Small is Beautiful: The 40 Year Update

"The Wealth of Nature" is another tour de force by John Michael Greer, the independent scholar and Archdruid who authored books on everything from the Hermetic kabbalah to peak oil. This particular book is similar in many ways to "The Long Descent", which is probably Greer's most important work (unless you like kabbalah!).

"The Wealth of Nature" is explicitly inspired by E. F. Schumacher's "Small is beautiful". Like his mentor, Greer calls for a radical "greening" of economics, making a sharp distinction between three different economies. The primary economy is Nature itself, with all its energy sources, including the non-renewable ones. The secondary economy consists of the actual goods and services produced and consumed, while money (so seemingly all-important) are relegated to the tertiary economy.

While the book is too short to present a fully-fledged "economic theory", it's clear that Greer sees the economic crises of modern civilization to be ultimately driven by a disconnect between the three sectors, especially between the primary and the tertiary economy. The system uses up or squanders enormous quantities of non-renewable energy sources, oil in particular, all the while the money economy becomes both more parasitical and more illusory. Attempts to solve the crisis by flooding the economy with cheap credit might make sense if energy is still abundant, but in a post-peak world, it simply makes matters worse.

Greer doesn't believe that our economic system is viable, and predicts its gradual decline and collapse as people will be forced to revert to more self-reliant lifestyles, family-based production of basic foodstuffs and much lower salaries. Governments and corporations would have to give up many complex, machine- and energy-dependent systems. Goodbye, Internet! As the decline continues, both industry and agriculture will become more dependent on human labour. Wars, famines and hyper-inflation are the unfortunate waves of the future.

The author doesn't believe that our current predicament can be solved by alternative sources of energy. Renewable sources such as wind and solar power simply cannot generate enough energy to replace oil, coal and gas. Besides, it takes huge investments - and a lot of oil - to build a gigantic power grid for alternative energy, something our faltering economies probably cannot afford in the first place. For similar reasons, nuclear power (including fusion) aren't viable options in the long run either. The bottom line is: we have squandered the fossil fuels in just 300 years, and now have to live out the consequences.

Just like Schumacher, Greer seems to vacillate between a kind of pseudo-socialist solutions, and more forthrightly "Green" ones. At one point, he calls for tighter regulation of the national economy by the government, including the "killing" of dangerous, cheating corporations. Greer believes that such a program is perfectly feasible in a crisis situation, being implemented by "emergency coalitions" and "charismatic governments". He points to Putin's fight with the oligarchs as an example of what happens if the state decides to play hardball with the business community. The state wins. I was somewhat surprised by this section, since Greer in other contexts rather talk about grassroots democracy (or at least some kind of Jeffersonian democracy) and resilient local communities.

As already mentioned, Greer has a tendency to repeat the same points in his books, but for those who want to dwell more than causally on the points raised by peak oil, "The Wealth of Nature" is a good complement to "The Long Descent".