Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil
Timothy Mitchell (London and New York: Verso, 2012) Timothy Mitchell, in his book ‘Carbon Democracy’, ventures into a very broad and interesting area of democratic struggles as reflected largely in the transitioning from coal to oil as a primary source of fuel for industries in essentially already industrialized countries. In other words, the author primarily argues that the production, acquisition of energy and the emergence of democratic politics are inextricably linked. The author starts with a thought-provoking, but necessarily curious opening: “Fossil fuels helped create both the possibility of modern democracy and its limits” (1). I call this opening thought-provoking because it sort …show more content…
Thus, coal miners and railway workers especially were capable of making their requests heeded largely because they were in such state of possessing considerable influence, fundamentally, on energy generation and transportation. Every step involved in the coal business---mining, loading, transportation, and consumption---was susceptible to sabotage. Therefore, Mitchell argues that coal was the vital link between industrialization and mass democratization as a socio-technical agency was vested in the workers. However, the discovery and exploitation of oil by the end of the 20th century was a negative response to the amalgamated power of coal miners, railway workers, and longshoremen because it meant reduced interruptions of energy circulation via strikes as oil could be extracted and distributed without human involvement: “In fact, oil pipelines were invented as a means of reducing the ability of humans to interrupt the flow of energy” (36). Thus, Mitchell illustrates that “the rise of reorganized fossil-fuel networks in ways that were to alter the mechanics of democracy”. Fossils, in this sense, were endowed with such powerful influence (socio-political agency) in impacting humans and …show more content…
He moves on to talk about the history of oil in the Middle East: a crucial place in the development of ‘oil democracy’ in Western states. That a very large quantity of oil was found in the Middle East coupled with the fact that oil was readily transportable by tankers across continents, “menacing the world with additional supplies,” as Mitchell puts it, grossly disempowered workers in the West. Mitchell mentions that “large companies turned their attention to the Middle East” (47) certainly because, in addition to their ‘nurtured colonial interest’, the companies were afraid that rival oil producing sites in the Middle East would intensify foreign competition: “The greatest danger lay in the Middle East, where oil companies knew of several potential sites” (47). According to Mitchell, the companies’ plans to help especially Iraq build transportation networks was a deceitful scheme in their goal to “sabotage the production of oil” (47) and propagate oil scarcity. They, similarly, acted in the same vein as the coal miners and workers in trying to curtail the plenitude of oil since it affected global oil prices and market value. Also, Diana Davis’ idea of the ‘declensionist environmental narrative’: the use of false evidenced-based narratives by the French and British colonialists to rationalize and champion imperialism seems to apply in some ways here too. However, Mitchell also
Timothy Mitchell (London and New York: Verso, 2012) Timothy Mitchell, in his book ‘Carbon Democracy’, ventures into a very broad and interesting area of democratic struggles as reflected largely in the transitioning from coal to oil as a primary source of fuel for industries in essentially already industrialized countries. In other words, the author primarily argues that the production, acquisition of energy and the emergence of democratic politics are inextricably linked. The author starts with a thought-provoking, but necessarily curious opening: “Fossil fuels helped create both the possibility of modern democracy and its limits” (1). I call this opening thought-provoking because it sort …show more content…
Thus, coal miners and railway workers especially were capable of making their requests heeded largely because they were in such state of possessing considerable influence, fundamentally, on energy generation and transportation. Every step involved in the coal business---mining, loading, transportation, and consumption---was susceptible to sabotage. Therefore, Mitchell argues that coal was the vital link between industrialization and mass democratization as a socio-technical agency was vested in the workers. However, the discovery and exploitation of oil by the end of the 20th century was a negative response to the amalgamated power of coal miners, railway workers, and longshoremen because it meant reduced interruptions of energy circulation via strikes as oil could be extracted and distributed without human involvement: “In fact, oil pipelines were invented as a means of reducing the ability of humans to interrupt the flow of energy” (36). Thus, Mitchell illustrates that “the rise of reorganized fossil-fuel networks in ways that were to alter the mechanics of democracy”. Fossils, in this sense, were endowed with such powerful influence (socio-political agency) in impacting humans and …show more content…
He moves on to talk about the history of oil in the Middle East: a crucial place in the development of ‘oil democracy’ in Western states. That a very large quantity of oil was found in the Middle East coupled with the fact that oil was readily transportable by tankers across continents, “menacing the world with additional supplies,” as Mitchell puts it, grossly disempowered workers in the West. Mitchell mentions that “large companies turned their attention to the Middle East” (47) certainly because, in addition to their ‘nurtured colonial interest’, the companies were afraid that rival oil producing sites in the Middle East would intensify foreign competition: “The greatest danger lay in the Middle East, where oil companies knew of several potential sites” (47). According to Mitchell, the companies’ plans to help especially Iraq build transportation networks was a deceitful scheme in their goal to “sabotage the production of oil” (47) and propagate oil scarcity. They, similarly, acted in the same vein as the coal miners and workers in trying to curtail the plenitude of oil since it affected global oil prices and market value. Also, Diana Davis’ idea of the ‘declensionist environmental narrative’: the use of false evidenced-based narratives by the French and British colonialists to rationalize and champion imperialism seems to apply in some ways here too. However, Mitchell also