The political economy of power

...Without fail, the one lie that all of the above seem to propagate is that there is an energy shortage. It goes something like this:

Since we can only generate x amount of power and the practical demand of each and every user is greater than x, x will have to be allocated. Of course, someone will have to make this allocation, and this someone is the state. The state, as a supposed neutral actor and invested with, to quote Max Weber, “a successful claim on monopoly of the legitimate use of force”, will decide that industry will get so much power, agriculture so much, and residential users so much. The best allocation of resources will be on the basis of what is deemed in the best interest of the common good. It may be unfortunate that not all of us get the power we want, but that's life and sacrifices have to be made.

This story is sly and deceiving. To start with, there is no energy shortage in the universe. The universe is awash with energy (all there is, after all, is energy and matter), and energy can neither be destroyed nor created. For the purposes of the human race, there is a virtually unlimited amount of energy for the species to tap into. And, therein lies the problem. It is not all that easy to convert energy into power, and part of the struggle of human history has been various attempts to tap into the energy of the universe. This has primarily been achieved through conversion of solar energy into plant and animal energy. This energy chain, like all energy chains, is never 100% efficient. Each time energy is converted there is a certain amount of energy loss. Humans have then eaten plant and animal materials, converting these to human bio-chemical energy. Humans have then used that energy for labour to hunt more animals, grow more crops, build dwellings, and contest for resources (war and conflict). For most of history, the primary source of useable energy has been human muscles and intellect1.

This was the case during the Ancient Greek, Persian and Egyptian societies. It was certainly true during the Roman Empire. And, partly because of this, all of these societies were based upon slave labour as the primary sources of energy conversion. Since human beings were the most efficient sources of energy (human beings have the ability for rational thought, they can solve problems, are fairly durable, and can be taught to do things with greater efficiency than a cow or a horse), elite groups used slave labour to build, manufacture and grow all the materials needed for those societies to function. The elite classes functioned as managers and grew rich from their exploitation of the labour of others.

Things began to change during the Middle Ages in Europe. During this time, while human power still remained supreme, animal power began to be used more and more frequently in agriculture; wood (plant energy) was beginning to be more and more important, especially in the production of iron and other metals; and water was used in mills for the production of flour, although, slightly later, windmills were used for this purpose. One notable consequence of this 'new' strategy of converting energy for human use was the complete and utter destruction of Europe's forests. This led to what is called an energy crisis and forced European society into a potentially painful situation: Find another source of power or undergo an economic collapse and a return to the Dark Ages. The ultimate solution was coal.

However, the most important lesson that should be learnt from this era, with regard to current energy conversion practises, was the political situation regarding water and windmills. As Debeir, Deléage, and Hémery point out in In the Servitude of Power, these two different energy sources were used in two different manners despite having the same primary technological function, grinding grain into flour. Watermills required access to flowing water and were relatively expensive to build. As the feudal structure of the day controlled access to watercourses and held a great deal of society's capital, the aristocracy was able to own and control the watermills, thus, locking down an important part of agricultural production for its sole benefit. The peasantry had no access to the watermills, and had to compete in the processing of flour with older, less efficient methods of production. Quite clearly, we can see the link between ownership of energy conversion and socio-economic relationships. As Debeir et al state, “[Water]Mills were not only a good deal for some, but also tended to bolster an oppressive social structure.”2

Windmills were another story. Not only was wind part of the commons (and thus a renewable resource accessible to all social classes), it was cheaper to build windmills than watermills. The increasing use of windmills enabled the burghers, cities and peasantry to compete favourably in the production of flour (for which the market was growing as bread became more and more part of the general diet). Windmills also also encouraged competition with the aristocracy in the important realm of agricultural production. This began to have a significant impact in political relations, especially in the contest between free cities and feudal landowners, one of the central conflicts of the Middle Ages. Once again, Debier et al state:

Thus windmills were established in the conditions of freedom that opened with the growth of cities, and established a further breach in the lords' energy monopolies. Although feudal reaction against the new facilities persisted - 'The windmill was the commoners' mill which feudal law tried to take over' - it proved unable to stop the irresistible movement which continued until the dawn of the nineteenth century.3

The dawn of the nineteenth century brought about a major technological, social and economic revolution, the Industrial Revolution. While the social, political and economic effects of the Industrial Revolution are well documented, the roles of new sources of energy conversion are often overlooked. Coal was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution. Basically, coal is plant matter that has decomposed, chemically altered, compressed and hardened over millions of years. Coal is made up of carbon (between 50% to 90%, depending on type/grade), sulphur, methane, water and various other materials. Essentially, coal is the storage of chemical energy produced via long dead plant photosynthesis. Most of the coal used today was formed during the Carboniferous era (280 to 345 million years ago).

While the use of coal had been around for thousands of years, the Industrial Revolution mined and used coal to a degree never seen before. A new energy cycle was born with coal (and its offspring, steam), the fossil fuel cycle. Coal was used to drive steam engines, railways, furnaces (purified coal (coke) replaced wood as the primary source of heat for metallurgy), shipping and household heating. It provided such an intense and useful source of energy that the Industrial Revolution was entirely dependent on the mining, distribution, and burning of coal. And it should come as no surprise that this valuable energy resource was not in the hands of the common people although it was they who died of Black Lung, but instead in the hands of the burgeoning, to borrow a phrase from Tom Wolfe, “masters of the universe” - the capitalist class. While perhaps not of conscious design, there was no way that the windmill story (commoner power equivalent to that owned by the feudal lords) would be repeated with coal. Coal quickly became a privately owned commodity to be sold and traded as necessary, and fortunes were made4. This, in turn, meant that the majority of the populace were precluded from control of the energy chain and that the power (both economic and political) of the newly formed capitalist class was further increased. The conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat that has consumed human history since provides the basis of entire branches of philosophy, history and political analysis...

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