The economy we're evolving into will be un-global, necessarily local
and regional, and austere. It won't support even our current
population. This being the case, the political fallout is also liable
to be severe....
The new narrative has to be about a managed contraction -- and by "managed" I mean a way that does not produce civil violence, starvation, and public health disasters....
The economy we're moving into will have to be one of real work, producing real things of value, at a scale consistent with energy resource reality. I'm convinced that farming will come much closer to the center of economic life.... The public is completely unprepared for this kind of change. We still think that "the path to success" is based on getting a college degree certifying people for a lifetime of sitting in an office cubicle....
The crucial element in the transformation underway will be emotion. The American experience for a few generations has produced an adult population with very childish instincts, increasingly worse each decade.
The new narrative has to be about a managed contraction -- and by "managed" I mean a way that does not produce civil violence, starvation, and public health disasters....
The economy we're moving into will have to be one of real work, producing real things of value, at a scale consistent with energy resource reality. I'm convinced that farming will come much closer to the center of economic life.... The public is completely unprepared for this kind of change. We still think that "the path to success" is based on getting a college degree certifying people for a lifetime of sitting in an office cubicle....
The crucial element in the transformation underway will be emotion. The American experience for a few generations has produced an adult population with very childish instincts, increasingly worse each decade.
Since we already have starvation and public health disasters, I'm all for developing an informal economy to avoid civil violence. Bartering shifted to the margins because it couldn't be controlled or taxed; we'll see how far we can relax controls before the cops bust things up.
Posted by: Jay Taber | December 18, 2008 at 01:18 PM
The black market, alternative currenceis, barter. I heard some jokes in TN about ethanol stills and the reveneoor man. The TN stills-in-the-hills tradition goes deep. When the grid breaks down, transition towns and local economies will come to the fore. One wonders, though, as you do, about "war lords," or gang wars. Blackwater, or those who employ the private armies, can take what they want? Orlov's "Reinventing Disaster" is a satiric, ebullient, extended riff on these themes, based on how "Freedom" came to Russia, when Communism broke down, and the apparatchicks became oligarchs and war lords by privatizing communal assets, selling them to themselves for a pittance. Only a soft tyranny under Putin restored order.
Posted by: Phil Cubeta | December 18, 2008 at 04:46 PM