this 'intelligent' community, I think some would glory in it even without the need for the precious stuff. Sorry to say most of it comes from your compatriots.

[Subjectivist]

You missed the fourth option, bribery. Or more politely, subsidy. Why attack when you can pay off those in charge to get them to comply? It is a tactic as old as the human existance.
The carrot as opposed to the stick.

[radon1]

You missed the fourth option, bribery. Or more politely, subsidy. Why attack when you can pay off those in charge to get them to comply? It is a tactic as old as the human existance.
The carrot as opposed to the stick.

Btw, we have a good working example of this approach - this is the EU.

[Quinny]

That's Ok when the bribe can be found, but I think most Governments will struggle to cut duties on fuel never mind subsidise it's production. I know Oilco's have been given massive subsidies in the past, but if there isn't a 'surplus' there, how can this be repeated. Or can we keep printing subsidies for ever?

[Pops]

In my little brain I need to break down the future to something like "events" and "conditions". So something that is relatively isolated in time and place is an event but something that is more long term and widespread is a condition. Events occur within conditions, maybe because of conditions, maybe for much smaller local reasons.

War is an event, most wars are local but even world wars were limited in duration. Likewise governments are more like events than conditions in that they are local and subject to rapid change. Ditto most of our social structures, The 1%ers so much discussed nowadays for example are vested in virtual wealth, which like BitCoins demonstrate, are not all that permanent.


On the other hand, growth is a condition: whether in economic terms, or in advancing technology or even population numbers. We've become used to growth, hard to believe but there were not that many smart phones 6 or 7 years ago, Google is less than 15 years old.

Really the change in conditions that peak oil signals is a decrease in surpluses because of an increase in the cost of mechanical work - think "Energy Slave"

How much energy was available to the (free) population of the antebellum South? In 1860, the U.S. had just under 4 million slaves, working for about 8.5 million free residents of the south and border states, or 0.47 slaves/free southerner. . . . [details]
Taking southern society as a whole, the free population had (3.4 x 7 + 4)/8.5, or 3.27 "energy slaves" a piece.

Now consider the present day. The U.S. population is 311 million. We use 100 quadrillion Btus ("quads") of energy/year. Since a human requires 2,200 calories of food per day (1 food calorie = 3.97 Btus), our current energy use amounts to 100 energy slaves per capita.

So the "general condition" we face is fewer virtual slaves. That means less work performed at the flick of a switch and more work either done by humans - which in reality means less work done. Less work done means less surplus, less wealth and a lower "standard of living."

I'm trying to come up with a way to look at the American south post-slavery and somehow leave out the racist parts we're still dealing with but I'm not sure that is possible. In the aftermath of the confederacy the former slaves were still available to do work but the economics of the slavery system were ruined because they began to take some of the profit for themselves that had previously gone to the masters making them and the entire south look richer than it was on a per-capita basis. Perhaps today's wage slaves who toil in the master's cubicles will be like the freedmen in the south.


I think it's pretty hard to predict events except to say we'll try any and everything to escape the reality of the changed condition.

[Paulo1]

I think the reality of the changed condition will be folks living in very small houses (often referred to as 'shacks', which many poor white folks called home in that time of slavery). Hopefully, they will be well insulated.

What people think they need, therefore want, has absolutely no bearing on reality. IMO, we could cut our lifestyle by 50% and still do well as far as what most of the world requires. It won't be a world of fuel saving complexity with suburban kids driving Teslas and BAU continues . It will a world of fuel saving simplicity, doing without and mending what we have. Who knows, we might even have shoe repair stores once again.

Paulo

[Quinny]

I'm not disagreeing with anyone, but what is going to happen to the world financial system? How long can they keep re-distributing wealth upwards? Once it becomes too expensive to feed the Energy slaves I can see there being an 'event' of some kind. Step wise descent rather than a slide.

[Pops]

Much of what is termed "wealth" falls under the heading "accounts receivable" in the books. In the BAU world credits to that account come mostly from work performed by energy slaves - take away the energy slaves and those accounts will simply be written off a little (or a lot) at a time.

Sure, there will still be wealth in relative terms, look at how wealthy some well-connected Russians became with the collapse of the USSR. Or, back to the analogy of the post-slave south, landowners were relatively more wealthy than their former slaves for generations but because their economic model had been eliminated by the loss of more or less free labor, the majority of their wealth evaporated fast (or were destroyed in the war) and the plantations and probably the cities to some extent went to seed. The analogy kinda falls apart because mechanical/ICE traction soon came along, well, within 40-50 years anyway.


Like Paulo says, what will happen in large part is simply that people will have less stuff and live a smaller life. No doubt on the way there we'll see lots of big events as we are forced to get smaller, just like we've seen lots of big events in the last 200 years of fossil fueled growth.

[Quinny]

I think your assuming a collapse scenario Pstarr which may well happen, but I tend to think it's going to be more of a slow grind. Talking about interim stage really while there's still all this stuff in the ground that's relatively easy to get at but looks like its going to be unprofitable in the current system. Once you get to the local stage, I can see there being many different local systems developing in an almost tribal manner.

Looking at how massive investments have basically delivered zero growth it seems that an end to profitable extraction could come sooner than we might have previously expected.

The west already has the developing world by the balls in the current system keeping most people in poverty. As PO plays out I cannot see the powerful letting this advantage go and can see war being used to both keep local populace in line and take resources from resource rich countries. I don't mean like the Gulf war , I mean conscription rationing the whole shebang.

When I say hope, I was thinking that if there's a collapse of Capitalism, but still a functioning society, a communal approach might manage to keep the lights on without destroying the planet. Half the stuff is still in the ground after all. As the Kopit's presentation showed the west is slowly powering down but at the moment any available oil is taken up by the Brics. If there is an economic collapse then I'm sure there will still be some functioning government in most parts of the world even if there is localised famine.

Trying to get a feel what people think might happen on the downslope. I most of all fear war!

[Quinny]

I agree. The class war is under way, but only one side is fighting at the moment! Maybe as we start down the down-slope the 99.1% will wake up to the fact they are currently being shafted and start to fight back.

I've never been a conspiracy theorist, but when you look at the machinations of the ultra rich it sometimes seems someone is pulling the strings.

Too true, but who exactly are these people ?. There will be many we have never heard of, yet they wield much power over us, the 99.9%.

Trying to get a feel what people think might happen on the downslope. I most of all fear war!

So do most folk (the 99.9%), including myself. Why must the 99.9% fight against each other to protect the assets of the 0.1% ?. Such is history.

IMHO WW3 is currently underway, it is economic. The 99.9% are loosing.

WW4 hopefully will be the 99.9% versus the 0.1%.

Gas

[Rod_Cloutier]

The class war is under way, but only one side is fighting at the moment! Maybe as we start down the down-slope the 99.1% will wake up to the fact they are currently being shafted and start to fight back.

The 99.1 % will act in their own interest. Watch out when food, gasoline, pharmaceuticals and other essentials become unavailable; then the powers that be become the powers that were.

Watch the police and the military side with their own middle class families and turn against the 1% ; this is what the 1% isn't expecting. They think so long as they have money the police and the military will be on their side.

[americandream]

Whether we like it or not, we will be forced to socialise our resource use, or face extinction. The old ploy of trying to keep elites alive under a variety of religious, fascist, social democratic, libertarian yadda, yadda, yadda, ploys will simply take us to the edge and the glaring risk of meltdown.

[Pops]

we will be forced to socialise our resource use, or face extinction.

Do you have any kind of example of what that might look like?
Venezuela or KSA or Mexico or something else?

As for elites, as long as there is organization there will always be elites - shamen, priests, kings Grand Poohbah, etc, the Iron Law of Oligarchy is immutable! Socialism has no advantage over any other ism in that respect.

Big time corporate capitalism as we know it will of course be pruned back severely, perhaps until it eventually disappears. Perhaps the revolution will come about after all and all land and whatever production is left will be appropriated and distributed among the cubical refugees to squander . . . not looking forward to that

There have always been pooling of "capital" but without virtually unlimited labor (and no wages to pay like we've had in the FF era) it won't look like today. That is unless dystopian mega-mergers bring about [Skynet or Omni Consumer Products or of course, Soylent Corp] and then who knows but that seems at least as likely as global socialism.

I've argued forever that private property will probably last a long time yet, but I don't know...

[radon1]

I'm not disagreeing with anyone, but what is going to happen to the world financial system? How long can they keep re-distributing wealth upwards? Once it becomes too expensive to feed the Energy slaves I can see there being an 'event' of some kind. Step wise descent rather than a slide.

When the last isolated market (or more exactly, a system of the division of labor, SDL) is destroyed and incorporated into the world's single market (SDL).

The existence of the financial sector should become meaningless then. Though they may still blow some bubbles for a bit of a while, perhaps.

[radon1]

I've never been a conspiracy theorist, but when you look at the machinations of the ultra rich it sometimes seems someone is pulling the strings.

Too true, but who exactly are these people ?.

The bureaucracy, administrative and corporate, and aristocracy, mostly Humpty Dumpty caretakers.

[americandream]

mostly Humpty Dumpty caretakers.

Spot on. Basically these who would like to join the elite and emulate them in chameleon like fashion. I think they call these poor deluded labouring souls, the "middle class." Middlle of what I ask? Carrying coal hods and shooting grouse?