Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] end of cheap oil= end of middle class?

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: David Travis <blissett@optonline.net>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] end of cheap oil= end of middle class?
  • Date: Fri, 01 Sep 2006 01:54:07 -0400



Rain Tenaqiya wrote:
I haven't done much research, but doesn't it make sense that the end of cheap oil will radically reduce the size of the middle class in the US?


I think this all depends on how we choose to respond to an energy crisis as communities. It could radically reduce the middle class -- a class which has been on the decline already -- for many of the reasons you lay out here, but also for reasons relating to land ownership. Instead of a middle-class building homesteads, a rapidly deteriorating economy could have us become sharecroppers and tenant farmers beholden to the land and resources available only to the remaining ultra-rich.

On the other hand, there are ways we could respond to an oil-engendered economic crisis that could not only preserve but expand the middle-class. It would be very hard to come up with alternatives to petroleum products all on your own, but it wouldn't be hard if you were part of a relocalized economy where there were cooperatively owned businesses which -- in addition to homesteading and farming themselves -- might specialize in manufacturing some time-saving products for extra cash. It would still be much more labor intensive than what we have now, but it would be much easier than doing it all yourself. This could also be integrated into other systems that could help preserve an active middle-class -- local cooperative businesses bureaus, alternative currencies and community credit unions, mutual aid networks, and all sorts of other techniques could be used to pick up the slack left over from a dying global economy.

It's just a matter of creativity and time. Unfortunately, both of those things can tend to stay in short supply right up until moment our backs are to the wall.


- David




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page