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.