The “bad news” is that “peak oil” marks the beginning of the end of capitalism and market politics because many decades of declining “net energy” [1] will result in many decades of declining economic activity. And since capitalism can’t run backwards, a new method of distributing goods and services must be found. The “good news” is that our “market system” is fantastically inefficient! Americans could be wasting something like two billion tonnes of oil equivalent per year!!
In order to avoid anarchy, rebellion, civil war and global nuclear conflict, Americans must force a fundamental change in our political environment. We can keep the same political structures and people, but must totally eliminate special interests from our political environment. A careful review of the progressive assault on laissez faire constitutionalism and neoclassical economics, from the 1880s through the 1930s, explains how this can be done legally and without violence. These early progressives showed how we can save our country. All that is lacking now is the political will. I call this adjustment of our political environment “America 2.0.”
The reason that America 2.0 is so important and should be implemented first is because it’s “meta politics” (politics about politics). The modification that I am proposing would fundamentally alter the nature of politics in America.
To achieve America 2.0, we must first separate and isolate our political system from our economic system so that government can begin to actually address and solve societal problems rather than merely catering to corporate interests. The second step is to retire most working American citizens with an annuity sufficient for health and happiness, as government begins to eliminate the current enormous waste of vital resources by delivering goods and services directly. This would allow most adults to stay at home with their families but still receive the goods and services they need to enjoy life.
After America 2.0 has been implemented, all the choices made by elected officials will be, by best calculations, “good” for the public. Officials will decide among a selection of public “goods.” Corporations will become the public servants that they were before 1860.
1. Business-as-usual depends upon jobs and markets to distribute goods and services.
2. Economic growth and increasing job availability require increasing net energy.
3. Net energy correlates with peak oil and both are expected to decrease for decades.
Decades of decreasing net energy will cause job opportunities to decrease for decades because less and less energy will be available for economic development.
5. Globally, millions of new workers enter the job market each year, but job availability is expected to decline by millions of positions each year. Eventually, the projected high unemployment among young men will cause catastrophic political failures
Therefore, business-as-usual is no longer a viable method of distributing goods and services and a new method must be found
