Women were disenfranchised, as were black or Native American men.  Over time women and people of color have been formally included as citizens, but more importantly than this, we have not effectively the role of concentrated wealth in control of our culture and government.

A second book (and movie) related to this is "The Corporation" (book by Joel Bakan).  The rise of the corporation -- and corporatism -- have much to do with the way concentrated wealth has been protected from democratic innovation.  In a way, human culture has been innoculated against economic democracy by very limited political democracy.

Behind this is the reality that our concept of wealth and our ways of measuring wealth are essentially superstitious.  Human systems of understanding and measuring wealth have to do with concentration of wealth and economic control of the many by the few.

If we measure wealth in terms of making "liberty and justice for all" our standard, then we are very poor.  If we measure wealth in terms of the ability of a few to grow wealthy without regard to the common good or to "liberty and justice for all" then we are a wealthy species.

Finally, we concieve of wealth as something one (or many)can accumulate without understanding or regard for the larger ecosystem.  Permaculturalists on the other hand view the ecosystem as a dynamic resource to be understood and tended while harvesting only the energy income one can understand how to harvest without destroying the ecosystem itself.  Wealth is a dynamic living wisdom in this understanding, and not capable of being measured by money or commodity.

So the economic system we have is simply obsolete.

However, those who benefit the most from the system are mostly unable to see any flaws with it, and are hysterically afraid to consider the possibility of devloping any alternatives.

A few people are working on "parecon" and other ideas for transformation, but these don't make tons of profit for Wall Street, and so stand a snowball's chance in Hell of being considered seriously unless we have a big fat "market failure" which shows the error of our current ways.  It is possible that enough people could lose faith in our current ideas of wealth to insist that we try something different.

Why are we not working at ways to bring economic democracy to the world?  Follow the money.

There is a relationship between energy and money (duh?). Energy is a quantitative abstraction just as (exchange) value is. Value is the amount of human labor power embodied in a commodity. Energy, the physicists tell us, is the ability to do work, e.g. lifting a 1 lb brick a foot high. Energy is contained in oil, gas, wood, etc. Each of these is a commodity and requires a certain amount of labor power to extract from the earth (which includes the labor embodied in all the machinery and ships and so forth employed in extracting it).

But still, what's the difference between human labor power (expended over time) and energy? Insofar as it is a matter of lifting bricks, there ISN'T ANY! But of course you must feed the human laborer, which food he or she converts (inefficiently) into brick lifting energy. Up to this point, a human is no different from a horse, which can also supply energy to lift bricks.

The horse is actually much more efficient at providing energy for brick lifting than humans, and horses don't have a clue as to how to grow oats. So having humans grow oats to feed the horses so the horses can supply the energy to lift the bricks is a far better deal. A better deal still is to have humans collect oil and gas that can be used to power machines that lift the bricks. And now the gas and oil can be used to power the machines the drill for and transport the oil and gas.

The end result of all of this is that energy becomes cheaper and cheaper, meaning there is less and less human labor power embodied in each barrel or whatever.

Ah, what is money? Money is also a commodity (gold, silver, linen, etc) and embodies a certain amount of human labor power. (Let's not get into credit money and all that at this point.) So cheaper energy means less labor power embodied in a barrel which means less gold (embodied labor power) per barrel.

BUT, what happens if the amount of labor power needed to gather up each barrel of oil begins to increase, because, just say, it's deeper in the earth, more soldier manpower (labor power) is needed to protect each barrel, and that none of this is completely compensated for by improved technique or machinery? THEN energy is going to become more expensive, and each barrel will embody more labor power. And since this energy is used in the production of all other commodities, they will ALL go up in price in accordance with the increased amount of human labor power embodied in them.

Well, so what?

Now we have to go beyond money. What is capital? Money is not necessarily capital and existed prior to capital, and was used simply to facilitate exchange. But modern industrial capital arose with the separation of the laborer from the means of production. A laborer now sells his ability to labor for 8 hours say, to the captialist, but he is compensated with commodities (or money to buy the commodities) that embody only 4 hours of work. The 4 hours difference (surplus value), embodied in commodities, is in turn exchanged for money, which is in turn invested in more means of production, including labor power, etc. The whole cycle is the movement of capital, money which is "invested", not to mediate an exchange, but to increase its value, profit. Money is money, and the sole point is increase.

Now we come to the whole point. Modern industrial capitalism is built around the profit motive. What happens to profit when the price of energy reverses its long term trend, and begins going up? It means that the share of total human labor power going to energy acquisition goes up. It means that the total amount of human labor power available for the production  of consumption commodities and production commodities (machinery)
goes down. Yet the amount of labor embodied in production commodities involved in extraction must go up. So therefore the amount of labor power available for use commodities and the production commodities used in their production must go down.

The end result must be highly destructive not only to labor, but also to those sections of capital that are suppliers of the mass consumption market. The capital devoted to energy acquisition, production and protection will grow ever larger at the expense of all else. The amount of capital left to supply consumer needs will shrivel up.

In the end, the capital invested in energy production, distribution and security will dominate and starve out all else -- until such a point is reached as the capital invested in energy is itself threatened with collapse by lack of the human and other infrastructure needed for its continued existence.

One last thing. I mentioned credit money, like the dollar for example. The dollar used to be backed by gold, then only partly, then not at all. However, it was in a very real sense backed by Saudi oil. We are now not only witnessing a competing credit money, the euro, but oil itself is become monetized. Venezuela is bartering oil for doctors and much else, entirely sidestepping the "international currency". But regular barter in a certain commodity is a big step toward monetization of that commodity. This is no small threat to the dollar. As oil becomes monetized, the dollar weakens, except insofar as the US is able to control oil. This monetization of oil empowers the possessors of oil, because they can not only barter for oil -- they can get credit.

At some point, the US is going to turn south and try to reverse this whole trend. Chavez knows this.

If you want to see a preview of things to come, check out this letter to the Billings Gazette, and the comments underneath. A sampling:

The Point is people shouldnt have to change there life style just because the price of gas is high.

Have any of you sent letters to your congressment or to the Prez to tell them we are sick and tired of the gouging? I went on a one woman campaign last year. Sent letters every day to Mr. Prez. Did it do a bit of good? I doubt it. They just said, "Drive less." Well, if I drove any less, I'd be walking and it's too dang far to town!

These people are in for a very rude awakening.

RR

So if we get another hurricane-induced disruption (or panic from the possibility of disruption), I'm guessing $4/gallon in late summer here in detroit.

At that prospect, I shall now do a little dance to celebrate my Wife's employer being located right by a park and ride...

Year on year increases seem to be more like 20% (2003 = 1.45, 2004 = 1.75, 2005 = 2.15, 2006 = 2.60, all from www.detroitgasprices.com)

That's hardly scientific, I know, I know!  But I really don't want to extrapolate those price increases for another 10 years...

Well OK I will.  2007 = 3.15, 2008 = 3.75, 2009 = 4.50, 2010 = 5.40, 2011 = 6.47, 2012 = 7.76, 2013 = 9.32

OK I'll stop.

That actually made me nauseous (what the results or the method, I hear the cheap seats cry)

If we look at China (and India will follow the same model) we will find that those buying cars are those with incomes well above the median.

What this means is that in the coming global bidding war for gasoline there will be some 125 million North Americans screaming for price relief. In China however, there will be 125 million noveau riche who will be likely to bid the price even higher.

Shame they chose to focus more on the Cornucopian view, however.

I'm trying to put together a local lobby group to get the local council thinking more sustainably.  Trying to convince the local powers-that-be that global oil industry issues affect our little corner of the world is still quite hard.

And not surprisingly, Americans in particular decided that the bad things they were being asked to do (conserve, live within their means, etc.) were just part of that horrible Carter presidency, not actually based on anything real, so why worry? Welcome to 2006, twilight in America, brought to you by the same people who brought you morning in America.

Sometimes, I wonder how many people have bothered to pay attention what has been going on around them for a generation.

But current numbers published by various organizations are pretty much all the peak oil commmunity has - trying to figure out how to use them well is the challeenge which this site meets so well.

Our executive was very familiar with the Simmons assessment of the natural gas situation. His company's own internal projections aligned closely with the pessimistic scenarios of natural gas supplies painted by Simmons and others. He was less than impressed with the commonly referred to assessment of future North American supplies depicted by the EIA however. That assessment--in his opinion--relied on ridiculously optimistic assumptions of future production that were unlikely to ever materialize. The agency's perennially optimistic assessments largely originated out of political considerations. According to the executive, they used to make more pessimistic assumptions until Congress cut their funding in the mid 1990's. Since then, the EIA has sung a more upbeat tune about energy reserves. This similar level of optimism permeates the USGS and influences some of the consultants (that accept federal funds) as well.

The same could generally apply to reading (lots of free books on the net).

And most of the Internet's infrastructure, so to speak, was either pre-existing or fairly lightweight in terms of energy use to create.

Of course, I realize that many people in America seem to leave their PCs/monitors/printers on 24 hours a day, and that most people don't seem to realize how much standby power is consumed - you do actually have the PC wired into a switched power strip which you turn off, right?

But in terms of the Internet, and music, films, and books, I would guess a certain neutrality of energy consumption, if you assume a fairly energy efficient user. Of course, energy efficiency and today's America seem to go together like a fish and a bicycle, to misuse an old expression.

As a fun extra note - got my electric bill for the year yesterday (annual billing is the norm here). Our household of 4 used 2650 kwh, and it cost 500 euros (around $600). Compare that to your own bills to see whether one of the reasons Germans are so interested in energy efficiency is directly related to how much they spend on energy.

Though Germany and the EU are now trying to avoid the wild price swings which seem to be occurring and likely to be recurring in various American regions/markets (Great Britian too, to an extent). Here, the cost of energy has been on a fairly simple to understand and plan for upward rise, and the tax percent is so high, there is some built in buffer for extreme circumstances.

Of course, much of what fuels energy prices here is more related to energy monopolies and concerns about global warming than any free market illusions. But most Germans seem content enough with a very reliable system which delivers what people need, while accepting the fact that high prices cause conservation to become a goal worth pursuing.

My guess is that this attitude is also somewhat based on the fact that Germans are fairly pragmatic realists, and seem to have no problem disussing technical problems using technical concepts. This is why the nuclear power debate is so interesting - there, a certain mystical refusal of nuclear technology is based more on feelings than facts, though most opponents of nuclear power do have concrete reasons for opposition, primarily based on dealing with the created nuclear waste and its long term danger to current and future humans. Of course, a certain oopsies in the mid-80s tends to lend a concrete aspect to concerns about reactor safety. The conflict between switching on a light at night and where to get the necessary power to do that is a major part of the debate - and yes, there is a looming gap which both sides attempt to use for their own purposes. The nuclear industry insisting this gap can only be filled with their reactors, and the thoughtful opposition pointing out that massive investment in conservation, wind, solar, and geothermal are required. As generally the case, the debate here tends to actually involve multiple perspectives, some based on technical reality, some based on money, and some based on politics/philosophy (the Greens are very unlikely to accept nuclear power, and the CSU is very unlikely not to support Siemens to the hilt).  

You need t o spend some time with network theory and social interastion of man.

The Internet benefits from the number of nodes, the speed of communication, and the ability for these nodes to communicate.  

For your position to be true, paper would have to have the speed of the internet and the node coverage of the internet.

In addition, you would have to calculate the cost to create this word on my machine and get  it to you machine and to everyone elses machine who reads it, VS making paper (and that includes growing the paper source too) and getting that paper to all thoes other users.   THEN you could make your claim that 'its better because it uses more energy'.   On a photon -> energy basis, I'd bet the internet wins.

literally teethed on punchcards.

Did they use lead type to print up the cards?

DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) is Better

Is it?  If the goal in life is passive entertainment/information closer to your worldview, that is what sattlite radio can bring you.  How does AM/SSB fill that 'need'?

BUT

Anytime you have an unguided wave, it is expensive energy-wise.Guided waves are FAR cheaper.

Whadda ya think?

I think your postion is flawed.

Rocket scientists up until shockingly recently used slide rules made of BAMBOO

Bamboo is an astonishingly useful material is certain applications, probably matched only by some composites.  For a slide rule, it's very dimensionally stable, fairly hard, easy to machine accurately, and (if I recall correctly) doesn't need lubrication for the slide.

One of my engineering profs frequently made the point that simple approximations can carry the day in most applications - why calculate stress to 9 decimals when the lot-to-lot variation of materials can be 10%?  And a good slide rule will give 3 decimals reliably.  I got extra credit on the exam for using a slide rule to do the calculations (though that was mostly because I didn't check the batteries in my electronic calculator ahead of time).

DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale) is Better than AM or SSB because every friggin' listener needs a pretty darned good computer (we're talking at least a GHz clock speed, etc) to do the decoding of the signal.

Wrong.  DRM applications will include fixed and portable radios, car receivers, software receivers and PDAs.

Where can I get a 1 GHz PDA?  Seriously, the DRM system uses COFDM - similar to DSL but much slower, thus lower in computational complexity - and I doubt that many DSL modems have GHz-class processors.

Analysis of peat deposits shows almost no subsidence before oil & gas production otehr than some oxidation when peat was first exposed to air after being pumped dry.

A*L*L sorts of wacko theories & opinions are popping up by people that want soem media exposure.

New Orleans is just too valuable to lose for it's cultural value and it is required to be where it is.  With half of our off shore oil & gas royalities, we could build all that we needed.

I wonder if "a 7-inch screen that can be read in sunlight" means it is not backlit - the 2W power draw would seem to indicate that.  

You could definitely make a useful device this way.

I'm not so sure.

I believe that the people with a low "permeability to evidence" tend to be the ones who vote in elections exactly the same way their whole life (like my Dad). While the 'highly permeable' folks tend to be the so-called 'swing' voters.

Last year here in NZ, the swing voters or the "undecided"s accounted for over 40% of the population.

I'm so permeable to evidence that I tend to swing around all over the place!

For instance, I was living the typical modern lifestyle until someone pointed me to Matt's LATOC site exactly a year ago.  I immediately started preparations for "running to the hills" while advising everyone I knew to do the same thing.

But after a couple of months of reading around (including the great work done here at TOD) I swung back to a more moderate position similar to Stuart's.

Why is AIDS worse in Africa?

Basically, it's the pattern of sexual relations.  They don't have more partners than, say, Americans, but they have long-term, simultaneous partners due to their nomadic lifestyle.  Say, a girl at home in the village and one in the city.  This greatly increases the chance of transmission, because AIDS is not very contagious.  It typically takes multiple encounters to contract it.  Weirdly, societies where men regularly visit prostitutes, such as Thailand, have a lower rate of AIDS than societies where people have long-term, concurrent relationships.  

Also interesting is that circumcised men are 70% less likely to contract AIDS than non-circumcised men.  Something to keep in mind if you think latex condoms will be scarce in the future.  ;-)