Energy, property, and the industrial revolution narrative

Abstract

The Industrial Revolution (IR) story is the core of a mainstream economic history narrative of energy/development relationships, celebrating Modern Economic Growth (MEG) as the increase in per capita energy consumption in the last two centuries. Such a narrative emphasizes mineral technology and private property as the key elements of growth processes. I will criticize the above narrative, from a socio-environmental history perspective, for its inability to account for two crucial aspects of energy history: 1. the role of social power as key determinant in how energy sources are used and to what ends; 2. the socio-ecological costs associated with the increase of energy consumption. I will then review Environmental History studies on energy/industrialization and highlight possible future developments in the field. The article makes a strong point for the need to look at energy transitions as social processes, and to include the unequal distribution of environmental, health, and social costs of mineral energy into global history narratives.

The Origins of Fossil Capital: From Water to Steam in the British Cotton Industry

“…For some aspects of the transition to steam power in the British imperial navy, see Malm 16. For an excellent overview, see Barca 2011. 17.…”

“…For applications of Wrigle/s theories, see for example Thomas 1985;Mayumi 1991;Malanima 2001;Malanima 2006;Sieferle 2001;Andrews 2008;Jones 2010. On Wrigle/s centrality and influence, compare Barca 2011. with two of the classical political economists: David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus. For Ricardo, a growing economy would lay claim to more land.…”

Defusing the Energy Trap: The Potential of Energy-Denominated Currencies to Facilitate a Sustainable Energy Transition

“…Aside from the fact that if the analysis was conducted with 2005-2010 prices, the result would have been reversed, it is problematic to assume that the depletion of essential factors of production for all physical economic activity from transportation to electricity and fertilizers is balanced by forest cover increase with a thermal energy content that is orders of magnitude lower and cannot be used directly for any of these activities. Barca (2011) notes the differences between conventional economic narratives as described earlier and the biophysical approach to economics. Frederik Soddy was perhaps the earliest economist to point out the physical incongruity of financial assets that have an ability to provide an indefinite stream of income seemingly superseding physical laws to which all other real assets are subject to (Daly, 1985).…”

The Money–Energy–Technology Complex and Ecological Marxism: Rethinking the Concept of “Use-value” to Extend Our Understanding of Unequal Exchange, Part 2

“…11 The essential role of fossil energy in defining the operation and environmental history of industrial capitalism has been reconceptualized by a number of researchers (Deléage 1989;Altvater 1994Altvater , 2007Hornborg 2001Hornborg , 2013bHuber 2008Huber , 2013Barca 2011;Mitchell 2011;Malm 2016). Rethinking the relation between energy and exchange value, and its transformation by the turn to fossil fuels, makes it possible to pose new questions regarding the intuitions underlying Marx's conceptual framework.…”