Leaking Empires

In continuation to; What happened to the mighty Empire?

Leaking or Bleeding?

The severity of the leaks (Wikileaks) for any government is proportional to the amounts of secrets they hold in their tank. Various governments’ efforts to stop it are also proportional to the sham that preceded it. It could be fraud against their ‘own’ people or conspiracies against the non obeying governments of other sovereign countries.

As long as you speak against each other, you can enjoy your freedom of speech. Me lord has no problems with that but if you dare to say anything against the mighty (Sovereign) governments, then you better run. Our lords (it could be O’Bama of the USA or Julia Gillard of Australia or even measly Sarah Palin) get upset with that. In olden days they could have hanged you in public. In not so old days, they could have assassinated you but we live in different times now. Super powers have to resort to sex assault charges to arrest a freelance journalist. They rate at which the might of these Empires is diminishing, don’t be surprised if next time they charge a journalist for unlawful parking, such as leaving the news radio on in the parked car.

dara@dhillon.com.au

What happened to the mighty Empire?

O’ Bama. All of your horses and all your men?

Where are they?

Can’t they stop the leaks? We know where all the mighty Empires of the past have gone and yours is no exception. Eventually they all collapse and go to their graves. No problems with that. The difference this time around is in the scale of your opponents. How a group of half a dozen persons, with not a single soldier on the ground in 100 plus countries, no Drones flying in the skies or any nuclear sub-marine in world oceans could bring could beat the crap out of all the world powers put together.

What happened to the mighty Empire? Please ‘do something’ to protect the land of liberty and freedom. Go and get him like old Roman Emperors but make sure no one leaks it to Wiki leaks. Alternatively stop doing things that require you to keep them secret. That’s easy one.

Life Cycle and Nirvana of Capitalism

End of cheap fossil fuels and collapse of Capitalism

Capitalism is defined as a political-economic system where all or most of the means of production are owned as private property. It is also a historical specific stage of development of socio-economic relations amongst human beings. It was undoubtedly most advanced economic production society by 19^th century and since then claimed the credit of enormous ‘development’ in many parts of the world.

“Show me the tools being used by any society and I can tell you what state of socio-political development it is in”, said Karl Marx, one of the most controversial political-economist off all times. He might have grasped and explained various historical stages of social development correctly but one his most divisive theory about the fall of Capitalism (and imperialism as its highest stage) and rise of Socialism didn’t turn out the way he predicted.

Marxist hypothesis was that capitalist system is based on exploitation of labour and its growth will alienate the vast majority of working class masses from the means of production and concentrate the wealth in the hands of a tiny population of capitalists. This, he argued will lead to clash between these two antagonistic classes and working class, due to its shear numbers strength, will eventually  win. There has been lot of skirmishes at lot of places between these two classes in the last two centuries with Capitalism in the winning league so far. At least that is the predominant view.

The final decisive battle of haves and have-nots may or may not happen the way Marx envisaged over a century ago but something else is happening without being noticed by majority of populace. It is the process of burning of the fossil fuels and its impact on the present and future of capitalism.

Fossil fuels are simply the solar energy stored as Hydro-Carbon deposits under the crust of earth over a period spanning millions of years. We homo-sapiens, currently the most dominant animal specie of this planet, have extracted and burnt more than half of the total fossil fuel stocks, especially the easily extractable ones in the last two centuries alone.

No one is denying that we humans are consuming fossil fuels at such a rate that can’t be replaced in our few thousand generations time frame. The only difference of opinion between various researchers is whether the left over stock is enough for 30 years or 50. This 20 odd years difference is simply because their computers don’t know how much Saudi Arabian, Iranian or Russian government is lying about their national oil and gas reserves.

This is not to suggest that there will be no oil or gas left somewhere deep underground in the next few decades, but it is to say that it will not be economical to extract it any more. In other words, we might need to burn two drums of oil to extract one. Very much like Ethanol production fantasy in the USA where they are burning tenfold quantity of fossil fuels to produce corn crop for each unit of Ethanol.

The stored quantity of fossil fuels is limited in nature by the physical size of our planet and the fact that it can only exist up to a certain depth due to temperature and pressure restrictions. Today if you know the fossil fuel reserves of any ‘developed’ country and its current consumption rate, one can easily determine the time left before the inevitable collapse of industrialised economy from that part of the world.    

At the heart of capitalism is capital wealth, which Marx defined as a result of exploitation of surplus labour accumulated by the owner of the means of production. It may sound logical on the surface looking purely at exploitation of labour.  Wealth is only created when labour’s output is more than its input, or simply when you produce more than what you use as input in dollar terms.

For thousands of years our forefathers were merely leading a life of survival, incapable of producing any surplus of their essential needs. Their entire capital wealth was mostly comprised of some stone tools and animal skin coat. There were some social divisions amongst tribal and feudal societies and consequently some unequal distribution of wealth but it was negligible as compared to accumulated wealth of contemporary societies. All this changed spectacularly in the last few hundred years. Our capacity to produce surplus increased hundreds of times over in the course of few generations.

Was it a result of industrial and technological revolution, conveniently proclaimed as a built-in feature of capitalism or was there another factor crucial in creating this production boost? When we analyse the current industrial production system from a different paradigm based on energy input, the common beliefs start shattering. We note that the surplus production capacity of any society is directly proportional to the amount of energy consumed by it, both animal and fossil.

The most fundamental laws of thermodynamics state that the energy can be changed from one form to another but cannot be created out of nothing. It also describes that at every transformation step, there is inevitable loss of energy. When we apply this law to observe any modern mechanised production process, it will be quite obvious even to the qualified economists, that we are playing a game of net energy loss. It is only when we humans bring ancient solar energy deposits to the party and use them in the form of coal, oil and gas in modern agricultural or industrial production, that it gives us enormous material wealth in the shape of food, houses, cars and other material possessions.

Era of Capitalist growth could broadly be marked between year 1775, when James Watt’s coal fired steam engine was deployed somewhere in mines near the city of London and year 2008, when staff at Lehman Brothers packed their personal belongings for one last time before leaving their famous office building in the city of New York. With world peak oil extraction achieved once and for all in the first decade of 21^st century and is in a permanent decline from here onwards. Very much like a retiring decorated soldier with lot of war medals on his chest but unfit for redeployment.

The energy released by burning this ancient stock of saved fuel was the prime-mover of growth of Capitalism rather than any magic recipe or formula of theory of capitalism. To test the validity of this hypothesis, one can conduct a simple test. (Caution: do not try this experiment at home, even with adult supervision as it could be fatal). Just do a mental exercise. Imagine living your normal life but without using any oil, gas, coal or electricity generated by these sources.  Anyone can do this thought experiment at individual, family or even at country level. You wouldn’t need a university degree to understand the severity of the situation we are in without fossil fuels at our disposal. In fact, more educated you are, more daunting it would be for you.

Extraction of fossil fuels and its burn off at the current rate is very unique to present times. It has never happened before and it may never happen again in the life time of human specie. In the process of creating capital wealth since the beginning of industrial revolution, not only we have consumed the past savings but we have mortgaged the future generations as well.

All of the known and well established benchmarks of superiority of Capitalism will soon fall apart in matter of hours. Whether it is our high standard of living based on imported consumer goods, choice of food procured from various continents, high rise air-conditioned steel-concrete office building or  sports utility vehicles, they all become obsolete the moment we start thinking in the direction of oil-less-ness.

Everything wouldn’t be bad though. There will be some winners as the state control fades away. The police can’t chase you everywhere without their fleet of super cars. For a change you can afford to skip your tax bills as there is no way tax office can enforce their rules without the help of police, sheriff or jail staff, most of them can’t even show up on their job without fuel in their car tanks let alone come after you.

Even the military can’t go too far from their bases to visit other parts of the world like Iraq and Afghanistan.  Had they been already deployed for the ‘noble’ cause of exporting democracy and human rights, there is nothing much we can do without aviation fuel but pray for them. They won’t be able to fly back home and may consider applying for Iraqi or Afghani asylum on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. The lucky ones may even get chance to marry local girls and have families there just like soldiers from the army of Alexander the great.

Many scientists and most politicians always try to provide solutions to any problems faced by their contemporary societies, be it Global Warming or Global Financial Crisis. In nature some problems simply don’t have solutions. Imminent collapse of Capitalist economy reliant on unlimited supply of limited fossil fuels is probably one of those problems. May be Collapse is the only solution. All we can do is to guess its timing and watch the spectacle.

It is not easy to imagine or predict how it will turn out once continuous growth based capitalist model collapses with the inevitable exhaustion of cheap fossil energy sources. But once it collapses under its own weight, it won’t be end of the world. It will just readjust to sustainable energy levels in the absence of fossil fuels.

The mainstream political parties of all industrial nations, capitalist and communist alike; have committed themselves to the path of continuous economic growth at the ever increasing use of fossil fuels and other mineral resources. Capitalism doesn’t provide them with any suitable tool to handle the situation where the GDP stops increasing from the last quarter. Torchbearers of free capitalism don’t like the freedom of markets to correct their past errors anymore then they like freedom of Banks to go bankrupt.

The noble laureate economic advisers tell their respective governments to adjust the throttle, pull some levers, tweak the fuel injector and it will be all right again; at least for the current term in the office. What they don’t know or don’t admit is that this time a minor service will not fix the car and they should avail another opportunity called ‘Cash for Clunkers’. One can recover from fever, a common cold or even a mental depression but I haven’t seen anyone recovering from death. My grand parents and all the generations who lived before them may be still trying to bounce back from death. No amount of stimulus can revive them. It seems that we have reached the pinnacle of capitalism and it may be the time for Nirvana of Capitalism.

dara@dhillon.com.au

Bankruptcy of Oil Based Agriculture

End of fossil fuels can Bankrupt Green Revolution

(This article was published by The Tribune on 24 March 2010)

‘Green Revolution’ was a phenomenon that dominated the developing countries since 1950s. As it was associated with increased food production which was believed to be the saviour of the world’s poor and hungry, not many people challenged its sustainability. Was it due to new inventions of crop varieties, chemical pesticides and fertilisers; or was there something else more fundamental that caused this boost in agricultural production?

Agriculture, like any other production process needs a certain amount of energy input to produce something more useful as output. One of the major portions of farm energy input has always been available in the form of solar energy. This is consumed by plants using their photosynthesis capabilities and the rest of the input was filled in by animal/human energy in the shape of their physical labour. That model wasn’t capable to feed 7 billion humans presently inhabiting this planet but nonetheless, it was sustainable. Sustainable system is one which over its lifetime produces enough energy to maintain, grow and reproduce itself.

Then with the availability of relatively cheap fossil fuels (hydro-carbons) and the farm machinery that runs on these fuels, the farmers were more than happy to switch to this new ‘Green Revolutionary’ system of non-renewable-energy intensive farming. This new model made farmers totally dependant on ever increasing energy consumption thus increasing fossil fuel content of our food chain. Fossil fuel (Oil) is simply the solar energy stored as hydro-carbon deposits under the crust of earth over a period of millions of years.

There are two factors worth mentioning here about the fossil fuels. Firstly, fossil fuel reserves are of limited quantity due to the fact that they can only exist at a certain temperature and pressure hence found only up to a certain depth under earth’s surface. Secondly, they don’t exist everywhere. Mother Nature did not distribute its resources evenly. She gave oil to Saudis but didn’t provide them with good soil or water. To Punjabis, she bestowed good soil and water but no oil. May be she thought it would be too humdrum if everybody was treated alike.

Farmers are mostly aware of the visible energy inputs in the form of diesel consumed by tractors or electricity consumed by irrigation motors. Beside this, a huge quantity of invisible energy is consumed to manufacture other farm inputs. Consider tractor for instance; right from the time of mining iron ore, making steel, shipping steel, transporting thousands of factory workers to manufacture a few hundred different parts in dozens of different cities, assembling and shipping a working tractor. All this happens well before the machine enters the fields.

The energy cycle is visible only when you start your tractor for actual ploughing, sowing, harvesting and transportation of the farm produce to the markets. Invisible energy cycle starts again when the farm produce is sent to the storage, processing and packaging to be shipped to the end users across the country or even overseas. Other farm inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides have energy cycles of their own. Pumping irrigation water either by diesel engines or electricity produced by coal power plants adds another substantial hydro-carbon foot-print.

Total solar energy received on a daily basis by our planet sets a limit to maximum photosynthesis capacity and thus set the maximum amount of food that can be produced sustainably. The only other way to increase production is to use stored solar energy in the form of fossil fuels.

If we want to continue practicing agriculture for centuries to come, also known as Permaculture, then we better understand the energy cycle, the soil nutrient cycle and the water cycle of the current model of agricultural practices. Are we consuming more energy than we are producing in the form of food crops? Are we returning everything produced on our land back to it? Are we consuming water faster than what is being replaced by Nature?

To answers these questions, one doesn't need a degree from a university. Put these questions to any number of farmers and almost all of them will make out the correct answers. They all know that soil nutrients are being depleted and only partially replaced by petroleum based fertilisers; ground water level is dropping in most locations. What they don’t know or don’t want to discuss is whether this fossil fuel based farming system is sustainable or not?

It is such a daunting thought that majority of us does not want to recognize the problem or even discuss it. Some of us acknowledge the problem but hope that someone else will invent a solution. The public discussion on this topic is certainly absent. What a dangerous fantasy.

The current model of agriculture is severely dependant on adding a huge amount of non-renewable and mostly imported energy in the form of diesel, petrol and gas. As we have consumed more than half of the hydro-carbon stock from the ground in the last century alone, oil and gas are set to deplete within our lifetime. Since we are fast heading to a post-carbon age, consequently the cost of hydro-carbons will increase many fold in the near future. This will have a multiplier effect on the production costs and prices of all food items.

No matter which political party you belong to and no matter how many Andolans or Morchas you put together, you can’t run away from this simple mathematical correlation. We can blindly carry on this path of maintaining or even increasing the agricultural production by tapping the remaining stockpile of fossil fuels until we finish it. Then what? Imagine for a moment, agriculture without fossil fuels. Can a farmer plough, sow, harvest, process and transport wheat or rice crop on a mere 10 Acre land? It is very intimidating for present day farmers to think this scenario but it should also send forewarning to population that rely on surplus production by farming community.

It would be naïve to think that government will do something to fix this. Their prime job is to keep the things as usual, at least till the next elections. It is guaranteed to maintain the status quo, especially if the proposed changes can cause decrease in production, consumption and therefore result in reduced tax revenues. Which section of population is likely to pay the price for this readjustment? Politicians might lose their hungry voters but they can switch sides, some government officials may lose their jobs but they might find a real productive work elsewhere. Ultimately, it will be the farming community that will face the brunt by losing their livelihood. They can’t leave their land and go elsewhere.

Farmers are the one who have no option but to change their operations from mechanised to localise organic farming. But how can we change the system if we can’t even perceive the problem? Like any other grass root movement you might have a small group to start with new way of thinking. Get on with localise farming practices and even start a local trade based on barter system and slowly become fully self-sufficient. Not depending on cheap fossil fuels and any sort of government help. The ultimate achievement for any village community would be to establish an Eco-Village; a complete self sustaining unit. All this might find resistance from the establishment; after all we are talking about Agrarian Reforms.

Most of us can’t handle too much reality and it is devastating when age old traditions shatter for whatever reason. At the same time, if you are not a scientist or a government official, you may have retained the ability to see things in a simple way. We can’t see the predicament of the current farming model and its imminent collapse unless we understand the short life span of fossil fuels and move away from intensive mechanised farming practices that solely rely on it. We can plan ahead now and try for relatively smooth transition or wait for oil to run out at some point in the near future and everything will change for us without seeking our advice. It is a harsh view but there is no easy way out.

Eating Oil and Soil – Imminent Collapse of Agriculture in Punjab

(This article was published by The Tribune on 4th Feb 2010.)

History of Agriculture is approximately 10,000 years old. This is when some of our ancestors changed their life style of hunter-gatherer and started crop production that required relatively permanent settlements which subsequently turned into our villages.

Punjab, thanks to its Aab (fresh water resources) and deep fertile soils provided a natural package which helped our past few hundred generations to have a sustainable harvest. They were not educated by famous agricultural universities but somehow most of them sustained by not over exploiting their soil and water resources. They might have to divide their parcel of land to smaller portions to their next generations, but the quality of parcels was maintained. Soil was neither poisoned with artificial fertilizers, chemical insecticides, pesticides nor compacted with heavy tractors and other farm machinery. May be they were simply lucky not to have electric or diesel powered tube-wells capable of sucking the ground water from such depths that it might need next few generations to live without water and give enough time to nature to fill up the ground aquifer again.

Then something changed in the 2nd half of the last century. With the emergence of world industrialization and globalisation Punjab farmers got struck with greatest curse, hailed at the time as ‘Green Revolution’. Farmers were led to believe that their land can produce more and more if they get rid of their bullocks and buy a tractor, not to dirty their hands with cow manure and use bags of Urea instead, not to waste time in sowing a crop for green manure or give a rest to the soil by having a lay year but go for intensive cultivation as suggested by the American educated Agricultural Scientists of Punjab Agricultural University. These advocates of ‘Green Revolution’ also advocated the heavy use of poisonous chemicals, mainly produced by multinational chemical companies who were offering scholarships to scientist prepared to promote their way of thinking. Some of these crops were not suitable to Punjab’s soils and climate and thus required enormous artificial irrigation compelling the farmers to install centrifugal pumps left right and centre, running on cheap subsadised electricity or diesel fuel. Sometimes they were duped to have free electricity in exchange of their votes, which encouraged them to cultivate paddy crop on barren sandy lands. It gave them an illusion of prosperity whilst sucking many of them deeper into financial debt. If my grandfather was ridding a horse, my father rode a motor cycle, I must drive a car and the next generation would obviously like to fly an airplane. To stay in that unwinnable race, inadvertently Punjab farmers were increasing the fossil fuel content in the production chain.

Oil (Fossil Fuels) is simply the solar energy stored as Hydro-Carbon deposits under the crust of earth over a period of millions of years. Human specie was unlucky to be smart enough to pump and burn more than half of it in just over 100 years. No one is denying that we humans are consuming fossil fuels at such a rate that can’t be replaced in few thousand generations time frame. The only difference of opinion between various researchers is whether there is enough left over for 30 years or 50. This 20 year difference is simply because computers don’t know how much Saudi Arabian, Iranian or Russian government is lying about their oil reserves. This is not to suggest that there will be no oil left somewhere deep underground but it is to say that it will not be economical to extract it any more. In other words, it might need to burn 2 drums of diesel to produce 1 drum. Very much like Ethanol production fantasy in the USA where they are burning tenfold quantity of fossil fuels to produce equivalent quantity of Ethanol.

Farmers all over the world, including that of Punjab, have/had a culture of not selling their farm land. They would rather add to their holding if possible and pass it on to the next generation. This is programmed in their genes to make sure their off springs have a better chance of survival and keep the gene pool alive. One should not be surprised to see a large proportion of court cases related to land disputes. Land is valued so high in mind controlled by our genes that one can kill his real brother for the sake of gaining an extra piece of land. What we did in the last 50-60 years was not in line with the rules of nature. We developed a delusion that we can control the forces of nature. Instead of acting as care-taker of land for coming generations, we started to act like Land-Owner.

So where does it lead us? Is there any hope of survival? Fortunately this entire mirage is coming to an end in the near future. The good news is that as much as multi-national companies like to sell their chemicals, fertilizers and machinery to toiling farmers of Punjab, they won’t be able to produce and transport all that without cheap oil either. Fortunately, for some of us, who haven’t been ruined by unserviceable debts, who haven’t sold our farming land to city developers and who haven’t started taking drugs to avoid the harsh reality, there is still a hope to go back to our pre green-revolutionary way of farming based on locally available resources. Rejuvenate our soil by adding organic manure and choosing sustainable cropping pattern not dependant on cheap oil inputs.

Natures’ court is very unforgiving to those who try to be smarter than her but at the same time she may consider an appeal from those who acknowledge their mistake and undertake to correct them. Lets all try to understand the importance of Guru’s following words.

“Pawan Guru, Pani Pita, Mata Dharat Mahat”.

Mass Education

Kids' Higher Education

Kids’ education and Higher Education. Every Mama wants her baby to go through this path, higher and higher. This phenomenon is common all over the world across different races, different countries. It is as common as a farmers’ desire to have more land, cattle sheep etc. Does it mean there is a universal driving force behind it?

Due to my personal experience, here I will use examples from Indian and Australian context. I have found the affordability may be different and the priorities may be different but desire to have a most sellable degree is very much common. Why would someone spends 10-15 years of their prime life if the rewards don’t justify the input? Is it always beneficial to have higher education or it is calculated risk? Sometime there are financial rewards such as degree in Medicine in a developing country can payback within a year or two. May be a graduate degree in anything is a requirement of a government job that can pay several times the effort and money input for that. Sometime there could be social status reward such as better matrimonial prospect for graduate daughter of a well to do family.

Secondly if we do decide to get educated, how do we pick subject of study or Institution of Higher Education? We will see a sharp contrast when we compare today’s choice of masses, which is primarily market driven courses from factory like mass production Universities and few generation ago when only few from elite/rich families were able to provide for their kids education. Back then it was not important what job they will get when they spend few years with their Guru (teacher) but what knowledge they have acquired be it military or political. Some were even above this and were sending their kids to study philosophy, music, literature or even religion. These days one doesn’t get paid enough to survive by pursuing these fields with the exception of religion.

May be the answer lies in the doctrine of mean. Practice one profession such as Real Estate sales or Stock broking for financial reward and learn poetry or gardening for mental reward.

Until next time….

Dara Dhillon

Happy New year 2010

I wish that I can wish everyone a Happy New Year. Life is not that simple. Lots of people will be unhappy if everyone else is happy.

There are approximately 7 billion members of human specie and I have about 3 billion good wishes in my stock. This means that I have to be selective in bestowing my wishes. Beside this, good for human being could mean bad for many other species but I will leave that dialogue for another day. Influenced by my ancient culture, I am biased towards the underdogs.

First on my list is Farmers of the world. Their land is shrinking, their water is drying, soil is eroding at such a rate that without my good wishes, they have no chance to have a good harvest for long. Coming from a farming family I know that we folks are very hard working but dumb(er) sub-specie of humans unlike our close relatives who choose a different path some 200 years ago to work for Federal/ Commonwealth governments or banks etc.

Second on my list are factory workers, especially of the US and Europe. Their standard of living is dropping faster than property prices in Detroit. But hang on; I have used all my 3 billion stock on the first item on the list so they have to wait till 2011.

List to be continued…