If industrial civilisation collapses due to climate change there is just not enough coal to reindustrialise so the human race will be stuck oppressing itself in feudalism forever.
There’s a theory that coal is a prerequisite for the industrial revolution, that trying to do an industrial revolution with just charcoal and windmills/watermills might be impossible.
The lack of coal limits the kinds of steel that can be smelted, which then limits the kinds of machines that can be made. The reliance on renewable energy limits the amount of power that can be generated away from fixed power sources, giving feudal lords unending monopoly over power generation rather than giving way to trade and private property and capital.
So, if society has to rebuild itself 10,000 years after a total collapse that pushes us to near extinction we might not be able to get past feudalism.
We have the capacity to create biodiesel and methane from sources that fully integrate into the carbon cycle.
Also we really shouldn’t be putting much stock into resource-based determinism. Coal was not a sine qua non for successful revolutions in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, or Cuba.
We have the capacity to do that now, with our current level of technology. The question is if we could have reached the capacity to do these things without first burning coal; a hypothetical world where we have to somehow escape from feudalism without coal.
And don’t dismiss steel. We’re only just now figuring out how to eliminate coal from the process, making steel just from charcoal using iron-age technology is technically doable but so resource intensive and the resulting quality of steel so low that it might never have been able to fuel industrialization. This then limits the extent of mechanization and firearms and railroads etc etc
It’s harder than you’re giving credit. Revolutionaries in the 1900s didn’t have to overthrow feudalism using guns made from steel forged with charcoal and milled on machines turned by water wheels. We really might have needed coal to get this far.
Good read. Of course these western industrial farmers are bourgeois and not peasants. Just want to add, that statistically most farmers protesting in recent years have been Indian farmers who have a different class character, and should not be confused with these western farmers. Not saying it’s all black and white, just that this analysis probably doesn’t apply for India, even though it’s where most farmers were protesting.
Indeed, with over 250 million participants in a single protest, if you randomly pick one human on earth who took part in any protest at all of the last five years, you’re very likely going to pick one from the Indian farmers protest.
If we are to dismantle the farmer class we must do so in a way which sustains urban populations. Beyond the longer-term objective of reconciling town and country, we are currently in dire straits and therefore must revert to crudities we would not entertain were our movement more buoyant: we must first and foremost become urban chauvinists who are willing to leverage the various mights of the city in an uncompromising struggle against the farmer political effort. We have a larger population, a greater degree of infrastructure, a higher standard of technology, and closer proximity to the halls of political power. They have agriculture. That is all they have and with this blackmail alone they intend to enslave us to their interests. They must be defeated or else they will fuck topsoil forever and choke us to death with the flatulence of their cows.
I’m not convinced of this persons seriousness
There’s a theory that coal is a prerequisite for the industrial revolution, that trying to do an industrial revolution with just charcoal and windmills/watermills might be impossible.
The lack of coal limits the kinds of steel that can be smelted, which then limits the kinds of machines that can be made. The reliance on renewable energy limits the amount of power that can be generated away from fixed power sources, giving feudal lords unending monopoly over power generation rather than giving way to trade and private property and capital.
So, if society has to rebuild itself 10,000 years after a total collapse that pushes us to near extinction we might not be able to get past feudalism.
We have the capacity to create biodiesel and methane from sources that fully integrate into the carbon cycle.
Also we really shouldn’t be putting much stock into resource-based determinism. Coal was not a sine qua non for successful revolutions in Russia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, or Cuba.
We have the capacity to do that now, with our current level of technology. The question is if we could have reached the capacity to do these things without first burning coal; a hypothetical world where we have to somehow escape from feudalism without coal.
And don’t dismiss steel. We’re only just now figuring out how to eliminate coal from the process, making steel just from charcoal using iron-age technology is technically doable but so resource intensive and the resulting quality of steel so low that it might never have been able to fuel industrialization. This then limits the extent of mechanization and firearms and railroads etc etc
It’s harder than you’re giving credit. Revolutionaries in the 1900s didn’t have to overthrow feudalism using guns made from steel forged with charcoal and milled on machines turned by water wheels. We really might have needed coal to get this far.
Good read. Of course these western industrial farmers are bourgeois and not peasants. Just want to add, that statistically most farmers protesting in recent years have been Indian farmers who have a different class character, and should not be confused with these western farmers. Not saying it’s all black and white, just that this analysis probably doesn’t apply for India, even though it’s where most farmers were protesting.
Indeed, with over 250 million participants in a single protest, if you randomly pick one human on earth who took part in any protest at all of the last five years, you’re very likely going to pick one from the Indian farmers protest.
This article goes hard, thanks for sharing I look forward to reading more from “Vaunted Homosexual”
Hell yeah dude I thought I was getting rude enough to steel myself for class struggle but clearly I am far too hinged, I will redouble my efforts.
the only thing they have is <checks notes> all food production
calling farm owners “food producers” is like calling landlords “housing providers”