by DGR News Service | Feb 6, 2014 | Building Alternatives, Noncooperation, Strategy & Analysis
By Norris Thomlinson / Deep Green Resistance Hawai’i
The situation in many third world countries could actually improve because of the global economic collapse. First world countries would no longer enforce crushing debt repayment and structural adjustment programs, nor would CIA goons be able to prop up “friendly” dictatorships. The decline of export-based economies would have serious consequences, yes, but it would also allow land now used for cash crops to return to subsistence farms.
–from the Deep Green Resistance Decisive Ecological Warfare strategy
David Holmgren, co-originator of permaculture, has a long history of thoughtful and thought-provoking publications, including design books from the original Permaculture One to his 2002 Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability. He’s written numerous essays over 35 years, ranging from the specifics of agricultural vs forestry biomass for fuel, to the future of energy decline.
I’ve long admired and respected Holmgren’s thinking, so I was looking forward to reading his new “Crash on Demand” (PDF), an update of his 2007 “Future Scenarios” projections for global developments. I felt especially intrigued that he has arrived at conclusions similar to my own, regarding not just the inevitability, but the desirability of a crash of the financial system as soon as possible. But the article disappointed me; I think Holmgren is soft-selling his realizations to make them palatable to a hoped-for mass movement. Interestingly, even this soft-sell is being rejected by the permaculture blogging community.
Holmgren argues:
“For many decades I have felt that a collapse of the global economic system might save humanity and many of our fellow species great suffering by happening sooner rather than later because the stakes keep rising and scale of the impacts are always worse by being postponed.” (p 9)
“It seems obvious to me that it is easier to convince a minority that they will be better off disengaging from the system than any efforts to build mass movements demanding impossible outcomes or convincing elites to turn off the system that is currently keeping them in power.” (p 14)
“Mass movements to get governments to institute change have been losing efficacy for decades, while a mass movement calling for less seems like a hopeless case. Similarly boycotts of particular governments, companies and products simply change the consumption problems into new forms.” (p 22)
Holmgren proposes a possible solution:
“Given the current fragilities of global finance, I believe a radical change in the behaviour of a relatively small proportion of the global middle class could precipitate such a crash. For example a 50% reduction of consumption and 50% conversion of assets into building household and local community resilience by say 10% of the population in affluent countries would show up as 5% reduction in demand in a system built on perpetual growth and a 5% reduction in savings capital available for banks to lend.” (p 13)
Where I Agree
Holmgren couches his proposal almost rhetorically, apologetically, as if proactively halting the ecocidal system is crazy talk. He need not be so shy about advocating for collapsing the system! It follows very logically if you agree that:
- Industrial civilization is degrading our landbases every day it continues, far faster than we’re healing them
- Industrial civilization will collapse sooner or later regardless of what we do
- Industrial civilization will not divert its resources into healing our landbases before it collapses
The facts back up Holmgren’s assessment of our dire situation, including imminent climate catastrophe if we continue with anything like business as usual. Industrial civilization is driving 200 species extinct each day and threatening humans with extinction or at best a very miserable future on a burning planet. It is deforesting, desertifying, polluting, and acidifying forests, croplands, landbases, and oceans orders of magnitude faster than nature and all the hard-working permaculturists can heal the damage. The industrial economy consists of turning living ecosystems into dead commodities, and it won’t stop voluntarily. It’s headed for an endgame of total planetary destruction before itself collapsing.
So I fully agree with crashing the system as soon as possible, and I fully agree with getting as many people as possible to withdraw their dependence on and allegiance to the systems and structures of industrial civilization. We desperately need people preparing for crash and building resiliency, in human and in broader ecological communities.
Where I Disagree
We also need a viable strategy to stop the dominant culture in its tracks. We are, and will remain, a tiny minority fighting a system of massive power. Individual lifestyle changes do not affect the larger political systems. People “dropping out” is not enough, is not a solution, is not an effective, leveraged way to crash the system.
I worry about Holmgren’s speculative numbers. I assume the elite, who control a hugely disproportionate percentage of income and wealth, will be even harder to convince of voluntary simplicity than the average citizen. The poor generally don’t have the option to cut spending by 50%, and have few or no assets to divest from global corporate investments. My rough calculations (based on data here) suggest that in the US, 15% of earners between the 40th and 80th percentile (more or less the middle class) must adopt this economic boycott to slow consumption by 5%, and nearly 50% of the middle class must divest their savings to reduce nationwide investment in the global financial system by 5%.
Even hoping for just 15% of the US middle class, 18 million people would have to embrace substantial short-term sacrifice. (While decreasing consumption 50% and building gardens and other resiliency infrastructure, people must still work the same hours at their jobs. Otherwise they’ll simply be replaced by those who want to live the consumptive dream.) This lofty goal seems inconsistent with Holmgren’s recognition of the infeasibility of a mass movement.
History throws up more red flags. Again and again, when growth economies have encountered sustainable cultures, people from the growth economies have forced the others off their land, requiring them to integrate into the cash economy. The dominant culture will not gently relinquish access to resources or to consumer markets. It will retaliate with weapons honed over centuries, from taxes and outlawing sustainability to displacement and blatant conquest. On a less dramatic scale, banks can, if divestments sufficiently diminish the cash they’ve been hoarding for years, adjust fractional reserve rates to compensate. (Though precipitating a fast “run” on the banks could work very nicely to crash the financial system and wipe out faith in fiat money.)
Permaculture activists and thousands of other individuals and groups have for years urged people to consume less. Many good people have adopted voluntary simplicity, dropped out of the global economy, and built regenerative local systems. While this has immense value for the adopting individuals, and often ripples out to benefit the wider community, it hasn’t put a dent in the destruction by the larger financial system. New people are born or assimilated into the culture of consumption faster than people are dropping out.
Holmgren advocates more of the same permaculture activism, with little explanation of why it would now convince people in numbers thousands of times greater than in the past. He hopes the ever-more-obvious signs of imminent collapse will prompt a more rapid shift, but given our fleeting window of opportunity to act, we can’t bank on that hope.
Another Approach
Deep Green Resistance is a design book of what makes a good resistance movement, a permaculture analysis of influencing power and political systems. It arrives at the same conclusion as does Holmgren: we need to prepare for crash by building local resiliency, but the sooner industrial civilization comes down, the better. Its crash will leave the majority of humans better off short-term, as their landbases will no longer be plundered by the rich for resources. Crashing the system now will benefit all humans long-term, giving future generations better odds of enjoying liveable landbases on a liveable planet. And crashing the system now will obviously benefit the vast majority of non-humans, currently being poisoned, displaced, and exterminated.
If we truly hold as our goals halting ecocide and slashing greenhouse gas emissions as dramatically as Holmgren suggests, we must devise a realistic plan, based on a realistic assessment of our numbers and strengths, the vulnerabilities of industrial civilization, and how much longer the planet can absorb its blows. Recognizing our tiny numbers and relative weakness compared to the global system, and limited time before our planet is beaten into full ecosystem collapse, we must apply the permaculture principle of making the least change to achieve maximum effect.
The Deep Green Resistance book, as part of its strategy of implementing Decisive Ecological Warfare, examines more than a dozen historic and contemporary militant resistance movements. It concludes that “a small group of intelligent, dedicated, and daring people can be extremely effective, even if they only number one in 1,000, or one in 10,000, or even one in 100,000. But they are effective in large part through an ability to mobilize larger forces, whether those forces are social movements […] or industrial bottlenecks.”
Holmgren notes that it’s easier to convince a minority to disengage from the system than to spark a majority mass movement for true sustainability, but his plan relies on 10% of the population making dramatic change. DGR’s analysis suggests it’s easier yet to convince a tiny minority to take strategic direct action. The rest of the sympathetic population, whether 10% or just 1% of the general public, can provide material support and loyalty with much less immediate sacrifice than in Holmgren’s proposal.
The Movement to Emancipate the Niger Delta (MEND), with small numbers of people and meager resources, has used militant tactics against oil companies to routinely reduce oil output in Nigeria by 10-30%.
In April 2013, saboteurs in San Jose CA shot out transformers in an electrical substation, causing damage that took weeks to repair. The New York Times explains some of the difficulties involved in replacing transformers, especially if many were to fail in a short period of time.
We have more promising strategies available than hoping we can persuade 10% of the population to adopt voluntary simplicity, and hoping that will crash the financial system.
Conclusion
While I wholeheartedly agree with Holmgren’s analysis of our global predicament, and the desirability of crashing the system, his proposal for doing so seems ineffective. Certainly, we should work to disengage ourselves and neighbors from the global system, but we must combine building alternative structures with actively resisting and strategically sabotaging the dominant system.
Many people will disagree with the necessity of crashing the system, because they don’t think conditions are that bad, because they hold vague hopes that God or technology or permaculture will save us, because they fear that fighting back will increase the anger of our abusers, or because they value their own comfort more than the life of the planet. That’s fine; we can agree to disagree, though I encourage those people to further explore these ideas with their minds and with their hearts.
Many people do see the destructiveness of this culture, the inevitability of its crash, and the desirability of it crashing sooner than later; but won’t want to participate directly in bringing it down for any of many perfectly legitimate reasons. That’s fine, too. There’s lots of work to do, and a role for everyone. You can work on restoration of your landbase or crash preparation for your community while providing material and ideological support to those on the front lines. We can join together as “terra-ists”, with our hands not just in the soil as Holmgren defines the term, but also working with wrenches upon the wheels, the levers, and all the apparatus of industrial civilization.
Suggested Resources
- Endgame by Derrick Jensen, two volume analysis of the problems of civilization and the solution. Many excerpts available at the website.
- Deep Green Resistance book, laying out a realistic strategy to save the planet
- Liberal vs Radical video presentation by Lierre Keith, explaining the different approaches of these two different frameworks for perceiving the world
From Permaculture, Perennial Polycultures, and Resistance: Demand Crash! — A response to Holmgren’s “Crash on Demand”
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Oct 6, 2013 | Agriculture, Climate Change
By John Upton / Grist
When the USSR collapsed, the communal farming systems that helped feed the union’s citizens collapsed with it. Farmers abandoned 110 million acres of farmland and headed into the cities in search of work.
New research by European scientists has revealed the staggering climate benefits of that sweeping change in land use. According to the study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, wild vegetation growing on former USSR farming lands has sucked up approximately 50 million tons of carbon every year since 1990.
New Scientist reports that’s equivalent to 10 percent of Russia’s yearly fossil fuel carbon emissions:
“Everything like this makes a difference,” says Jonathan Sanderman, a soil chemist at CSIRO Land and Water in Australia. “Ten per cent is quite a bit considering most nations are only committed to 5 per cent reduction targets. So by doing absolutely nothing — by having depressed their economy — they’ve achieved quite a bit.”
He says the abandoned farmland is probably the largest human-made carbon sink, but notes it came at the cost of enormous social and economic hardship.
Modelling the effect into the future, [study co-author Irina] Kurganova estimates that, since the land has remained uncultivated, another 261 million tonnes will be sequestered over the next 30 years. At this point, the landscape will reach equilibrium, with the same amount of carbon escaping into the atmosphere as is being taken up.
The finding is a stark reminder of how Earth does a bang-up job of soaking up carbon if we leave more of it undeveloped and un-farmed.
From Grist: http://grist.org/news/abandoned-russian-farmland-soaks-up-50-million-tons-of-carbon-every-year/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Aug 4, 2013 | Colonialism & Conquest, Mining & Drilling
By Joshua Headley / Deep Green Resistance New York
“Sustainability” is the buzzword passed around nearly every environmental and social justice circle today. For how often the word is stated, those who use it rarely articulate what it is that they are advocating. And because the term is applied so compulsively, while simultaneously undefined, it renders impossible the ability of our movements to set and actualize goals, let alone assess the strategies and tactics we employ to reach them.
Underneath the surface, sustainability movements have largely become spaces where well-meaning sensibilities are turned into empty gestures and regurgitations of unarticulated ideals out of mere obligation to our identity as “environmentalists” and “activists.” We mention “sustainability” because to not mention it would undermine our legitimacy and work completely. But as destructive as not mentioning the word would be, so too is the lack of defining it.
When we don’t articulate our ideals ourselves we not only allow others to define us but we also give space for destructive premises to continue unchallenged. The veneer of most environmental sustainability movements begins to wither away when we acknowledge that most of its underlying premises essentially mimic the exact forces which we allege opposition.
Infinite Substitutability
The dominant culture currently runs on numerous underlying premises – whether it is the belief in infinite growth and progress, the myth of technological prowess and human superiority, or even the notion that this culture is the most successful, advanced and equitable way of life to ever exist.
These premises often combine to form the basis of an ideological belief in infinite substitutability – when a crisis occurs, our human ingenuity and creativity will always be able to save us by substituting our disintegrating resources and systems with new ones.
And by and large, most of us accept this as truth and never question or oppose the introduction of new technologies/resources in our lives. We never question whom these technologies/resources actually benefit or what their material affects may be. Often, we never question why we need new technologies/resources and we never think about what problems they purport to solve or, more accurately, conceal entirely.
A big barrier to getting to these questions is the fact that most of us identify with this process even despite the fact that it is causing our own dispossession. A high-energy/high-technology culture has produced a multi-generational dependence on the ability of this culture to “progress” from one technology/resource to another, from one crisis to another. Without this continual process, our culture and entire way of living in the world today would imminently collapse and be unable to exist.
Isn’t the very presence of this culture a testament to this ideology? What is the progress of civilization but the (forced) substitution of other cultures for this one? A substitution of biological and cultural diversity for assimilation into a monoculture?
The path of progress is the path of infinitely substituting cultures, technologies, resources, and entire species and ecosystems for the maintenance of one specific way of life, for one specific species – humans. In only a few hundred years, industrial civilization has circled the globe and systematically destroyed the very fabric of life that ushered it into existence in the first place.
Entire peoples, languages, cultures, histories, stories, artifacts, medicines, tools, relationships, species, and ecosystems have been conquered, destroyed, and erased to give space and priority to a monoculture of violence, exploitation, domination and endless growth – all under the assumption that this is, progressively, the best that we can do as intelligent human beings.
Here we understand how this culture and its ruling classes pursue the principle of infinite substitutability for the purposes of “sustainability.” To sustain our standard of living, to sustain progress and growth, and to sustain the industrial economy. The principle is based on the premise that if we allocate our current resources towards the research and development of alternatives, we can solve all problems relating to shortages in energy and raw materials, infinitely – there is no limit to human ingenuity and creativity to problem solve.
A major problem of this principle though, despite its title, is that it is actually difficult to apply indefinitely. As discussed in Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies, the marginal costs of research and development have grown so high it is questionable whether technological innovation will be able to contribute as much to the solution of future problems as it has to past ones.
“Consider, for example, what will be needed to solve problems of food and pollution. Meadows and her colleagues note that to increase world food production by 34 percent from 1951 to 1966 required increases in expenditures on tractors of 63 percent, on nitrate fertilizers of 146 percent, and on pesticides of 300 percent. The next 34 percent increase in food production would require even greater capital and resources inputs. Pollution control shows a similar pattern. Removal of all organic wastes from a sugar-processing plant cost 100 times more than removing 30 percent. Reducing sulfur dioxide in the air of a U.S. city by 9.6 times, or of particulates by 3.1 times, raises the cost of control by 520 times.” [1]
And for the most part, we already see this within the fossil fuel industry itself. Since 2005, global production of conventional oil and gas has plateaued – and has even begun to decrease in many parts of the world. This has forced the industry to substitute conventional methods of oil and gas production for extremely destructive “unconventional” methods, which have not only significantly increased the amount of expenditures required for production but has also increased its environmental risks and impacts.
We have to drill deeper and deeper for harder-to-reach resources, which are also dirtier and less desirable than their predecessors, requiring more and more processing and development in order for the final product to be sold on the market and used in our daily lives. The costs, economically and ecologically, are skyrocketing and the returns on these investments are marginally lower than their conventional counterparts. Eventually, it will not be economically feasible to pursue these resources either and more expenditures will be devoted to researching and developing yet another alternative at even higher cost and lower benefit.
It’s a vicious cycle that is turning the entire living world into dead commodities, and because it is based on a principle of infinite substitutability, it will never end unless we force it to stop.
Definite Sustainability
The principle of infinite substitutability permeates through our entire culture, beyond its usage by the ruling classes and fossil fuel industry. In fact, by analyzing the currently proposed alternatives discussed throughout the sustainability movement, we see that they are equally bound by the same logic – either subconsciously or consciously.
A typical conversation regarding a sustainable future will generally be backed by a few overarching premises: (1) our current society is inherently unsustainable; (2) we have the resources and technology to research and develop alternatives; and (3) renewable energies such as solar and wind power can provide enough energy to sustain current standards of living. Often, none of these premises are expounded upon, let alone critically assessed or challenged.
To even begin discussing sustainability in any definite, concrete way, we need to be clear with that we mean. Industries and governments routinely explain that the actions they take are concrete steps towards sustainability. But do we actually believe them? It’s obvious that the only thing they genuinely wish to sustain is their power.
So what does “sustainability” mean in the context of an environmental movement?
We quickly recognize that our current society is inherently unsustainable on the obvious reality that our society, in its quest for infinite growth on a finite planet, simply cannot last forever and is currently rapidly drawing down on the Earth’s capacity to support future generations of life.
From this conclusion, a useful definition of sustainability might be a way of life characterized by the conscious recognition of limits in such a way as to “minimize damage to the planets future ability to support not only ourselves and our posterity, but also other species upon whose coexistence we may be more dependent than we have yet learned to recognize.” [2]
In this definition, the goal of sustainability is not to figure out how to maintain current structures and ways of living into the future, but instead the goal is to figure out how to maintain the possibility of life for multiple future generations to come. These are two distinct definitions with divergent implications and goals.
When our movement is based on a premise that we have the resources and technology to research and develop alternatives, we are essentially distracting ourselves from the real problems. This premise, left unchallenged, supports the idea that simply substituting dwindling, outdated and destructive resources for more equitable, beneficial and progressive resources (e.g. solar and wind) can solve the current ecological crisis outright. At face value, it’s hard to see how this premise differs from the fossil fuel industry and the principle of infinite substitutability.
Right now, the energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) for nearly all “renewable” energies is significantly low compared to fossil fuels, even lower than most unconventional extraction processes such as deep-water drilling, hydraulic fracturing, mountaintop removal, and tar sands oil production. The industry can be expected to continue these practices until they become economically unfeasible or until the EROEI of these sources drops below that of “renewable” energies, a process we can see developing as some multinational corporations are already incentivizing this transition.
If we reduce our goals of sustainability to a substitution problem, and follow with a premise that renewable energies can provide enough energy to sustain current standards of living, we uncritically accept the idea that our current standards of living are acceptable and ideal for the future. Not only does this completely erase the history of violence that gives grounding to this way of living but also it ultimately suggests that this violence should continue in order to elevate the rest of the world to these standards.
We must fundamentally ask ourselves: are we trying to sustain our high-energy/high-technology standards of living (which are undoubtedly destroying the planet), or are we trying to sustain the ability of this planet to be conducive to all life?
The point here isn’t to state that we shouldn’t be looking for alternatives or working to build them, but that we should be careful not to fall into the logic of the dominant culture we allege to oppose. When our solutions begin to sound nearly identical to the solutions proposed by the ruling classes, we ought to be concerned. Perhaps the solution is not rooted in the substitutions of technologies/resources for others, but rather in the complete abandonment of these technologies/resources.
Will we find, as have some past societies, that the cost of overcoming our problems is too high relative to the benefits conferred? Will we find that not solving the technology/resource problem of our high standards of living is the most economical and just option?
References
[1] Tainter, Joseph. The Collapse of Complex Societies, pg. 212
[2] Catton Jr., William. Destructive Momentum: Could An Enlightened Environmental Movement Overcome it?
BREAKDOWN is a biweekly column by Joshua Headley, a writer and activist in New York City, exploring the intricacies of collapse and the inadequacy of prevalent ideologies, strategies, and solutions to the problems of industrial civilization.
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Apr 7, 2013 | Strategy & Analysis
By Joshua Headley / Deep Green Resistance New York
Talking about collapse can prove to be quite alienating. Most people quickly denounce those of us who start these dialogues as “alarmists” in an attempt to nullify all arguments and keep us safe from all evil and depressing thoughts.
An obvious reason to dismiss talk of collapse is that there are far too many examples of groups who come along and yell about the end of the world only for their “insight” to turn out rather dubious. But I don’t choose to speak out about collapse for the sake of “the end of the world” or to preach my morals – I bring it up because there are real, tangible limits to a globalized industrial civilization and this intrinsically implies there will be a peak and subsequent fall. This is inevitable and we cannot escape it no matter how long we choose to not talk about it.
No one can say absolutely when collapse will occur but we can say with a degree of certainty, based on current levels of complexity, diminishing marginal returns, and the latest climate science, that we are much more likely to experience collapse in the near-term rather than in the far and distant future. This is not meant to scare anyone into submission, religious folly, or isolating despair – it is simply meant to allow us to start seriously discussing our situation, its implications, and how to move forward.
How can we manage to proceed through this process in any meaningful capacity if we keep ignoring and denying its possibility?
The studies of complex societies and their subsequent collapses have fascinated archeologists and scientists for centuries – understanding the past can help illuminate our future. Industrial civilization has never been exempt from these studies. As another form of a complex society, questions concerning its peak and collapse have been around for quite some time.
In 1972, an environmental study known as The Limits to Growth used computer projections to try to determine when this peak might occur based on population growth, remaining non-renewable resources, food per capita, services per capita, industrial output per capita, and global pollution. Its projections estimated that by the year 2030, population would begin to decline following a collapse. This study was revisited last year by Australian physicist Graham Turner in which he placed the observable trends from 1970-2000 over the computer model projections and – (not so) shockingly – he determined that we are right on course. [1]
It’s worth spelling this out: our current situation is even more “alarming” – current emissions of carbon dioxide alone have us locked into a 3-6C global temperature increase within the next 30 years. [2] In half that time (or less), it is probable that we will reach global tipping points that will set off catastrophic runaway global warming, threatening nearly all biological life on this planet. [3]
To a certain extent, even though we continue to ignore and deny these facts in our day-to-day lives, we all feel that the worst is yet to come. Is it any wonder why “apocalypse” is incredibly popular within our consumer culture? We have blockbusters depicting burgeoning populations of walking zombies, machines conquering humans, vampires sucking the life out of every living being on the planet, and just about every possible “end of the world” scenario imaginable permeating our consciousness.
Despite all of this, we never force ourselves to think critically about the situation we are in, and a large part of that is because we live in a culture that rapidly produces legitimizing propaganda and misinformation at every turn. Too often when we do realize the state of decay we’re in, we force ourselves to consume and enjoy the spectacles to drown out our own despair.
Collapse as an apocalyptic nightmare is certainly one way of viewing the situation – it does have dire consequences that we cannot avoid – but the only results that can come out of that perspective are rampant anxiety, fear, and immobilization. We do not have the time to sulk and isolate ourselves from our problems any longer; we have to start seriously discussing what lies ahead. Make no mistake: this will not be easy. The task at hand is terribly daunting and it requires immense courage. A great first step is learning to understand collapse as merely a process and not solely a “doom and gloom” scenario of utter destruction.
Joseph Tainter wrote one of the most impressive and thorough analyses of this topic in his 1988 book, The Collapse of Complex Societies. He defines these terms as such:
Complex societies are problem-solving organizations, in which more parts, different kinds of parts, more social differentiation, more inequality, and more kinds of centralization and control emerge as circumstances require. Growth of complexity has involved a change from small, internally homogeneous, minimally differentiated groups characterized by equal access to resources, shifting, ephemeral leadership, and unstable political formations, to large, heterogeneous, internally differentiated, class structured, controlled societies in which the resources that sustain life are not equally available to all. This latter kind of society, with which we today are most familiar, is an anomaly of history, and where present requires constant legitimization and reinforcement.
The process of collapse… is a matter of rapid, substantial decline in an established level of complexity. A society that has collapsed is suddenly smaller, less differentiated and heterogeneous, and characterized by fewer specialized parts; it displays less social differentiation; and it is able to exercise less control over the behavior of its members. It is able at the same time to command smaller surpluses, to offer fewer benefits and inducements to membership; and it is less capable of providing subsistence and defensive security for a regional population. It may decompose to some of the constituent building blocks (e.g., states, ethnic groups, villages) out of which it was created.
The loss of complexity, like its emergence, is a continuous variable. Collapse may involve a drop between the major levels of complexity envisioned by many anthropologists (e.g., state to chiefdom), or it may equally well involve a drop within a level (larger to smaller, or Transitional to Typical or Inchoate states). Collapse offers an interesting perspective for the typological approach. It is a process of major, rapid change from one structurally stable level to another. This is the type of change that evolutionary typologies imply, but in the reverse direction. [4]
“Complexity” does not refer to a specific society and its ability to do “complex” things (i.e. medicine, technology, art, and music) nor the degree with which it is considered to be an “advanced” society. To objectively study collapse as a process it is necessary to understand “complexity” solely in terms of increasing levels of sociopolitical organization – a continuum from small, self-sufficient autonomous communities to large, hierarchically organized interdependent states.
This process of collapse occurs because complexity (at every level) is subject to diminishing marginal returns. Put simply, this point is reached when the amount returned for any given investment begins to decrease. This is not the same thing as stating that complexity (at every level) is not beneficial for a given social group or that its yields always decline – complexity is usually pursued for the exact reason that it is beneficial in some capacity. The point here, as Tainter suggests, is that societies very often
reach a level where continued investment in complexity yields a declining marginal return. At that point the society is investing heavily in an evolutionary course that is becoming less and less productive, where at increased cost it is able to do little more than maintain the status quo. [5]
Eventually, further complexity becomes too costly and impossible to pursue, and the society is increasingly vulnerable to collapse. Certainly, when we apply this analysis to the global industrial civilization we find ourselves in today, there is much to be concerned about and it is no surprise why many of us are so fearful.
This way of living (characterized by the heavy use of fossil fuels, massive urbanization, and the expansion and domination of nearly all of the earth’s land and people) cannot be sustained indefinitely, no matter the energy source. As growth continues, greater levels of complexity will be required to support the population and we will reach a point when the costs become too excessive.
We can already see this occurring in global energy production today, as we are no longer able to access cheap, efficient, or productive energy sources. We are increasingly reliant upon some of the most expensive (economically and ecologically) energy intensive extraction and production projects the world has ever seen – oil production from tar sands, deepwater drilling, hydraulic fracturing, mountain top removal, rapid and expansive clear-cutting of forests, industrial agriculture and fishing, etc. These are the productive processes of maintaining the “status quo” of industrial civilization
We will ultimately (via economic, ecological, or social collapse) be forced to live more simply and that change will mean the loss of almost all of the support structures and services that most of the 7 billion people in this world currently depend on.
Remaining populations must become locally self-sufficient to a degree not seen for several generations. Groups that had formerly been economic and political partners now become strangers, even threatening competitors. The world as seen from any locality perceptibly shrinks, and over the horizon lies the unknown. [6]
Another reason we tend to be so fearful of this drastic and rapid change is that we are significantly separated from the majority of the human experience. Industrial civilization itself can barely claim 200 years out of the several million that recognizable humans are known to have lived, and yet its expansion and domination within that time has left us completely alien to our own natural history.
When we perceive that all we have ever known is hanging in the balance and vulnerable to collapse, it becomes overbearingly frightening for most of us. But it doesn’t have to be perceived this way – what would we truly be losing in this situation? What benefits are we even getting from participating in industrial civilization today? It turns out that, if we understand that we have passed the point of diminishing returns, the benefits of this society are actually decreasing – and rapidly.
A quick glance at the current condition of the global population confirms this rather easily. Less and less people are finding work; fewer people have access to education, healthcare, water, food, shelter, clothes, etc.; states all around the world are “cutting back” and implementing some of the harshest austerity measures in recent memory; rates of incarceration are increasing at the same time that police all over the word are becoming heavily militarized; security-states are growing in size and scope; and political upheavals are occurring rapidly, even in surprising places under the most repressive regimes.
Conquest abroad and repression at home are fundamental aspects of a society’s ability to legitimize and reinforce the level of complexity in which it functions. But as it becomes more vulnerable to collapse (due to decreasing marginal returns), these societies are pushed ever more into militarism in order to maintain the “status quo,” control the population, and protect the ruling power of the elite classes.
It is actually within our best interest (socially, politically, economically, and ecologically) to put an end to industrial civilization. Because collapse is just a change in the levels of complexity – from a highly complex society that becomes infeasible to a simpler society organized at the lowest level sustainable – there is much to be gained. As Tainter reminds us:
Complex societies, it must be emphasized again, are recent in human history. Collapse then is not a fall to some primordial chaos, but a return to the normal human condition of lower complexity. The notion that collapse is uniformly a catastrophe is contradicted, moreover, by the present theory. To the extent that collapse is due to declining marginal returns on investment in complexity, it is an economizing process. It occurs when it becomes necessary to restore the marginal return on organizational investment to a more favorable level. To a population that is receiving little return on the cost of supporting complexity, the loss of that complexity brings economic, and perhaps administrative, gains. [7]
Is there, then, hope for our future?
To even begin addressing this question, it’s important that we understand what it is that we are even asking. What is hope? A definition I find useful is one provided by Derrick Jensen – “hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless.” [8] To hope for a desired result is to step away from your own ability to participate and actually create that result.
It is not enough to hope that those in power will stop the march of industrial civilization in a time frame that actually matters in terms of having a living and thriving planet and biosphere. In fact, the latest propaganda on the future of the United States’ natural gas production indicates the exact opposite of addressing the severity of the problem. [9] It is not enough to hope that the majority of the population will become consciously aware and join the struggle – people are most likely to latch onto (and defend to their own death) their way of life, even as it becomes increasingly obvious that it is in the midst of collapse. It is not enough (and is incredibly naïve) to hope that the future will be bright and beautiful and devoid of any hard consequences.
Complexity has allowed us to overshoot the earth’s carrying capacity on a massive scale and this brings with it consequences we cannot avoid. This level of global population is only possible because of industrial agriculture and global trade, which will both cease to function completely as industrial civilization begins to collapse. It will become economically infeasible to provide food and resources to the bulk of the population as marginal returns continue to decrease and costs skyrocket. The world’s urban poor are the greatest at risk as they are the most dependent on complex global trade networks for their basic survival. But there are things that we can do to materially improve our lives today and in the future – and we don’t need excessive amounts of hope or false securities to get there.
If our ultimate goal is to have not only a living planet – but a thriving planet that increases in diversity and life, year after year – then we need to stop industrial civilization before it destroys what little we have left of the world’s biomes and biosphere. Our resistance to this culture must continue to escalate in tandem with the severity of the problem. Our strategy not only has to be broad and more militant in order to be effective, it also has to be more reliant upon alternative structures and the re-building of just and sustainable communities.
After collapse, there will be little left behind to rebuild a civilization out of, or even enough intact land bases for most of us to return to a lower level of agrarian life. What makes our circumstances different from many of the great empires that have fallen before, is that most of our population does not have a village or smaller unit of organization to return to after industrial society. What is absolutely necessary in our cultures of resistance, then, is that we learn other ways of existing so that we become as independent of civilization for survival as possible.
As we will be forced to live in simpler societies, it’s important to remember we will lose many of things that define complex societies – such as hierarchical oppression, inequality, and centralization. We will have to be self-sufficient in order to survive and this will give room for more egalitarian, autonomous groups characterized by equal access to resources and mutual aid. A less complex society provides the space for richer and fuller lives. We have much to gain in this process. However, this will not be created for us and it is not enough to just hope that it happens – we have to mobilize to create it for ourselves and we have to be fully committed to our work no matter what adversities we may face.
BREAKDOWN is a biweekly column by Joshua Headley, a writer and activist in New York City, exploring the intricacies of collapse and the inadequacy of prevalent ideologies, strategies, and solutions to the problems of industrial civilization.
[1] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Looking-Back-on-the-Limits-of-Growth.html
[2] http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/world-on-course-for-catastrophic-6deg-rise-reveal-scientists-1822396.html
[3] http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0225-hance-permafrost-tip.html
[4] Tainter, Joseph; The Collapse of Complex Societies, pg. 37-38
[5] Tainter, Joseph; The Collapse of Complex Societies, pg. 117
[6] Tainter, Joseph; The Collapse of Complex Societies, pg. 20
[7] Tainter, Joseph; The Collapse of Complex Societies, pg. 198
[8] http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/170/
[9] http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/publications/weo-2012/
by Deep Green Resistance News Service | Mar 17, 2013 | Alienation & Mental Health, Strategy & Analysis, White Supremacy
By Joshua Headley / Deep Green Resistance New York
As a socially conscious person situated within the heart of global industrial civilization, I often experience, directly and indirectly, injustices on a daily basis.
A week ago, the NYPD (via two plainclothes officers) murdered a 16-year-old boy, Kimani Gray, firing 11 shots – hitting him 7 times in total; 3 in the back, 4 in the front. Monday night a large crowd began a vigil that would kick-off a week full of protest in the neighborhood – the night culminated in trash being thrown into the streets to slow down the riot police, glass bottles being thrown at officers from rooftop buildings, and the NYPD entering numerous apartments without warrants. Following that night (and for every day since) the East Flatbush neighborhood has been under military-style occupation with no less than three riot police on every single corner for more than 30 blocks. By Wednesday, the NYPD had declared the neighborhood a “Frozen Zone,” essentially affirming martial law by limiting press access and arresting anyone who did not precisely follow police instructions. One week later, tensions are still as high as ever, and justice has yet to be served.
This is just one example of many injustices that occur in this city every single day. The NYPD “Stop and Frisk” policy continues to racially profile men and women of color, funneling the youth of Harlem, the Bronx, and Brooklyn through the education-prison pipeline at alarming rates. “Crime” is on a steady rise, not as unsurprising as one may think due to the directly proportional rise in poverty among every borough and neighborhood in the city. Every day, more people lose their jobs, their access to food stamps and medical benefits, and every day more people lose hope for the future. In the last year alone, the city has seen multiple seemingly-random outbursts of violence– one man went borough to borough opening fire and stabbing pedestrians on the street at will; another opened fire near the Empire State Building after losing his job (while the NYPD themselves, in their attempt to “bring him down,” shot up to eight passerbys in their own cross-fire); and even a few people were, for unknown reasons, pushed in front of oncoming subway trains by complete strangers.
Subconsciously (and for some of us, consciously) we all know things are bad. Really bad. We don’t really need the mainstream media’s live Twitter feed to remind us of the state of decay in which our society functions. But often we ignore it – we do our best to keep our ear buds blasting noise and our eyes focused on the concrete to avoid any confrontation with reality. We say to ourselves, “I am a moral person, and I am responsible – I would never do such things and it’s really just a matter of educating and elevating others to my consciousness. If I lead by example, others will follow.” While one could (very easily) argue that this culture makes most of us, in fact, insane (or increasingly drives us to points of insanity), it still does take extraordinary leaps and bounds to get to a point in which we lose our morality and social responsibility entirely. I certainly know way too many socialists and activists who consider themselves to be The Most Moral and Just Citizens of the World™.
But, if that is generally true– if most leftists and activists do represent a moral high ground in our society, and our collective will for more social responsibility alone could alleviate the continually degrading human condition– why hasn’t it happened yet? Why haven’t those in power been persuaded to our side? Is this ultimately possible? Is it really just a matter of switching out the psychopaths that run our culture for more moral and responsible people? Will this result in the utopia of utopia’s in which all human needs are addressed and efficiently met thus eliminating all suffering? If not– if it really isn’t this simple – why do we waste so much time discussing it, and why haven’t our analyses and strategies changed?
Moral suasion as an argument and tool for social change is a bankrupt strategy. It not only falls short in the context of our current reality, it eventually becomes a counterrevolutionary force. Effective moral suasion is dependent upon the size of the oppressor(s). It generally does not work when applied to mass groups of people, and is generally only successful on a case-by-case basis with individuals and small groups. These individuals also have to be human beings, for the sole reason that to be persuaded they must have a conscience and/or an already existing morality (although it is pretty unlikely that an oppressor could ever have a conscience).
The reason, then, that moral argument is a bankrupt strategy for social change is because we are not dealing with individuals, small groups, or even solely human beings. What we currently face are arrangements of power through abstract systems and institutions of power (multinational corporations, nation-states, civilization, patriarchy, etc.) that involve large numbers of people that can be, and easily are, replaced. Our problems are systemic and no matter whom we “elect,” or choose to act on our behalf or for the greater good of humanity, the destructive nature of the system itself will continue unabated– acknowledging this is crucial to a radical analysis and a functional understanding of root causes of problems.
Many on the left, while acknowledging the various systemic problems in our society, do genuinely believe that if we switched to a more responsible, more moral society not based on greed or capitalism, that we will finally have the motive and incentive to create a sustainable and just future. The main oppositional force that prevents this change, so goes the argument, is capitalism – a highly inefficient economic system that funnels money, resources and power from the poor to the rich. It is therefore understood that it is capitalism’s social relations that create its inefficiency, and the hierarchy of its power prevents equitable distribution of its goods and services.
“We currently produce enough food to feed the entire world and yet millions of people die of starvation every year. If we change the social relations, and develop our personal capacities for mutual aid, we can feed every single human on this planet – no one would ever die of starvation.” Or so we are persuaded to believe. Sure, we can point to statistics of how much food is thrown out and wasted (in the United States alone, even) and logically come to a conclusion that this is a problem of distribution and efficiency.
Unfortunately, this type of logic fails to address the inherent “nature” of agriculture, industrialism, and civilization itself, which are all subject to (collectively and separately) diminishing returns and collapse. Ironically, these socialists, in their failure to question the given existence of these other systems, end up re-enforcing and defending the very processes they purport to oppose – a rather classic case of “revolutionaries” acting as their own counterrevolutionary force.
If this is the case, then here are some rather obvious questions we should ask ourselves: can industrial civilization and capitalism exist exclusively? Can we have a global industrial infrastructure functioning under socialism (even solely in a transitional phase), and still have a sustainable and moral society? Can we have our cake, and can we eat it, too? The answer: No. This isn’t only a fantasy – it is a seriously dangerous one.
For perhaps one could argue that certainly, under socialism, society would be more moral and ethical than how it currently exists under capitalism. But having a more moral society does not ultimately result in sustainability. These are two distinct (although highly interconnected) ideals. If our wish is to create both a fundamentally sustainable society and a fundamentally just and moral society, then we can’t forgive one for the sake of the other, and we have to start asking more radical questions about what this all might mean.
If there is one thing we understand about civilizations other than their rise and dominance in the last 10,000 years, it is that they are all fundamentally marked by collapse and degradation. Some last for thousands of years, some for centuries, but some (regrettably for us) barely make it past one or two centuries. The unifying processes here are the rise of cities, dense concentrations of population, the overshooting of carrying capacity, the limits to growth and the point of diminishing returns, and collapse (social, political, economic, and ecological).
Industrial civilization (i.e. urbanization, industrialism, industrial capitalism, etc.) is a specific arrangement of civilization characterized by massive urban centers and their dependency on machines and fossil fuel use. In its extremely short existence, just under two hundred years, we have seen an alarming rate of growth resulting in the hyper-interconnected global civilization of seven billion people in which we live today. The Population Reference Bureau describes this urbanization as such:
In 1800, only 3 percent of the world’s population [estimated in total at 1 billion people] lived in urban areas. By 1900, almost 14 percent were urbanites, although only 12 cities had 1 million or more inhabitants. In 1950, 30 percent of the world’s population resided in urban centers. The number of cities with over 1 million people had grown to 83.
“The world has experienced unprecedented urban growth in recent decades. In 2008, for the first time, the world’s population was evenly split between urban and rural areas. There were more than 400 cities over 1 million and 19 over 10 million. More developed nations were about 74 percent urban, while 44 percent of residents of less developed countries lived in urban areas. [1]
Megacities, as defined as urban centers with populations greater than 10 million people, have drastically increased – “just three cities had populations of 10 million or more in 1975, one of them in a less developed country. Megacities numbered 16 in 2000. By 2025, 27 megacities will exist, 21 in less developed countries.” This process of massive urbanization –unprecedented in size and scope – was made possible because of fossil fuel use, most specifically the “cheap” and “efficient” extraction of oil.
Because civilizations, in their inherent drive to greater and greater complexity, will inevitably reach a point of diminishing returns (i.e. when the amount that is returned per investment begins to decrease), they are subject to and defined by collapse. If the dramatic rise in human population was made possible because of fossil fuels (finite resources), it becomes crucial to question and understand when our civilization will reach the point of diminishing returns (peak energy).
The implications of reaching peak energy is a rapid decline in human population, a decline that will return world population to at least (if not less) the levels seen before the beginning of industrialism (a loss marked by billions). This process will occur whether or not peak energy is reached under capitalism or socialism, or a moral or immoral society. This is predominantly a structural problem – a problem in the way in which humans live on their landbase (a kind of social relation we often forget even exists).
As we can already see, based on our current dependency on energy intensive fossil fuel extraction (ex. Alberta tar sands oil) – at the same time of escalating erosion of soils, pollution of freshwaters, a rapid loss of biodiversity, and accelerating rates of biosphere pollution via emission of greenhouse gases – it should be a given that not only are we already past the point of diminishing returns but that the rate of collapse itself is accelerating.
Today, our current crisis is global and total in scope – our entire way of life and every living being (human and nonhuman) is hanging by a thread. Each day that passes, 200 more species go extinct, furthering a rapid loss of biodiversity. Each day, that thread gets thinner and the stress becomes even more unfathomable.
Current CO2 emissions are at 395 ppm – a level not reached in more than 15 million years. The time lag between levels of CO2 and temperature rise is roughly 30 years. Based on current levels of CO2 today alone, we are already locked into a global temperature increase of 3-6C over the next 30 years. An increase of 1.5C is all that is required to reach critical tipping points in which runaway global warming will occur, culminating in an abrupt extinction of nearly all biological life.
Each day, every single day industrial civilization marches on, the responsibility of action gets greater – but are we doing anything more than making sure we remain morally pure? Are we adequately escalating our actions to the severity of the problem?
There is nothing redeemable about this culture. Structurally, it is morally reprehensible – it requires massive amounts of violence (via conquest, genocide, slavery, repression, etc.) in order to “effectively” function and exist. There is nothing moral in having to steal resources from another group or landbase because your way of life is based on expansion rates that require more and more resources (from more and more places).
As has been said many times by others, the goal of an activist is not to try to navigate this culture and its systems of oppression with as much integrity as possible – the goal of an activist is to dismantle those systems. If we have a responsibility, as activists, to dismantle all systems of oppression and have a healthy, thriving planet for humans and nonhumans alike, we have to start talking more seriously (and radically) about where our problems come from and how to challenge them. This requires across the board questioning of everything we consider to be our “reality,” even when those questions get increasingly tough and hard to confront.
Where we go from here (and what we ultimately leave for future generations) is entirely up to us. If we are looking to be successful, the first step is (for once and for all) to throw away all of our bankrupt strategies and tactics. Our morality alone will not guarantee future generations will have air to breathe or water to drink. Throwing out one economic system for another, but not also taking with it its entire industrial infrastructure, will not stop the ecological degradation in any meaningful capacity.
Our time frame for effective action is rapidly shrinking and the longer we wait, the more destructive, chaotic, and total the collapse will be. If we have any expectation at all in not just surviving, but also repairing and restoring a thriving planet, we have to adapt a strategy that matches the severity of the problem. This culture must be stopped. We must dismantle industrial infrastructure, unlearn all destructive ideologies, and begin rebuilding genuinely sustainable communities as soon as possible, and by any means necessary.
[1] Human Population: Urbanization – Population Reference Bureau
