This article was first posted in 2002, by a careful observer of the
human condition. It is reposted here today in honor of fellow citizens
Paulson and Bernanke. The author speaks about energy, while Paulson and
Bernanke speak of money. But in our financial society, money is simply a
surrogate for energy. …
Theedrich Yeats writes: The main thesis of Joseph Tainter’s work, “The Collapse of Complex Societies,”is
that such societies collapse as a result of Declining Marginal Returns
(DMR).
Whether a society uses its energy subsidies wisely or
foolishly, parsimoniously or profligately, the tendency toward such
decline is almost as inherent in all human societal energy use as it is
in the bacterium’s petri dish.
We are very near the DMR breaking point both nationally (in the
U.S.) and globally. And not at all because of oil depletion alone.
Consider the situation in America:
- Exhaustion, damaging and poisoning of undergound aquifers almost everywhere.
- Massive topsoil erosion, which precludes future soil fecundity.
- The incapacity or unwillingness of Americans to farm, and the
replacement of farms by gigantic agribusinesses employing millions of
Mexican serfs, whose dependents overload the social supports in the
U.S. (an overload viewed as an “externality” by the agribusinesses). - Massive megalopolises whose populations depend on diabolically
complex systems of import and export, trade and business - at a time
when the general educational level is stagnant or even falling. - Millions of feral semi-literates in the urban slums whose
jobs, if they have any, are often either make-work (another form of
welfare) or (as in construction) a serious net drain on the
civilization’s energy subsidy. - Millions of high-tech jobs, once the pride of America, have
followed much of manufacturing to Second-World countries such as Taiwan
or Second-and-a-Half-World Japan, where wages are much lower than in
overpriced America. Increasingly, only the paperwork is done in the
U.S. - There is no more surplus money in the national budget, nor
will there ever be again. The widely expected multi-trillion-dollar
budget surplus has evaporated in the twinkling of an eye. And by the
way, moon landings are over forever. All the attempts by the U.S. to
achieve yet another scope enlargement of international trade have
fallen short of their goal. Liebig’s law of the minimum (i.e.,
whatever necessity is least abundantly available [relative to per
capita requirements] sets an environment’s carrying capacity) is now
about to be felt on the international scale. - Every observer in his right mind recognizes that both America
and the world are seriously overpopulated and growing more so each day,
putting stress on every resource available. Population growth alone
puts increasingly greater strains on infrastructure, steadily reducing
the benefit each individual can receive. At some point the benefit per
capita will fall below a critical threshold, and the system will
collapse.
I am sure others can add to this list. I have purposely excluded
oil and transportation from it in order to emphasize that, even in
sectors not directly connected with oil, the U.S. is moving into the
region of DMR nationwide. And this means it is nearing collapse, which
could come without warning. And when America goes, the rest of global
civilization will follow. (09/24/08)
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