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You are reading issue #26 of the fully automated luxury communism newsletter.

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First of all, happy 2019! I decided to start this new year on a slightly different note. Since the energy composition underlying our society is key for its technological basis, I decided to explore energy transitions, and what it means for the left.



I also want to ask for your help: if you have good articles to share with me (or just general feedback) send them over to or via Twitter @AutomatedFully.

Every two weeks this newsletter brings links, snippets and interesting facts about technology from a left perspective. It hopes to spark a greater discussion among the left about the opportunities and threats that tech brings.First of all, happy 2019! I decided to start this new year on a slightly different note. Since the energy composition underlying our society is key for its technological basis, I decided to explore energy transitions, and what it means for the left.I also want to ask for your help: if you have good articles to share with me (or just general feedback) send them over to fullyalc@gmail.com

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Energy transitions and socialism

Bye... This was issue #26 of the fully automated luxury communism newsletter.



This newsletter and my own thoughts are very much a work in progress, so if you have any feedback or want to send me news stories:

Please let me know at: fullyalc@gmail.com or via Twitter @AutomatedFully



Also feel free to share and subscribe to the newsletter, which you can do at the Also feel free to share and subscribe to the newsletter, which you can do at the this link

I recently read (and posted on Twitter) an academic paper about energy transitions and social revolutions . The authors, which include some great names, note how social revolutions (revolutions which thoroughly transform society, compared to political revolutions, which simply mean a change of power) correlate to energy transitions.This is actually a great, and in hindsight a quite obvious remark. Humanity harnessing fossil fuels allowed the factory-based bourgeoisie to rise, and capitalism to break a human and animal-power based feudalism. Restructurings within capitalism also often correspond to changes in our energy mix. Timothy Mitchell for example notes how the transition from embedded liberalism/social democracy to neoliberalism corresponded to a transition from coal to oil as a main energy source. Class composition played a key part in this. Coal mines with their large groups of workers organised in powerful unions, and their support in the railways who transported the coal, were key forces in bringing about social democracy. Oil on the other hand requires only small amounts of highly trained engineers, and transports oil by pipeline. That the key symbolic battle of neoliberalism, Thatcher versus the miners, was about closing mines is thus no coincidence.So what does it mean that we need to transition today to a non-fossil fuel energy mix? If we do it fast enough to actually somewhat save our planet, it will probably mean an internal restructuring within capitalism, or a transition to socialism.Non-fossil fuel energy sources like hydroelectric, nuclear or renewable energy, if we want to combat climate change, will require a massive role for the state. Hydroelectric and nuclear for obvious reasons, a state is needed to shelve out the necessary money to build and maintain it, the private sector being too risk-averse and short-term oriented to either provide the capital for and the management needed to run a project that needs to looks decades to centuries in the future. (see a blog here about why nuclear projects are by definition state-based projects)Renewables don't necessarily do that, but because of decades of underinvestment in combating climate change, we will need to change our energy composition very quickly. On such a scale that, at the moment, the only actor that can pull this off is the state. We will either need the state to run our energy-base through government companies, or fund massive R&D programs and industrial investment programs in public-private cooperations (as for example Mariana Mazzucato argues for in her Entrepreneurial State ).And then we're not even talking about the the scale of investments needed to transform our transport and logistics network, and the associated infrastructure.So this will either require a form of socialism which mobilises collective resources on a massive scale, or a new phase in capitalism where the state takes the lead in guiding the economy. The vanguard of capitalism will also change in that last case. Today we are for example largely focused on market capitalisation as an indicator of value for the world's largest companies (tech companies are top of the charts there). But when you rank the world's companies by revenue , and not stock value, the top 10 is composed of:- Chinese state companies (because China is kinda big)- fossil-fuel based companies like oil and car companies- Walmart, whose logistics network relies on fossil fuelsThese two second categories have massive sunk costs in fossil fuels, and a green transition that is fast enough to avoid the worst of climate change could mean their decline as the vanguard of the current phase of capitalism. That vanguard probably being taken up by new energy companies in close cooperation with state planners.Of course most of that reasoning for me is still quite preliminary, so if anyone has any reading recommendations for me, send them my way.Some subjects to explore:- the social composition of workers in renewables. What potential is there to create a new carbon democracy ala Timothy Mitchell?- how the left can quickly and massively shift the energy basis of our society? And what effect will that have on our mode of production?- are we actually gonna make a green transition, within our outside capitalism, or are we just gonna mutter on in an increasingly hot planet? In other words: will capitalism stop renewing itself?