One obvious challenge to drawing such parallels lies in the basic fact that no
larger scale transformation (as opposed to a more discrete shift in technological or
social practices) to date has been motivated explicitly by the imperatives of dealing
with environmental crises per se, even if dwindling access to resources, for example,
has been a key driver of innovation and social change (witness the push for alternative
and renewable energy as well as energy conservation provoked by the 1970s oil
crisis). Another challenge is around the role of intent, design and vision in relation
to these transformations and what this implies about the role of the state in particular:
whether the key transformations in capitalism have really been steered (rather than
enabled and enforced) by the state, and what this suggests about the willingness
and ability of contemporary states to assume such roles. With the benefit of hindsight,
it is easy to ascribe motivations and read plans into key changes, but it is unclear
that reorganizations of the economy, even as drastic and unprecedented as the
Industrial Revolution, were done by conscious design or implemented ‘from above’.
Restlessness on the part of capital was the key. Likewise, while in retrospect it
is tempting to ascribe linearity and unity of purpose to them, in the historical
moment in which they were unfolding, as now, pathways are experienced and
understood as multiple, contested and competing trajectories whose destiny or
success cannot be anticipated or known in advance. This uncertainty structures the
way in which different actors engage with transitions and which transformations
they hedge their bets on and invest in, or seek to resist, as we see below in relation
to the role of finance capital and the state in particular. By invoking historical
examples, the point is not to underestimate what might be novel or unique about
the nature of the challenges associated with ‘green’ transformations in terms of their
scale (across regions, sectors, levels of decision-making and involving such a
breadth of actors) and the time-frames within which they have to occur, or in
relation to the particular role of expert knowledge, for example. It is rather to shed
light on how capitalism has been transformed previously, and particularly its
energy base, in ways that it is now being called upon to do again.
The Industrial Revolution
The transition to coal was driven both by its cheapness and abundance, and the
fact that wages were relatively high in Britain at the time, creating a demand for
labour-saving energy technology (Allen, 2012, p17). Marx recognized the
superiority of coal over water from the point of view of capital in the following
terms:
The flow of water could not be increased at will, it failed at certain seasons of
the year, and above all it was essentially local . . . Not till the invention of Watt’s
second and so-called double-acting steam-engine was a prime mover found
which drew its own motive force from the consumption of coal and water,
was entirely under man’s control, was mobile and a means of locomotion.
(1974 [1867], p499, emphasis added)
72 Peter Newell
larger scale transformation (as opposed to a more discrete shift in technological or
social practices) to date has been motivated explicitly by the imperatives of dealing
with environmental crises per se, even if dwindling access to resources, for example,
has been a key driver of innovation and social change (witness the push for alternative
and renewable energy as well as energy conservation provoked by the 1970s oil
crisis). Another challenge is around the role of intent, design and vision in relation
to these transformations and what this implies about the role of the state in particular:
whether the key transformations in capitalism have really been steered (rather than
enabled and enforced) by the state, and what this suggests about the willingness
and ability of contemporary states to assume such roles. With the benefit of hindsight,
it is easy to ascribe motivations and read plans into key changes, but it is unclear
that reorganizations of the economy, even as drastic and unprecedented as the
Industrial Revolution, were done by conscious design or implemented ‘from above’.
Restlessness on the part of capital was the key. Likewise, while in retrospect it
is tempting to ascribe linearity and unity of purpose to them, in the historical
moment in which they were unfolding, as now, pathways are experienced and
understood as multiple, contested and competing trajectories whose destiny or
success cannot be anticipated or known in advance. This uncertainty structures the
way in which different actors engage with transitions and which transformations
they hedge their bets on and invest in, or seek to resist, as we see below in relation
to the role of finance capital and the state in particular. By invoking historical
examples, the point is not to underestimate what might be novel or unique about
the nature of the challenges associated with ‘green’ transformations in terms of their
scale (across regions, sectors, levels of decision-making and involving such a
breadth of actors) and the time-frames within which they have to occur, or in
relation to the particular role of expert knowledge, for example. It is rather to shed
light on how capitalism has been transformed previously, and particularly its
energy base, in ways that it is now being called upon to do again.
The Industrial Revolution
The transition to coal was driven both by its cheapness and abundance, and the
fact that wages were relatively high in Britain at the time, creating a demand for
labour-saving energy technology (Allen, 2012, p17). Marx recognized the
superiority of coal over water from the point of view of capital in the following
terms:
The flow of water could not be increased at will, it failed at certain seasons of
the year, and above all it was essentially local . . . Not till the invention of Watt’s
second and so-called double-acting steam-engine was a prime mover found
which drew its own motive force from the consumption of coal and water,
was entirely under man’s control, was mobile and a means of locomotion.
(1974 [1867], p499, emphasis added)
72 Peter Newell