"The decline in resources available to support societal complexity will generate a centrifugal force that will break up existing economic and governmental power structures everywhere." Heinberg, Afterburner, p. 101
Some arguments for localization and the decentralization of food, finance, education and other basic social support systems.
Themes
• why civilizations collapse - the diminishing returns on investment due to costs of increasing complexity
• how fossil fuels created an energy bubble in the form of industrial society that cannot continue.
• an ever-greater proportion of investment capital being directed to the energy sector - remember: the difference between net and gross energy?
Scenarios for Society Simplification
A. Continued (ever-more desperate) BAU (business as usual)
- restarting economic growth with stimulus spending and bailouts
B. Simplification by austerity
- cutting domestic social spending, withdrawing safety nets
C. Centralized provision of basics
Governments directly providing jobs and basics to the general public while downsizing expendable features of the economy (military and financial sectors) and taxing the wealthy
D. Local provision of the basics
Local governments, ad hoc social movements, NGOs, small businesses, churches and cults, gangs, cooperative organizations, families and neighbors - step in to provide basics of existence.
- cooperative banks
- volunteer efforts
- farmer's markets
- car and ride share
- local currencies
- co-housing
Banding together to grow gardens, keep chickens, reuse, repurpose, repair, defend, share, do without.
Dimitri Orlov's classic essay "Closing the Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US"
Some arguments for localization and the decentralization of food, finance, education and other basic social support systems.
Themes
• why civilizations collapse - the diminishing returns on investment due to costs of increasing complexity
• how fossil fuels created an energy bubble in the form of industrial society that cannot continue.
• an ever-greater proportion of investment capital being directed to the energy sector - remember: the difference between net and gross energy?
Scenarios for Society Simplification
A. Continued (ever-more desperate) BAU (business as usual)
- restarting economic growth with stimulus spending and bailouts
B. Simplification by austerity
- cutting domestic social spending, withdrawing safety nets
C. Centralized provision of basics
Governments directly providing jobs and basics to the general public while downsizing expendable features of the economy (military and financial sectors) and taxing the wealthy
D. Local provision of the basics
Local governments, ad hoc social movements, NGOs, small businesses, churches and cults, gangs, cooperative organizations, families and neighbors - step in to provide basics of existence.
- cooperative banks
- volunteer efforts
- farmer's markets
- car and ride share
- local currencies
- co-housing
Banding together to grow gardens, keep chickens, reuse, repurpose, repair, defend, share, do without.
Dimitri Orlov's classic essay "Closing the Collapse Gap: The USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US"
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