tar: Efficiency, and economic decline

John Michael Greer writes the Archdruid Report. Last week Mr. Greer wrote on a continuing topic, descent of the United States and the rest of the world to "Third World" economy and lifestyle, Why Factories Aren't Efficient. Only his picture isn't bleak for the citizenry, only the industrial magnates.

After describing "efficiency" as defined by putting more (or less) money in someone's pocket, I smiled when I read the setup for Imaginaria. "You are the president of the newly independent Republic of Imaginaria. You’ve got a population that’s not particularly well fed, clothed, and housed, and a fairly high unemployment rate.

Unemployment, huh? I like Sharon Astyk's terms of formal and informal economy. The formal economy is the economist playground, the Gross National Product kind of thing - someone making a monetary profit.

I think the term "unemployment" has been perverted to mean "not contributing to the formal economy; not putting profit in someone's pocket." I would think that description especially pertinent when talking about re-localizing crafts and production.

There is a difference between those unemployed as in not being employed, not producing anything or serving anyone, and those not employed at putting profit in someone's pocket. Many of the unemployed are still serving, at household tasks and parenting tasks, some at day work and unreported income efforts.

What you apparently propose is to permanently remove the bulk of people currently working to put profit into someone's pocket from the industrial workforce, to serve their community and family in efforts with meaning, directly, only at the local level. Huh. I bet that does irritate some Organized union leaders, political fund raisers, and transcontinental trucking operations.

I kind of like the way Leo Frankowski reinvented technology in his sf "Cross Time Engineer" novels - including horse and mule-drawn rail, reliance on steam power and wind, and even working within a feudal political system.

My own notion of perpetual motion is a hydroelectric generator that requires 2 feet of water head. Installed every hundred yards in minor rivers, requiring no major damming or ponding, in sizes down to seasonal farm creeks.

Reading about your concerns over ethanol - has anyone worked toward solar-heated steam or water sources of mechanical or electric - or even compressed air or gas - energy options? Or hydro-mechanical (like the quaint songs about "the old mill stream"). It worked once, after all. The wood to build the wheel and races, that can be hacked out. With tools and skill.

I can see where the current "fad" in heritage seeds and seed saving contribute to Schumacher style utilization of resources. Also the victory garden approach to diversifying reliance on transcontinental food production and distribution.

ar: Economic Decline, security - the rise of Imperialism?

Sharon Astyk at Casaubon's Book mentioned an astute gentleman, John Michael Greer, who writes the Archdruid Report. Today Mr. Greer writes on a continuing topic, descent of the United States and the rest of the world to "Third World" economy and lifestyle. Only his picture isn't bleak for the citizenry, only the industrial magnates.

One issue that flows, for me, from Greer's reference to Gandhi's economics and Schumachers, is national security.


One aspect of declining fortunes of the GNP type bothers me. National security. Larger nations are attacked relatively less often, because they field bigger armies. When the Gandhi plan, though, the reduction in centralizing monetary resources implies more difficulty in maintaining a national defense. We have the Interstate Highway system with a defense shield for a symbol, because in his Army days Dwight Eisenhower formulated a response to the need for moving people and material to meet security needs.

Militaries are energy profligate. Energy, and especially oil, was a central strategic barrier and goal of all parties in WWII. I expect no less, militarily, as supplies of oil dwindle. Hungry people are ripe for exploitation by unscrupulous wealth. I might posit that the decline of the British Empire was brougth about by the rise of cheap energy. It follows then - what prevents the decline of cheap energy from reverting to an imperial form, merely to control security by taking direct control over distance threats? Today's industrial concentration of wealth provides monetary levers to collectively manage adventurers and despots. But what happens as those levers fail?

Wars are fought to put money in someone's pockets. Today, cheap energy fuels potent militaries that make battle inefficient, even among relatively smaller antagonists. When expensive energy again makes war profitable, what means, other than assimilation - empire - will provide security from external threat?