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for specific or remote purposes. The result will be an optimization of total
power available to do useful work in the system, and will be facilitated by
people with different skills, different geographical situations, varying finan-
cial capabilities, and different requirements for energy. Again, diversity and
cooperation will be key to survival if any kind of high-quality lifestyle is to
be achieved.
The role of technology, as always, deserves some special attention. In the
Western world, reliance on a technological fix is legendary. In the United
States, our culture is steeped with terms such as “American know-how” and
“Yankee ingenuity.” We have become accustomed to technology bailing us
out of some perceived problem at the last minute, whether the problem is one
of some necessary new process, a shortage, or even the need to win a war. Oil
was discovered as whales were becoming depleted. Artificial fibers, such as
nylon, were invented as the German U-boats made natural rubber for tires
unavailable during World War II. We marvel that the new substitutes are
often better than the old products or processes they replaced.
To economists, new technologies have tended to play the role of saving the
economy from what they would call “secular stagnation,” which is merely
another term for perpetual recession . New processes create new jobs, first
in the research-and-development phase, then in capital goods industries,
and finally in the creation of new products, which supposedly stimulate a
renewed spate of consumer spending.
To a critical eye, this indicates a worrisome and unhealthy trend.
Historically, economic output was for the purpose of providing the means
to meet our material requirements as human beings. In recent times, how-
ever, the need, often politically driven, has virtually become the means
whereby the superficially apparent health of a mass economy is main-
tained. Instead of small-scale producers meeting the requirements of
customers, people are stimulated to keep purchasing and thus meet the
desires of large-scale producers—who are mistakenly seen as the “back-
bone” of the economy.
Additionally, energy technologies must be considered with great care.
They may prove to be more of a trap than the apparent answer to all of our
problems. This leads us to a final principle.
Principle 5—Work with Nature
Freely available solar radiation must be captured, stored, and
employed—not ignored, purposefully disregarded, or replaced.
Natural flows of energy are available through sun, wind, water, and so on,
which operate in the world without monetary payment. The successful econ-
omy of the future must maximize the use of, and not destroy, these free gifts
of nature. They all have a monetary cost to develop, but sunlight not only
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