[p2p-research] A Capitalist Manifesto

Thu Jun 18 04:59:50 CEST 2009

Interesting overview of 4 possible scenarios, from
http://p2pfoundation.net/Energy_Scenarios

*Book: Future Scenarios: How Communities Can adapt to Peak Oil and Climate
Change* David Holmgren. Chelsea Green 2009

 Review

By Graham Strouts:

"When I first saw David Holmgren’s Future Scenarios talk and slide at a
permaculture design course in Slovenia in 2005 I was still quite new to the
concept of peak oil and listened transfixed at what seemed to be a detailed
vision of the future: not precise predictions but an outline of four
possible scenarios that may unfold over the next generation and beyond as
human societies adapt to the consequences of the peaking and decline of our
primary energy sources, peak oil and natural gas.

A couple of years ago David continued his explorations of these issues first
examined in detail in his earlier book, Permaculture- Principles and
Pathways Beyond Sustainability (2002) with a new website Future Scenarios.

Now in book form, Future Scenarios provides one of the most succinct and
lucid accounts of the possible paths that await us as we start the new era
of energy descent.

Holmgren is in agreement with John Michael Greer that while much mainstream
discussion about energy futures centres on the first two of his scenarios-
“Techno-explosion” and “Techno Stability”, and the doomer/survivalist meme
amongst the peak oil community tends to focus on the fourth scenario of
“lifeboats” or versions of collapse, the more likely would be the third
possibility of “Energy Descent”- a more gradual adaptation to diminishing
energy supplies resulting in a contracting economy and reversion to
technological simplicity that may play out over many generations.

This pathway of earth Stewardship is assumed by the permaculture agenda- an
adaptive approach in which human scale design and general sustainability
practices are progressively implemented and are informed by the energy flows
through human society and ecology, and the energy base of our economies is
clearly understood.

The real problem is that this more likely future is currently still
marginalised as the mainstream culture refuses to abandon its faith in the
myth of progress- a belief that rests on the mistaken assumption that gains
in human welfare over the past few hundred years have been as a result of
some teleological process propelling us forwards, or of a general increasing
application of our genious for technological improvements and innovation,
while ignoring the underlying reosurce base that has made all this possible:
technology is merely different ways of using energy that is usually dug out
of holes in the ground.

The likelihood that this transition will be to one of less energy is such an
anathema to the psychological foundations and power elites of modern
societies that it is constantly misinterpreted, ignored, covered up, or
derided. Instead we see geopolitical maneuvering around energy resources,
including proxy and real wars to control dwindling reserves and policy
gymnastics to somehow make reducing carbon emissions the new engine of
economic growth.

Holmgren categorises the scenarios according to the varying potential
severity of peak oil and climate change and how these tow factors interplay:

   - Brown Tech- slow oil decline, fast climate change;

   - Green Tech- slow oil decline, slow climate change;

   - Earth Steward- fast oil decline, slow climate change;

   - Lifeboats- fast oil decline, fast climate change

These typologies may necessarily be too simplistic- so many other factors
may also come into play, such as financial collapse which, while no doubt
linked to both peak oil and climate change, may impact in ways as yet
unforeseen. However, Holmgren provides a deeper analyses by showing how the
scenarios may be “nested” one within the other- each acting on the different
scales of the household, local, national and international economies; or may
take a stepped form over time- attempts by governments to keep the system
going a little longer by following a Brown Tech path may hasten an eventual
collapse; equally, an attempt to switch to green tech may result in the
adoption of Earth Stewardship further down the line as renewables fail to
fill the gap left by oil. The scenarios may also play out differently in
different parts of the world.

Throughout Holmgren’s analysis is informed by ecological systems, the
foundation for his permaculture principles, as he sees how energy dynamics
in nature may be mirrored in human societies." (
http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49205)

More at http://www.energybulletin.net/node/49205

On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 6:05 AM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have to admit, I have no idea how it is going to work.  It looks like
> years and years of Japanese-like stagnation.
>
> By the time it starts to be solved, the issue of carbon will be firmly home
> to roost.  We are entering the period of the big slow...but not in a good
> way I suspect.
>
> Ryan
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 5:37 PM, Kevin Carson <
> free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Jun 15, 2009 at 9:10 AM, Ryan Lanham<rlanham1963 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > >From Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek:
>> >
>> > http://www.newsweek.com/id/201935?GT1=43002
>>
>> It probably depends on what is meant by a return of "capitalism."  As
>> Paul Krugman argued last December, things look fairly good for
>> capitalism in the near-term aftermath of spending a trillion or two on
>> stimulus packages.  The real problem comes from trying to imagine a
>> post-bubble economy after 2010 or so--particularly what will be the
>> source of demand for enabling our present overbuilt industrial
>> capacity to operate at close to full utilization without a housing
>> boom as a source of credit-inflated purchasing power.
>>
>>
>> --
>> Kevin Carson
>> Center for a Stateless Society http://c4ss.org
>> Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com
>> Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
>> http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
>> Organization Theory:  A Libertarian Perspective
>> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html
>>
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>
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