takes money to make money

TAKES MONEY TO MAKE MONEY
First off, I want you all to mark your calendars, cancel all family nights or after school activities, and write a note on your forehead backwards so you can see it in the morning in the mirror. This weekend is our Super Duper Loyal Minion Appreciation Event where you get not one but two guest articles. You can tune in both Saturday and Sunday and get your Bison fix. We have one minion advertising his blog, which is fine with me as long as I get some guest article action out of it. And then we have our faithful eastern correspondent that can’t be outdone by a newcomer. Don’t get all uppity on me and expect this every week, but for now it is a nice treat. Thank you, guest writers. You’re helping a brother out. And as an aside, if I don’t always answer your mail or take forever responding, please be understanding. I’m busier than a one legged ass kicker, even with my slightly reduced article lengths, and just can’t seem to keep up.
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We all know that it takes money to make money. In a sense this isn’t completely true as far as government welfare, perhaps the occasional inheritance, but 99% of the time it is a hard and fast rule. So, this being something we can all relate to, it should quite easy to translate this over to the size of government. It takes a surplus of resources to get more resources. Look at the general state of affairs as far as colonialism is concerned. The European states that had the resources to invest were able to conquer foreign lands and exploit the resources to further their growth and conquest. Without a surplus in the first place, they were unable to score more resources. This is really all there is to it. No extra to invest, no returns are possible. Look at England and France. In an agrarian economy, France always had an advantage and rose in the ranks of nations. England had a smaller base and was limited. Alas, in an accident of history, England had the coal whereas France had a lot less. From that point on that we entered the carbon fuel economy, England was able to parlay its energy surplus into foreign energy acquisition. It began to falter once coal was replaced by oil. Those countries that had the oil, namely the US and the Soviets, began to exploit other countries resources. Even those countries with oil ( middle east, South America ) were conquered, as America entered the race first and fueled its military so that a later oil surplus yielded no advantage. The Cold War between America and Russia was more an Oil Titan clash than a political contest.
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Now, let’s enter a period of energy scarcity. Industrialism dies from lack of fuel and we will transition back to an agrarian economy. Metal will not be as scarce as it was historically due to our above ground mining ability ( use the scrap of the Oil Age ) but we won’t have the energy to fuel mass production. If you can’t produce nitrates on an industrial scale you can’t conduct warfare on an industrial scale. You can’t farm on an industrial scale either, which hampers your ability to grow more soldiers. Industrial war was mining resources to conquer more resources, just as in all conflicts through history, but on an unseen scale because of the carbon fuels. When nations or groups go to war to steal more resources, they use up all their surplus in the fight. They are betting all or nothing. They win, they defeat and kill the enemy and gain extra resources. They lose, mostly they starve and die due to using their capital as well as their interest ( to use the financial metaphor again ). Without carbon fuels, warfare will shrink back down to agrarian economy levels. Without extra population fed by petroleum, battles will be far smaller.
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On a tribal scale, the farmers or the herders double as fighters. Once you get above that scale to a larger plot of land, you need to have a surplus of warriors to assist nearby settlements. If a group of herders are grazing over wide areas, they can defend large areas. The young and aged can look after animals for a short time while they fight. Plus, they are mobile by nature. Their transport lives off foraging. In a farm community, everyone is tied to the land. After the planting or harvest, you can free up the men for fighting, but that then leaves the community wide open to attack. Without the surplus crops to support a permanent caste of fighters, you can’t fight as needed outside the community. Say you envision a county or state as a nation. Town A is twenty miles from town B. A and B can defend their own towns. But when one is attacked, the other can’t respond quick enough to help defend them. Not unless a dedicated military is patrolling or engaged in offensive attacks to keep enemies away. This is where your trouble lies. If you don’t have the surplus resources, you can’t defend larger areas or attack prior to trouble. An invading army picks you off one by one.
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Why do you think the Dark Ages had such small political units? Why were they defensive in nature? It wasn’t just the introduction of gunpowder that brought down the defensive castle. It was the surplus of energy which allowed an industry built around gunpowder to emerge. The knowledge of powder wasn’t enough, you needed the investment in excess nitrates and metal production. Without surplus, the “tribe” stayed local and never expanded. They couldn’t project power out. When surpluses came about ( most likely from the exhausted soils recovering ), then the offense was born again. If you can’t feed an army, or equip them from surplus, you don’t grow past local. You need all your meager resources just for local defense ( and sometimes that wasn’t enough if your neighbor had just a bit more than you did ). Consider this carefully. The one with more resources will usually win. Use the leftovers from the Oil Age carefully, because once they are gone our polluted and depleted soil can only support a limited number of people. And more than likely, there will be no surplus.
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