On Hiearchies and Elites: Part 1

For understandable reasons anti-elitism (specifically the form of elites are evil and dragging the world down) and anarchism (also anarcho-primitivism, what JMG calls neo-primitivists) exist in the peak oil sphere. Dimitri Orlov, one of the heavyweights in the peak oil sphere, openly supports anarchism and sort of shades into primitivism, see this sequence of his. This video displays elements of neo-primitivism in it and there are various other items around. The Automatic Earth featured one side of a debate, here is Ashvin Pandurangi's (Automatic Earth) side and here is RE's (from Doomstead diner) side, about whether a purge should be initiated against the world's elites. To frame this discussion I'll list some quotes that you can find around the web. I'll also repost them in the other parts of this series.

From Wikipedia Anarchy
"The evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker writes:

Adjudication by an armed authority appears to be the most effective violence-reduction technique ever invented. Though we debate whether tweaks in criminal policy, such as executing murderers versus locking them up for life, can reduce violence by a few percentage points, there can be no debate on the massive effects of having a criminal justice system as opposed to living in anarchy. The shockingly high homicide rates of pre-state societies, with 10 to 60 percent of the men dying at the hands of other men, provide one kind of evidence. Another is the emergence of a violent culture of honor in just about any corner of the world that is beyond the reach of law. ..The generalization that anarchy in the sense of a lack of government leads to anarchy in the sense of violent chaos may seem banal, but it is often over-looked in today's still-romantic climate.^[54]"

 From the Urban Dictionary on Anarchy

"Anarchy" arises from ancient Greek "An," meaning without and "Archos" meaning leader.
In modern political philosophy anarchy, or anarchism (the ideology which aims to create anarchy) is traced back, often, to Proudhon, and in particular his work "What is property?" - the origin of the still used anarchist slogan "Property is theft!"
Contrary to belief that "anarchy" is synonymous with "Disorder," anarchists generally advocate non-hierarchical, horizontal organization, typically through directly democratic structures. As such, there is a degree of common ground between anarchists and libertarian Marxists. Many anarchists are highly supportive of the practice of the Zapatistas in Chiapas.

In 1936, anarchists in the Spanish provinces of Catalonia and Aragon collectivized industry and agriculture, and established a working example of anarchy."

From the excellent blog View from Brittany; Impotence of Politics

"With the Neolithic revolution, our societies have grown far beyond what a single coalition could reasonably manage and have become fractal as a result. Modern societies are a hierarchy of nested coalitions all built upon the same model, from your average nuclear family to the G8. Inside those coalitions, everyone is jockeying for position and fighting for access to scarce resources. This the way all human groups work, even anarchies. In fact, it is far more brutal among anarchists – especially the Randite subtype – because by rejecting institutionalized power, they destroy the various social devices our species evolved to check the pack leader's dominance."

From Damien's (author of view from Brittany) response in the comments of Fascination for Death

"Ana,

I have glimpsed the world of the elites. I have had lunch with the man who has become the prime minister of France and my best friend gravitates around this milieu. I have the number of a senator on my cell phone... and I can tell you they are not Machiavellian, they are clueless.

They really think they can preserve the status-quo through green-washing and economic tinkering... and that it is the best thing for everybody. They don't think billions will die, because, you know, the system they game is so efficient that it simply can't happen.

As for violent revolution... both in France and the USA, today's elites have been born from such a violent revolution, so they really think they embody their values and that therefore, it can't happen to them. When lamppost day will come, they will be... indignant."

paraphrased From John Micheal Greer.
"no political system anywhere will ever be more honest than the people it governs"

Just to be upfront and in case you haven't guessed yet based on my choice of quotes, I'm in favor of; states, rule of law, functional hierarchies, having a society bigger that a single village, secularism and quite a few other things, as  superior forms of living and choices for the future. And yes I am aware of Overshoots effects and find this to be perfectly compatible with that worldview. Also, just because it is bugging me, sustainability doesn't mean being equitable, moral or just. You can have a perfectly sustainable society which is unjust (say it brutally oppresses religious or ethnic minorities), is ruled solely by the strong or it has big class divisions (in terms of wealth). Equality and justice are certainly good to have, but they don't mean you are more or less sustainable (except in specific areas). Basically, they are separate fights and an alliance on certain areas would be a good idea, like sharing the loss of wealth to promote domestic stability and the ability to transition.

We might as well start with Orlov and his use of Kropotkin, since he is one of the bigger voices in the peak oil sphere. Orlov calls Kropotkin a scientist, which he certainly was, and talks about how his observations on the natural world and various human groups lead him to determine that anarchism was the best form of social organization and that cooperation is both natural and more evolutionary advantageous than competition. His observations were most likely correct (these being that the anarchic groups delivered superior results), however his conclusions are not and I'll recount someones explanation for why.

Years ago (maybe a decade, can't remember which is why I can't link or name the article) I read an article in new scientist  that talked about the use of evolutionary theory to justify social systems. It started with the Victorian's who exclusively focused on the Red in tooth and claw aspect of nature and competition, then used that to justify both the existing class system and Britain's exploitation of the world, their observations were accurate, organisms successfully compete against each other. Here's an example of competition, some scientists (this was also in new scientist) were examining the fungal communication system of plants (sort of like a plant's internet) and they simulated an insect attack. One species would instead of enhancing its defenses start growing faster to exploit the attack and gain more resources, hence successful competition.

After the Victorians another set of scientists from around the time of communism (so Kropotkin is included) did in one sense the exact opposite while in another acting exactly the same. They exclusively focused on cooperation in nature and then used their findings to justify various social schemes such as communism or anarchism. Like the Victorian's their observations were correct, cooperation is both common and successful in nature. An example is human ears not being able to swivel, which probably means that early human tribesmen relied on each others hearing to detect danger, which is a good example of cooperation, among the more well known ones such as ant colonies etc.

However, both groups in their conclusions are wrong, for the simple reason that evolution is context dependent and they basically ignored each others work and a wider more meta understanding of evolution. Neither competition or cooperation is supreme in evolution, sometimes one is used exclusively but more often an organism will both compete and cooperate. Kropotkin was correct that competition and brute force weren't the sole drivers of evolution, but he was wrong in ignoring their importance. Neither competition or cooperation is the sole driver of evolution. Also as the article mention, evolution in the natural world is a horrible way to justify social systems or invent new ones. The main reason is that everyone who has tried has ended up ignoring data that contradicts their preferred theory (something fairly common in general). An example of this is saying either prostitution or homosexuality is wrong because no animals engage in those behaviors  and then ignoring that those behaviors are observed in the natural world, penguins engage in both for example.

Whether a trait or behavior is useful depends entirely upon the context and organism in question. Eyes are useless in caves and simply waste scarce resources while adding a major vulnerability, fur attracts parasites and is expensive, mating behavior (especially dangerous mating behavior) only works when there are mates around and so on. Competition and cooperation are exactly the same, which is best depends on the context and this can be seen just as easily in human societies as in the natural world. Human females are assertive and not drab (compared to the males), an incredible rarity in the animal world, which hints at intra-band competition in the past, but when paying bride prices or payments for damage down, an entire tribe/extended family can join in and cooperate. This also means that the social habits of say ants, deer, birds, horses etc, are not readily applicable to human societies because the contexts and organisms are incredibly different. Humans are sapient, have a very weak form of alpha males (one male doesn't even take most of the females in tribal life), are highly adaptive, very capable tool users and the females are assertive and colorful (think in terms of clothes). Those differences matter, especially when you consider the population densities and structures we can expect even after overshoot.

The way to examine in an evolutionary way the best human structures is to look at human societies, mainly through the large variety of tribes left because they are the oldest surviving human societies. This is what Jared Diamond does in his latest book The World before Yesterday, he examines tribal societies and contrasts them with each other and state societies. It's quite a good book and the conclusions he draws are very important. Here's a quote from Orlov's new book  "Their human populations are then able to come out of the vegetative condition to which settled, civilized existence has consigned them and revert to their original, nomadic state". The problem with that is nomadic behaviour under what Jared Diamond classifies as non-state societies is a function of population density, not of some innate human trait. Non-state people can only travel about two neighboring groups away before it becomes to dangerous and they are likely to be killed, so I'd have trouble traveling the next suburb down under that system. States on the other hand detach nomadic behavior from population density with such quaint concepts as law and order, the rule of law, a monopoly force and so on.

Missing from the book is the intermediary forms that would have been common in ancient/medieval times and don't really exist anymore (starting to come back in some weak/failing states). They offered some of the advantages of modern hierarchical societies but not to the same extent. Here's an example, if medieval writers wanted to say some king was a great law giver, one of the things they would say is that a virgin could walk across the entire kingdom without being raped. Under normal times a virgin (or almost any sort of female) walking across the kingdom without escort would almost certainly be raped and/or murdered. But you could go on pilgrimages and villages often had houses set aside for pilgrims, something impossible under a tribal system. Note: China was no different, I remember one of the mongol rulers (possible Genghis Khan) having the platitude above in his description. 

What comes out of Jared Diamonds book is a lot of things that can be used to improve our current societies, child rearing could certainly use an upgrade and beneficial additions to the justice system exist. However he also identifies traits of state societies that are beneficial, such as a low homicide rate, a lower death toll from war and definitive peaces. From his book, the !Kung before modern law and order started having an effective homicide rate 3 times that of the USA's, the first quote above mentions something similar and it is a trait of tribal societies to have a high proportional homicide rate. The average death toll for war in tribal societies is 1% of the population a year when averaged over a century, while in the state societies he examined the highest (including WW1 and WW2) state had an average rate of .36%, or a third of the average for tribal civilizations. Related is the end of chronic warfare since total war is the exception in state societies but the norm in tribal societies, it is often nearly continuous as well. Contrary to a lot of rhetoric, state societies are more peaceful than tribal societies, both in terms of war and murder. The ability to travel through an area full of strangers safely is another bonus that even in weak states is provided in some capacity (think pilgrimages, or the ability to hire local guides/escorts), today it is almost absolute in working nation states.

Noticeably lacking is any radical changes or insights from Jared Diamonds study, he advocates no large scale societal changes or completely new way of doing things. Compared to Kropotkin or the Victorians its quite simple, humble and barely says anything about changing society at the large structural level, his insights are far more important and relevant than that. The thing is, state societies evolved just like tribal societies did and are what humans have been observed to do under the conditions we can expect to become more common (as much of the world can be expected to have a fairly high population density). They are just as natural to us as tribal life is.  

Orlov mentions another element of Kropotkin's analysis which matches his own experiences. "His examples of communist production were the numerous communist communities that were all the rage in the United States at the time, where the numbers showed that they produced far better results with less effort and in less time than individuals or family farms.", Orlov mentions his experience with companies that anarchism works better. Now in these observations both Orlov and Kropotkin are most likely correct, at least for modern society and this needs an explanation. The groups mentioned are embedded inside a hierarchical, state system and thus receive indirect subsidies from the overall societal system mentioned above (law and order, ability to peacefully relate to unrelated strangers etc). The applied anarchism they advocate only makes sense as an embedded system inside a hierarchical system, since at the whole system level it fails to work due to being unable to provide many of the benefits it itself requires. Context is very important for these ideas and observations. It should probably be mentioned at this point that the modern nation-state is not the only form of hierarchical structure possible, though it is likely that at least the state part will remain for much of the world.

Now cooperation in most cases internally to human societies is better than competition (cooperation is however used as a form of competition between groups). There are important exceptions however, in the Discourses of Livy Machiavelli says that one of the main reasons the early Roman republic stayed free (compared to Greek cities the Roman republic rarely had anything approaching a tyrant) was because the Patricians (upper class) and Plebs (lower class) were constantly competing and that anacyclosis was best stopped by having all three forms of governments competing. It did not prevent it partly due to the inevitable breakdown of the patrician pleb divide (it was hereditary rather than based of actual wealth), also the stresses of empire building destroyed the republic and then bread and circuses did the rest. During his time these ideas were completely rejected, those aspects of Rome were seen as weaknesses (even by Livy, a Roman historian), but from this Machiavelli founded the idea of checks and balances, along with the separation of powers (executive, legislative and judicial) in political thought. Before, political theory held that unity was the best and any internal struggles were bad, such as the constant struggle between the patricians and the plebs.The experiment of trying those ideas (along with quite a few more) out has helped birth modern representative democracy, which has worked out incredibly well compared to other government systems. Competition is the order of the day in politics, and having competing ideologies helps to. Cooperation on the other hand more often leads to group thought and a failure to consider other options, not something which is particularly useful.

Here's the Churchill quote "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time."

Just to be clear. When JMG is talking about democracy, specifically Robert's rule of orders and the one that grew out of English tradition, he is referring mostly to direct democracy. Direct democracy can only really function on a small scale (at most a small city by our standards, about 50,000 people) and representative democracy is the modified form which can operate on a bigger scale. Machiavelli's concepts work on the representative democracy scale which was also born the from English tradition (about the 16th century) of direct democracy. At the time every one said they hated Machiavelli while copying everything he said in the prince, while the republican minded took on his ideas in the Discourse of Livy and fused them with a few other important things. Thus starting modern representative democracy right there. The American founding fathers were also greatly influence (John Adams mostly), so his ideas were listened to by very practical nation builders.

Due to this modern representative democracy isn't an accurate term, since it's actually a mixed government. This is important to keep in mind when reading older discussions on democracy. "I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long." by John Adams. He's talking about a pure democracy without the checks of a aristocracy or a dictator. Modern representative democracies have those checks as they are a mixed government and not a pure democracy. Australia as the aristocracy in the form of the senate, while America has the senate and the president as the dictator. It's one of the main reasons it works better than any historic form of democracy, for example the tyrants which do appear in a functioning modern democracies are incredible weak compared to the ones that Athens or other Greek cities had. 

So the question then for fostering cooperation (when appropriate) remains, is it best done by a lack of hierarchy or within a hierarchy. The answer is again, it depends. There are certainly examples of cooperation happening under anarchic conditions, people pulling together during disasters is a good example. However for a larger or long term response having a hierarchical organization is advantageous, otherwise problems appear. A good example of hierarchy fostering cooperation when anarchy only breeds competition is available, and for a society as well as individuals it is quite an important feature, that of warfare.

Tribal warfare is very competitive, even when cooperation would help. Tribal archers don't fire in volleys (except for one or two exceptions), even through it would greatly enhance their effectiveness, ambushes are hard to pull of because every warrior wants the prestige of attacking first as well as lacking the discipline needed. No strategies and tactics can be used because no obeys them and often fights just dissolve into slug fests or name calling. Hierarchical armies on the other hand are incredible cooperative, fire is coordinated, tactics and strategies are used and formations maintained. They idea of warfare being a team effort is entirely a product of hierarchies, without it competition is the norm even through it disadvantages the entire group.

Cooperation can be fostered by hierarchies, not always, but hierarchies do not always foster competition as quite a few radicals say they do. The same is true for anarchies. Remember the average casualties for tribes is 1% of the population a year, far more than state societies in part due to the cooperation of state armies (less massacres than in tribal warfare), so the inefficiency of tribal warfare doesn't keep overall casualties down, it could even cause them to increase because each battle has little consequence (one or two dead is typical). This also means that while future governments will be smaller and certainly won't be able to fight world wars, the casualties from warfare needn't be different, in fact they will most likely be higher, partly due to increased frequency and the pressures of different warfare types.

This also extends onto the meta aspects of warfare and the politics/policies that surround it. If discipline isn't maintained in troops, then chances are when they get the chance they'll kill a large portion of any enemy settlement they can, whether or not their leaders want them to. In tribal societies there is no discipline so they simply kill every settlement they can, while in state societies the majority (not all) of settlements are spared and settlements can surrender, something which doesn't happen in tribal war. Jared Diamond mentions this happening against the will of the leader in the tribal war he examines. Then there is the peace-keeping aspect of having some sort of armed forces and how that's used.

The Romans generally used massive retaliation, attempting to completely annihilate an enemy (see the destruction of Carthage), which since everyone knew about acted as a relatively effective deterrent. The other approach is flexible response, deal enough pain to force your enemy to negotiate, which doesn't act as a deterrent and could then cause more wars to be fought. Then there is the difference in how many wars are fought in a given area, so break up the European countries into smaller states and all else being equal they will fight more wars than if the states stay the same size, and likely each state will be fighting more wars as well (more neighbors to potentially go to war with). This would also likely reduce the distance most civilians are from a war-zone and if no state can easily conquer another, even more wars will be fought because no dire consequences exist to fighting them.

Remember, the point of aircraft carriers and nukes is not as it is commonly perceived to fight wars, but more often to stop them occurring. Showing the flag operations are almost entirely meant to calm local tensions down and avert a war or conflict. They are more often weapons of peace than war, even when by keeping that peace they allow injustices to continue (peace is not always good). Ignore these aspects of militaries, like a fair few radicals do, and you cannot understand how states relate to each over. Blustering and posturing can often fulfill a states goals just as well as an actual war, especially when the memories of war are lying around.

That's it for the specific criticism of Orlov and Kropotkin, now onto anarchy is more general terms.

Aiming for a Byzantium

While Europe will not likely end up as a new Byzantium (i.e. it survives with something similar to modern western civilization intact) and it is certain that the human world will decline quite drastically, that does not necessarily mean that Australia and/or New Zealand couldn't aim to be modern Byzantium's. There are major reasons why this is possible for both countries: invasion is unlikely or difficult, we're both partly insulated from the global economy (both due to tyranny of distance) which has caused our manufacturing to be less degraded than many other western nations and we have plenty of vital primary resources (food, uranium, rare earths etc.) for political and economic gain. While the global economy and industrial civilization is going to collapse during the next centuries, that doesn't mean all of it will suffer to the same degree. After all, Byzantium survived the roman collapse, Ireland was a cultural center (protected by England), when the Mayans collapsed the northern section actually gained population and some of the middle-eastern empires were replaced by a power center which hadn't decayed. So collapse doesn't necessarily hit an entire civilization, just most of it. Byzantium is odd in that it was a large section of the collapsing civilization (roughly half), while normally it’s a small or periphery part of the civilization that emerges relatively unchanged/undamaged. Australia and New Zealand are a small periphery part of Industrial civilization.

So Australia and/or New Zealand, using catabolic collapse theory, could only go through 1 or 2 rounds of catabolism and then reach a stable level resembling (not identical) to what came before rather than declining again. Now, this wouldn't stop the current industrial civilization in Australia from evolving into something else, Byzantium was not Rome (they spoke Greek) and went on its own trajectory, notably one without mass empire building. What instead happened is that the normal cycle of collapse then restructuring followed by collapse stops early, instead a small collapse happens that is followed by a long period of change and restructuring. This is something worth aiming for.

In terms of defense, there are no major potential sources for even major raiders external to Australia to attack our heartland, the main possibility for that is raids of new guinea or New Zealand, all which have serious limitations. The only countries close enough are New Guinea and Indonesia (and New Zealand + new Caledonia  but one is tiny and the other a current and likely future ally), both are likely to have many internal troubles, through Indonesia would be a major threat to the North Coast. New Guinea isn't a heavily coastal country; most of the population is inland and remember naval warfare is highly technical, even for raiders. Viking ships were quite advanced and the sea raiders that appeared during Rome's collapse had new technologies to help them. New Guinea, while its quite advanced in some things, like local organic agriculture, does not have the industrial or technical skill sets needed for large scale raiding of even Cairns, though small raids are a possibility. Indonesia is an coastal nation (mostly on the Island of Java), but is located in an even worse strategic position for attacking anything but the north coast and they have a big incentive to keep their southern border quite as we could retaliate in kind and destroy their ability to respond to their other neighbors, several of who have significant capabilities. They have several incentives to be friendly, or at least neutral, so that they can focus on the north, to countries such as China, Thailand, Malaysia etc, and protect the seas and borders that are important for them. This will only last while Indonesia is united, but until then it will help deter raids or invasions. If they become divided, less force can be projected outward but it is more likely to be projected. Yes, they could probably beat Australia in a war for the north coast in say 30-50 years, but only by sacrificing the ability to fight everyone else and even that isn't necessarily a massive loss to Australia given our population spread.

It does provide options that need to be discussed. Do we scrap the expeditionary parts of our military and keep only a defensive force, act like the ancient Greeks and provide elite soldiers (only viable option due to logistics) to anyone willing to pay or some other option such as a defensive land force (lots of infantry + artillery) with the ability to move it overseas (such as to new guinea). Do we build/buy a huge amount of cheap mines to place around the north coast to stop any Indonesian or Chinese aggression, note mines work just as well against civilian traffic (in fact better) than military traffic. So if mass migration does become a problem (however unlikely it is), minefields can simply be placed to stop any oceanic movements we don't want, since having any ship that tries explode is a good incentive to not try, or force the migrants to land away from important/hospitable places.  Yes, I have said that a mass migration is unlikely happen, but pragmatism is an important value.

Now Australia, despite a common belief isn't a small country population wise. Its mid-sized population; about the same as Scandinavia's (specifically Denmark, Norway and Sweden) which also about 20 million, 1/3 of Britain or France’s which are both about 60 million. It’s when it’s compared to Indonesia's population of 240 million that Australia looks small, but not to New Guinea's 7.5 million. Scandinavia is a viable power center (in Europe) and at one point Sweden had its own empire, while the Switz almost overcame their small population (currently 8 million) to conquer a Central European empire. When you consider that Indonesia is likely to break up, 20 million (or even 5-10) is quite a lot of people for a single country, especially once population decline finishes and our access to higher tech/skills is taken into account.  

On the link, sidebar there’s a prototype carrying capacity dashboard for Australia, go and play around with it. Note, read the question marks for food and climate; also, it’s a prototype not a finished product, so it doesn’t take into account climate change. If you press long-term defaults, carrying capacity is 9.5 million and if you then lower bio-fuel use to 75lt, it becomes 16.7 million. After that play around, find the worst case and the best cases. What I want to point out is that under many reasonable futures, Australia's population won't decline drastically when compared to most places on Earth. A drop from 23 to 17 million is only a 25% decline, less than the Black Death’s decline of 1/3, and when compared to the world’s likely drop of 7 to 2 or 1 billion, Australia comes out well ahead. A drop from 22 million to 6 or 3 million is the proportionate one Australia would face.  Heck, a drop to 20 million isn't out of the realm of possibility, it’s just rather unlikely. this comes about likely due to Australia being a 'new' country that didn't have massive migration waves and joined in the industrial world of smallish birth rates. One likely event to speed up the change  is the stopping of migration as Australia's population by itself doesn't increase.

Now, the difference is that overall population density is incredibly low. France has an area of 674,000km² for a population of 65 million, while Australia is 7,692,000km² for a population of 23 million (most of its desert). This is why we're resource rich and to explain the dynamics I'll use a recent example. In 2009 Australia used 946,300 barrels of oil a day, or .05 per person, compared to the USA who used 18,690,00 barrels a day, or .06 per person. If your wondering why our carbon footprint is so high, its because we export the good (and hence cleaner) black coal (Normally to Japan) and use the crap (and hence dirtier) brown coal for our own electricity, combined with several electricity intense industries, e.g. Aluminum smelting uses 24-35% of Victoria’s electricity which is produced from brown coal. In Cooper Pedy, they found between 3.5 to 233 billion extractable barrels of shale, if you've followed peak oil then you know how bad shale is and I’m going to use 3.5 as the recoverable reserves, but this is an example. Here that source would last 10 years, while in America it would last 6 months even though per capita consumption is similar (uses 2009 figures and assuming steady demand). While this is apparently good shale, it's still shale and so unlikely to matter a great deal. However, the dynamic works for other resources, especially Uranium (31% of the world’s economic reserves) which we don't use except for small niche uses. Black Coal is another example, if production continues growing at 5% a year, there is a 40 year supply, otherwise its 111 years (539 for brown coal), which is a ridiculously long time for overshoot. Australia can be a major resource provider because of that low population density, if our population density was closer to Frances, Australia's population would be just below a billion, then Australia would not be the resource provider it is. So when Zero Carbon Australia provides a fully costed plan that also includes manufacturing capabilities needed and resources (like silver), their several plans can be done with just Australia's resources. Also, remember that Australia has the best solar resources of any Industrialized country and doesn't need to use offshore wind like Europe does.

The lower overall population density does provide some problems, though not necessarily the ones Australian's have historically thought of. Since the low density is due to the land's inhospitably and not any lack of trying, most of the ideas of being swamped by Asia are unfounded. The distribution is more important and its lucky for us that Australia's coasts are the habitable parts and not the centre since that solves a great many transport problems. The low density makes Australia look a more tempting target than what it is to people who don't understand why its like it is, imagine a future Chinese leader who ignorantly thinks the north can feed lots of people. Otherwise it could in the future make extracting resources harder as labour replaces automation, mostly where people don't live and mineral resources are likely to be.

So, if Australia's government decides to prepare for scarcity Industrialism, that is seizing control of its resources for political and economic gain, a great opportunity is there. The mining tax was a weak version of this, a future adjustment is almost certain to happen, likely with a change to the carbon tax. And luckily, chances are that if Tony Abbot (current opposition leader) gets in, like GST it'll stay (GST was a labor idea, but the Liberals implemented it). Then there’s the carbon tax, here’s an Archdruid post about taxation, the carbon tax fits in the first reform. The Carbon tax lowered income taxes by raising the tax threshold while also being a resource tax. And in that lies the way forward. 

The behaviors and ideas that are helping drag industrial civilization down are by no means absolute and there exist factors which could help to make a Byzantium future possible. It would take a lot of work and as much elimination of the behaviors and ideas that aren't helping, but it is possible. The carbon tax raised the price of new coal power stations by $50 per megawatt hour (to about $150), so wind beats it clearly now by $63-94 per megawatt hour, so new coal stations are unlikely to be built and renewables are instead used. Permaculture and a few other organic agriculture techniques were started here, which will help implementation, and there are various small scale bio-fuel initiatives most of which are farm based and often farm used. Part of the reason my parents bought solar panels (it was also economic) was the idea that that's what good citizens did, could you expand that and include it with government conservation methods, probably. The focus on growth and the general ideology of progress does currently outweigh these factors, but this is where any change has to start and if a cultural/political consensus does emerge then a big difference can be made. It won't stop the first (or probably even the second or third) wave of catabolism, that choice was abandoned long ago, but it could shorten the downward phase and create a steady state society on the other end.

So if some public backing does appear and stuff starts happening, what actions can be taken? Lets start at the big scale and work downwards. starting with foreign policy and international trade. Currently there isn't enough uranium being mined to power all the current and planned nuclear power plants worldwide, the gap is covered by uranium scavenged from decommissioned nuclear weapons and the lowered demand due to recent shutdowns in Fukushima's wake, which will make it a sellers market in the near future. Australia sells uranium and doesn't use it (except for some research/medical reactors), it has about 31% of the economical reserves and is currently the third greatest producer. In this vein, a serious proposal is to implement a mixture of exchanges (uranium for oil or green tech) and inflating the price to buy the necessary transition tech/resources. Our isolation is a benefit in this since it makes resource grabbing invasions very unlikely and easy to counter (mostly mines). There is of course the ethical argument about selling uranium and this tactic may not be chosen because of that, but other resources (like rare earths) share this trait. Also increasing the mining tax, along with an extra levy against foreign companies, would be wise in this regard. Zero Carbon Australia has one fully costed plan that could be implemented with this funding and is creating 5 more for example, but there are other useful things the money could be spent on, like adapting the military, government buildings and infrastructure.

On the national scale, enhancing that vague feeling of good citizenship my parents had to a more potent and wide ranging force. Historical examples are the victory garden movement, America's WW2 drop in civilian petroleum use and the various scrap metal campaigns. Expanding it beyond solar panels to conservation efforts, local community heating + energy systems, organic agriculture (Permaculture has the advantage of Australian made) and so on. This sort of national idea's success would be measured by its effect on the local level, changes in state and federal policy (like building more trains or helping certain projects/industries), rather than any direct benefit it would create. Other things, like support for alternative transport systems such as sailing ships, airships and aerial rope-ways would also help. Another change on the national level would be to start using Major Cameron Leckie's ideas in the military and start using it to experiment and transition. Militaries can be a good test beds for technologies, so use that for reducing energy use and utilizing renewable energy in situ. 

On the links sidebar click on the Green energy bricks and have a look. Supporting local/state level industries and innovations like that, for those who didn't click it is a R8+ brick (super insulated) that's designed for quick and easy building, alongside the more traditional changes in agriculture (I.e organic agriculture) and basic manufacturing would put Australia well ahead in the game. On the state level, there was a good article in the Age (unfortunately I only have it in print form) on why the state systems are becoming dysfunctional, in brief a series of tax distribution changes that the constitution wasn't designed for happened and is degraded the whole system. Using this excuse to implement a new tax system better able to handle the coming transition, proposed by Herman Daly for one (among others), would increase the functioning of the Federal-State-Local system while also helping to birth the new economies that are needed. The states could also help by building more regional public transport (think V-line), rails for cargo and experimenting with alternate regional transport systems. Various new models for city design (new Urbanism, Eco-cities, Regenerative cities etc) applied to the capital cities, or for experimentation the regional cities, would help immensely since this would affect the majority of the population sooner rather than later.

Decline causes social stress and this needs to be addressed to reduce civil strife. Here's several ideas, use public housing as a test bed for good Eco house designs (low energy use, nice to live in etc) and building practices (like the use of CLT, see sidebar). Copying America's Conservation corps on various levels, I can think of uses for it at local, state and national levels (say building solar ponds in places) would provide a good labour force when unemployment rises and directly impart needed skills to the populace. Various inequality levelers should be employed as well, since excessive inequality causes quite a lot of social strife.

Response at the local level will probably be the most diverse and would benefit individuals, families and communities directly (most of the other stuff, while potent, is indirect). Increased insulation and retrofitting, energy conservation at the household level and access to local food, has to happen at this level. Politically it includes more funding for public transport, cycling infrastructure, changes to building codes and land use, and support for various initiatives (like local industries). Exploitation of certain resources is best at this scale; wood gas for cars, areas of high wind speed (due to local geography), micro-hydro sites and such, especially in rural areas where its more applicable. A rise in small economies of crafts, small farms, workshops or small factories will happen anyway, preparing support in the form of cargo-bikes, well researched and utilized energy sources and even oxen/horses where appropriate is a  good idea, it would certainly raise their resilience and productivity. 
 
 At the moment, the political and cultural will is lacking, but it is slowing appearing. Given time it would appear naturally, but unfortunately time is whats lacking. Here's an example, Getting ready for peak oil (due to problems in the party, the site may not always work) Update: Now they have a new site and peak oil is lumped under energy policies, the Australian democrat party is on the edge the mainstream and eventually the idea would make it's way into the mainstream and become part of the non-radical political landscape. Zero Carbon Australia is another mainstream group and while it doesn't focus on peak oil even a beginning of an implementation would help. Since that would happen over decades that the Industrial world doesn't have, we'll have to wait for some disasters to happen that pry the current hegemonic idea loose and allow something to take its place. If the concept of Overshoot and a response to it are present, the ideas expressed here could take shape in time.

Global Industrial civilization cannot be saved, that path wasn't chosen long ago. Here on the periphery, parts of it can be saved and the worst of the coming decline avoided. Remember, the goal here isn't to change the global industrial system, just the specific part the Australia inhabits.

Relative timescales

Collapse, when looked at from an overall long term perspective, looks like a smooth curve downward and with everywhere (and everyone) affected similarly at the same time. When you actually look at the finer picture, that is not true. Let's use Rome, overall the Rome empire fell, was invaded by barbarians, most of the central government disappeared and so on. So an overall view has that happening everywhere and it being in continuous decline. But the Eastern half survived, it suffered but recovered and Britain was very different to mainland Europe, it's collapse was in many ways more severe. The late Roman empire used a defense in depth system, that was all they could do, except where they didn't and could use the preferable preclusive defense or client state systems. It wasn't the same everywhere, and different areas suffered the similar affects at different times, such as the loss of pottery and writing. Some areas had unique events, like having cities surrounded by barbarians, which didn't happen elsewhere and others missed common events that happened almost everywhere else. Collapse is not uniform and since this is a global collapse, entire sections of the planet will experience it at different rates, times and events and even within these sections their will be divergence.

So, that leaves a question for Australia, what specific shape (in terms of time, rates and events) will collapse take here? After all, both Europe and America appear to be entering a contraction phase of catabolic collapse, authoritarianism (not necessarily fascist) is the likely end point for much of Europe if current trends continue and America, as the John Micheal Greer said, will likely become a bubble-bust economy and potentially face insurgencies/cross border raids. Here the crises that are affecting Europe and America are relatively (still present) minor and our economy is doing relatively well (due to China and certain banking practices). So immediately now, differences in the shape of collapse are apparent between Australia and the rest of the West. America, which is the top imperial power and with what could turn into a very hostile migrant nation to the south (Mexico) with iridescent claims, is in a completely different situation. Australia is a regional power that is allied to America, but has an independent military, with the potential hostile migrant nation (Indonesia) far away (Perth to Jakarta is5592.47km) from any fertile land in western Australia and across the sea but has no demographic support in Australia. From Jakarta to Cairns its 4396km and by sea its longer since you can't go in a straight line. So we can't use America as a model.

The Roman collapse doesn't really have anything similar to Australia's situation, partly because of the geography and in a specific way in regards to military. Everywhere in the Roman empire was close to somewhere else, even England was really close to Ireland, Scotland and mainland Europe (the English channel is 31-240 km wide) while Australia (at least the fertile areas) is thousands of km's from anywhere else. That's the main geographical difference, there are a few others. Militarily, Rome's 'vassals' states mostly provided cheap low quality manpower for auxiliaries, i.e. everything but heavy infantry (that was the legions), or lower quality troops than the legions. Australian troops in WW1 statistically in terms of capturing were twice as effective as British troops, so Australia provided higher quality manpower than what Britain had indigenously. Think of it like this, very few African nations have an effective military (see how many rebels it takes to beat most of them) which is closer to the Roman model (its still different) while Australia has a fully functioning military that can operate independently (at least locally) from America's though it requires support from the outside for parts currently.  So quite a few events that happened in Rome's empire (like the sack of Athens) and that will likely happen (or could be considered to be happening) in Africa won't happen here.

The effects on transport will be different. Australia is an almost entirely coastal nation, even if the practical definition of coastal returns to being within 5km (probably won't, changes have happened, more likely 10-50km depending on terrain), so the resurrection of sailing will dis-proportionally benefit Australia compared to Europe, America, Africa or Asia. Transport will decline everywhere, but here it will recover far earlier than otherwise and reach a fairly high level (relative to historical cases). This is a significant cause of different rates and times. Now, transport decline (specifically that needing oil) is likely to hit Australia earlier than other countries because of our remoteness and the impacts of that will be on a different time frame than in most of America, Europe or Asia. 

Destruction of civil society is highly unlikely here, due to our political systems incredible stability (part of its design), lack of nearby foreign invaders or conquerors to cause chaos or wreck institutions (like courts or police) and an effective military. Feudalism will almost certainly not appear because of this, since it only makes sense when civil society and rule of law has disintegrated. There also isn't a lot of (serious) anti-government rhetoric or feeling around, Australians by and large aren't revolutionaries, radicals or anything like those groups that are willing to directly attack the foundations of government. The government will disappear from some areas, mostly the outback, but its highly unlikely to disappear completely in the heavily settled rural areas and won't leave the cities without extreme problems appearing.

The collapse here will look very different than in the rest of the West, Africa and the East. The isolation will speed up certain things (such as de-linking from the rest of the world), the coastal nature will affect others and so on. In 2010 I read an article (unfortunately I've lost it) which claimed that Australia would become like Europe in 2012, which hasn't happened. The mistake was in seeing Australia operating on the same time frame, events and context as Europe, which it isn't. You can't say that because it happened there, it will happen here shortly. The inverse is also true. Australia is on different path than other places of the world, like how Africa, South America or Asia are. Later as collapse furthers, Australia will still be in a different position. Comparing ourselves to Europe or America is at best only marginally useful for figuring out the specific shape of collapse in Australia.

 Africa is recovering from colonialism and is in the process of forming viable nation-states, the cultural factors that caused tribes to hate each other are incredibly malleable and so far its getting better. It is certainly more peaceful (yes its still violent, but less so) that what happened in Europe, which is surprising since the process which took centuries is now taking place within a century. Overshoot might not actually stop this process, since neocolonialism's end will increase the resources available to Africa and while certain aspects of the current nation-states probably won't survive, like democracy, an African form is quite likely to appear. The East is also in a different position, with combat over water between nations, very close neighbors and the rise of a Chinese superpower. It is in the process of equalizing with the West and while it will decline as well, it is again on its own path.

Lets break up the entire process of collapse into sections. Think of these variables as a line that goes up and down, yes its abstract but it will help visualize whats happening, if you've read limits to growth then you've seen what I mean. The economy can be shown as one big variable, made up of agriculture, industry and service. Violence/instability can be divided up into external and internal instability. International and internal transport are also separate, with internal being divided up into local, regional and national. You can add a few more.

Economically, the graph will have an overall downward trend which will probably unambiguously start either near the end of this decade or early next. Depending on the factors of selling resources and how they change. According to the CIA fact book, agriculture currently makes up 4%, Industry 21.1% and services 75% of our economy. Obviously agriculture will go up, probably to an endpoint of around 50-60%, while services will drop quite dramatically. Industry is quite likely to also increase, not by a lot, lets say to 25-30%.

International transport will simply decline until stability has been achieved and sailing boast are widespread enough for it to start to recover. The problem is piracy and instability will likely make it quite hard to trade/travel large distances even if you have a sea worthy boat. Internal transport will decline and then pick up as sailing ships start coming back in large numbers, might still decline later on due to further economic and resource shocks.On the national scale, it'll follow that pattern, decline as air travel and cars disappear, then pick up as sailing ships (maybe trains and zeppelins as well) expand. Regional (so state or interstate) transport will decline quite far, small coastal ships will help and expanding use of bikes (cargo included) and velomobile's would help,especially in inland areas, here is also where any expansion of rail will help the most. Local transport will definitely decline with the automobile, but since almost everyone can walk it has a set lower limit, though horses or bikes will be needed in many rural/ semi urban areas . Bikes and public transport (e.g. trams) would help here the best.

External instability, e.g. wars, invasions etc, is unlikely to be a major problem simply from the vast distances from the settled parts of Australia is to anywhere else. It'll affect Australia indirectly vie economical affects. Internal instability, e.g riots, civil wars etc, is much more likely, mainly riot and civil unrest since a civil war would require a very different country.  A feedback loop is created with external instability creating internal instability or vice versa, say by a civil war stripping border guards which causes increased raids, so the low external instability will mean that internal instability will stay quite low.

That's a basic outline of collapse in Australia.