Energy and equity

An article from 1973, by Ivan Illich.

1. The Energy Crisis

• Machine Power cannot infinitely replace manpower

high quanta of energy degrade social relations just as inevitably as they destroy the physical milieu.

What does this mean?

According to this notion, man is born into perpetual dependence on slaves which he must painfully learn to master. If he does not employ prisoners, then he needs machines to do most of his work

low-energy policy allows for a wide choice of life-styles and cultures. If, on the other hand, a society opts for high energy consumption, its social relations must be dictated by technocracy and will be equally degrading whether labeled capitalist or socialists

So, if a society decides to require a lot of energy from everyone, people that don’t have access to it will be excluded. On the other hand, low energy requirements include everyone.

Three ways to measure well-being

1. Energy usage per-capita
2. efficiency of energy transformation
3. minimum possible energy usage of the richest

Why do #1 and #2 imply increased social expenditure and social control?

Energy and equity can only be correlated to a point, not infinitely.

High energy starts to be socially destructive before physically destructive.

technocracy must prevail as soon as the ratio of mechanical power to metabolic energy oversteps a definite, identifiable threshold

Mexico is past this threshold

• more energy results in more inequality, inefficiency, and impotence.

2. The industrialization of traffic

Definitions

1. Traffic
2. Movement of people outside their homes
3. Transit
4. Movement that requires metabolic energy (biologic/humans exerting effort, not passive)
5. Transport
6. Movement that doesn’t require metabolic energy
7. Mostly made up of motors, animals aren’t really relevant anymore

• People move well on their feet
  • Healthy
  • Autonomous
  • equal
• Transport restricts the benefits that walking has
  • Routes are pre-defined
  • not healthy
  • unequal
    • Some people have more/better access to transport
• The more energy that the transport system has, the more distance people travel and faster
  • radius of available distance expands
  • Benefit is created for people with more access to transport: they can go to more places
  • the rich can go ‘unlimited’ distance.
  • the poor mostly do ‘unwanted’ trips

The occasional chance to spend a few hours strapped into a high-powered seat makes him an accomplice in the distortion of human space, and prompts him to consent to the design of his country’s geography around vehicles rather than around people.

• People spend a lot of time on transport (e.g. cars)
  • Spend time parking
  • Time driving
  • Time earning fuel, insurance, payments
  • four out of sixteen hours are spent on transport
    • Not counting court
    • Hospitals
    • mechanics
  • The model American puts in 1,600 hours to get 7,500 miles: less than five miles per hour

3. Speed-stunned imagination

• The more energy a society spends in transport, the more transport modifies landscape
  • Highways expand
  • Clinics are further than children can be carried
  • once a village is connected to the world, local requirements like stores are reduced
  • Some places (imagine villages in Guatemala) that don’t have access to transport, have not been modified to depend on it.
• Quotidian usage of transport creates the habitual passenger
  • the habitual passenger loses autonomy (see above )
  • Knows how much time they spend on traffic
  • Regardless of method of transport, feels slower and poorer than the privileged others that don’t face traffic
    • If on a train, wants car
    • if on a car wishes to be ‘speed capitalist’ that drives against traffic
    • if they have to pay for the car, knows that the corporate fleets expense vehicle and fuel for the car
    • Wants change in design of cars, roads, and schedules or mass transport
      • Either way, they will pay for it in fares or taxes
  • Habitual passengers for set of beliefs
    • Gathering is being brought together by vehicles
    • freedom of movement is access to transportation
    • political power comes from strength of transportation and media systems
      • democratic process’ power relates to power of transportation and media
      • doesn’t believe in power of ‘feet and tongue’
      • Wants better service as client, not more liberty as citizen
      • doesn’t want freedom to move but asserts claim on ability to be shipped and informed by media
    • Wants better product, not freedom from it

4. Net transfer of Life-Time

• Higher speeds are more expensive
  • More expensive to construct
  • More expensive to run
  • Occupies more space while in motion
  • (Concorde > private plane > plane > car > taxi > bus > train > tram > bike > walking ) in speed/cost
  • Higher available speeds reduce transportation times for some, but increase cost for all
    • The more high-speed transport is available, the more traffic grows
    • (Transport time expenditure grows faster than time saving)
      • There comes a point where a society spends more time than it saves
    • There is a critical speed where for one person to save time, another must expend it
      • This means that faster vehicles result in effective transfer of life-time
      • This disproportionately affects the majority who can’t afford it
    • Motor vehicles create distance (‘remoteness’) they alone can shrink
      • ( if you can’t afford a car, you can’t travel)
    • Speeds create social hierarchy
      • destination distance creates hierarchy
        • (Anyone up for a trip to Fiji or Bora-Bora?)
      • Vehicle becomes symbol of career accomplishment
      • Social status (and other ideological labels) also grants speed
        • Presidents of poor countries get flown around in jets
          • Concentration of power makes transport faster and more efficient, but delineates difference in time-value of the poor working-class people from the political elite
      • . ..

5. Ineffectiveness of acceleration