The process of collapse is increasing...

[Lord Beria3]

It might just be me, but I sense that the process of collapse is accelerating. Aready, major civil unrest in the Greater Middle East, bailout after bailout in the eurozone and inflation picking up globally.

Oil already above £100, barely 2 years since the financial crash.

So, on this basis, I suggest that the following is likely, much sooner than we realise...

1) Gulf unrest hits Saudi Arabia, big time, sending oil prices into the $200 - 300 range.

2) a severe collapse in confidence of the US bond market/dollar

3) Bailout needed for Spain, leading to 'contagion' of the rest of the Eurozone and/or the collapse of the Euro as Germany and its allies withdraw.

4) Bailouts will need further injections of liquidity, e.g. QE, e.g. printing money, leading to hyperinflation. This results in civil unrest spreading towards the developed world and China.

5) Desperate states in an oil market in collapse resort to ever bigger military interventions.

Or, to put it anather way...

The end result will be similar to the same Malthusian-era collapses analyzed by the cliodynamicians. An era in which surplus per capita draws to the level necessary for mere subsistence, characterized by dearth and famine in the bad years, and limited recoveries in the good years; a plateau that increasingly slopes down, until a series of severe perturbations (climatic disasters, resource wars, etc) so disturbs the world system that negative feedback loops take over and the entire system collapses into a prolonged Dark Age.

Ever more human effort will be mobilized or requisitioned by ever more coercive “hypertrophied states” to compensate for the effects of declining emergy availability (peak oil, exploitation of lower-EROEI energy sources, diminishing returns to energy efficiency, and the effects of credit collapse, resource nationalism, and geopolitics), falling agricultural productivity (fertilizer shortages, heatwaves, rivers and fossil aquifers running dry, rising sea levels inundating coastal farmlands, etc), and other costs accruing from exponentially rising climate chaos.

Those regions which collapse first, nowadays called “failed states”, will be taken over by neo-colonial industrial powers to contain the chaos and acquire resources to buy just a little more time for their industrial civilization. Physical output will plateau and stagnate, while real living standards begin to degrade at an accelerating rate. Eventually, a series of shocks – climate catastrophes like the conflagration of the DODGY TAX AVOIDERS or a “hydroxyl collapse”, poor harvests resulting in global famine and pestilence, perhaps even a final, total war of late global industrialism – will finally make the Machine give up the ghost. The collapse of fossil fuel availability will render usless most modern technology, everything from microchips to electric cars and photovoltaic panels. This will result in a political-demographic collapse of unparalleled severity that reduces the human population to below one billion souls within a few decades, ushering in a post-industrial “Rust Age” on a polluted, desertifying, and drowning planet.

http://www.sublimeoblivion.com/2010/01/ ... tatorship/

My idea of collapse is NOT a collapse into anarchy, but a collapse of the BAU system we have today... the idealogical belief in growth, the free market in key commodities and to a certain degree of globalisation. What we will see is the permament collapse of the bond markets, of freely tradable oil, of the multilateral systems of governance and international law itself.

[emordnilap]

I don't care what happens so long as you learn to spell 'another'.

[energy-village]

My idea of collapse is NOT a collapse into anarchy, but a collapse of the BAU system we have today... the idealogical belief in growth, the free market in key commodities and to a certain degree of globalisation. What we will see is the permament collapse of the bond markets, of freely tradable oil, of the multilateral systems of governance and international law itself.

That may be right, but I wouldn't under-estimate what a shock the loss of BAU would be. Growth paying for debt and interest has been BAU for Britain for over 300 years; it's hardwired into our culture and ways of thinking. Add to that the demise of cheap energy and the more recent consumer society, technological obsolescence, global supply chains, brand loyalty and hyper-individualism. Phew!

Assuming we avoid anarchy it would still require an ability to suddenly cope with permanently much reduced living standards. It's hard to imagine a soft landing. It's also hard to imagine the free market providing the emergency solutions or long-term investment needed. Though more free market is likely to be what we’re offered by TPTB.

Interesting link.

[Lord Beria3]

I agree that there won't be a soft landing. It will be hard, but not anarchy.

Expect riots, hyperinflation which will wipe out the middle classes, civil unrest, Great Depression levels of unemployment, huge costs of petrol/food and other imported goods, blackouts, rationing and severe perma-cuts in public spending once the option of buying on the bond markets close.

Taxes will still need to be paid, if you need to travel, ditto for petrol, bus and railway costs (etc) ... in fact expect most things to rise in cost.

The free market in strategic commodities will collapse... expect oil, coal and gas to become the preserve of governments, think Russian style relationships between the remaining private multinationals and the government, assuming they haven't been nationalised.

For the rest of the economy, expect a more brutal free market system, as the regulatory oversight of the public sector is decimented by the inevitable second and third wave of cuts in the coming decade(s).

However, to quote Lenin, the 'commanding heights of the economy' will be taken over by the State, covertly or overtly, which will include our bankrupt banking system.

It won't be anarchy in the UK, although a growing wave of 'failed states' around the world WILL collapse into anarchy.

[UndercoverElephant]

However, to quote Lenin, the 'commanding heights of the economy' will be taken over by the State, covertly or overtly, which will include our bankrupt banking system.

I think it will be done overtly, and by a labour government.

[Ludwig]

It WILL be anarchy in the UK. The clincher is the hyper-individualism (as EV puts it) that was instituted by the Thatcher government, and which the Labour government unconscionably refused to correct.

Of all the "rich" Western countries, the only one in a possibly worse situation than Britain, from a sociological point of view, is the United States. Even there, people are MUCH more pubic-spirited than in Britain, but to offset that is their even greater dependence on oil, the fact that their country is awash with guns, and the even greater lack of sustainability of their cities.

Just imagine what is going to happen when our currency collapses. It's NOT going to be a question of our gradually making do with less and less oil - it will be a question of one day having oil, the next day having none. What would we pay for it with - pebbles?

Japan is already in chaos, and it has an almost unimaginably more cohesive society than ours.

[Lord Beria3]

The transition from BAU/abundant industrialism to scarcity industrialism is not an inevitability. There is a risk that a developed nation fails to make that transition and yes it could be the UK.

However, to make that judgement call, we would need to look at the capacity of the British government, in a national emergency, to ensure that sufficient supplies of key resources (petrol, food etc) can be maintained for the bulk of the population.

The other question is the amount of time the transition would be needed. The collapse of BAU could take months, and the adaptability of governments will be key in that transition to scarcity industrialism.

Somehow, the UK government must ensure that a sufficient flow of energy carries on getting to the UK to maintain society.

Regarding society, I agree that the individualism, self-centred and lets be frank here, the greed of certain parts of the population is going to be a key problem. Again, in a emergency the government has options, literally, do as I say or get shot.

It might not be humanitarian, but it will do the job in getting Yob A to go working on that field of crops.

Personally, I am not sure if the UK can make it. I hope and assume it will, but a key problem would be supplying the cities with sufficient flows of energy and food to maintain law and order and avoid anarchy.

The military will be critical, imagine if the SAS and the navy seize control of the Libyan oil infrastructure as well as oil tankers and ensure that millions worth of sweet crude is sent to the UK, every day.

So to answer your question, we wouldn't offer pebbles, we would take what we needed. The realities of scarcity industrialism - brutal resource wars to sustain neo-colonial industrial civilisation.

[snow hope]

Does somebody flick a switch on the back of your neck on a Friday afternoon Beria? You filled me with gloom last weekend too!

My goodness we are deep into the oncoming 'dark age' these days...... but its sunny and the forecast is good for the weekend. I am going to go out and dig over my veg patch tomorrow and get some spuds and veggies into the soil, in the hope that the world may last long enough for me to eat them in the summer and autumn. Have we go that long?

(PS. Not trying to belittle you, but there is only so much gloom a man can take before he goes crazy!)

[mobbsey]

My idea of collapse is NOT a collapse into anarchy, but a collapse of the BAU system we have today...

Is honest anarchy any worse then the filibuster of the illusion of control?

Human society has always been in a state of anarchy, it's just that most times events move too slowly for us to notice this fact.

[Ludwig]

(PS. Not trying to belittle you, but there is only so much gloom a man can take before he goes crazy!)

I crossed that line three years ago

[Lord Beria3]

Occupational hazard!

Actually, I think it quite refreshing thinking of doom and gloom - there is a intellectual honesty to the process, cutting through at the corporate BS and staring frankly in the face the reality of our situation.

Of course, this weekend, like every weekend, I will enjoy myself with my 'regular' friends and 'regular' conversations. In fact, this is vital for my sanity, I have long got used to a kind of multiple personality thing, my normal (facing the world) me and a hidden, private and doomer me, which I try to keep away from society as nobody wants to know.

Have a great weekend sir!!

[snow hope]

I do understand what you mean about a dual personality, I feel very similar.

I lead two lives, one is a BAU life, which means a suit and business and managing staff and selling IT systems and solutions to business requirements, running a small company, blah, blah, blah. All very proper and normal.

And "the woodman" who has his secret stacks of wood, who grows his own vegetables, who brings trailer fulls of logs, pallets, any old wood that can be chopped up and burned. Who keeps stocks of various things (in case the end of the world arrives). Who talks about the problems of the world, highlights the vulnerabilities. Who does all his own work about the house and garden, etc. The man who fixes things when they break, instead of throwing them out and buying new.......

Come to think of it, I quite like being me.

[extractorfan]

It WILL be anarchy in the UK. The clincher is the hyper-individualism (as EV puts it) that was instituted by the Thatcher government, and which the Labour government unconscionably refused to correct.

I take exception to this line of thinking, it offends me.

I was too young to vote in those days but i am old enough to know that "the people" voted for the economics of self interest en mass, this is what the people wanted. We had clumsy ginger Mr Kinock talking a bit of sense here and there but he was welsh, and well...erm....ginger.

"We" the british people instituted this culture, and for all her faults, and ther were many, Thatcher honestly told us what we were going to get. And we said yes. It's our fault, or at a push, our parents.

[Ippoippo]

It WILL be anarchy in the UK. The clincher is the hyper-individualism (as EV puts it) that was instituted by the Thatcher government, and which the Labour government unconscionably refused to correct.

Agree, it's why (despite the problems), me and wifey want to leave the UK and go back to Japan despite the problems.

Japan is already in chaos, and it has an almost unimaginably more cohesive society than ours.

Japan is NOT in chaos ...... well, not yet. Problems, big problems yes, not chaos.

Hopefully, they'll wake up, see sense, and while the rest of the world is bobbling along the plateau see the danger and make the necessary changes to allow it to come through. I'm not hopefully, but more hopefully compared to the UK.

[dudley]

The end result will be similar to the same Malthusian-era collapses analyzed by the cliodynamicians.

Cliodynamicians rule!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cliodynamics