Comments on: McJihad: how fossil fuel has shaped western democracies

By: Are renewables good for democracy? Not necessarily. - FueladdictsFueladdicts

Are renewables good for democracy? Not necessarily. - FueladdictsFueladdicts — Fri, 18 Aug 2017 14:40:47 +0000

[…] is part four of a series on democracy and energy; read parts one, two and […]

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 22:55:09 +0000

In defence of the thesis, I will concede that underground mining does have a different political flavour than factory work. It's not possible for managers to exercise the same detailed, minute-by-minute control of miners, who have a lot of delegated responsibility. In Ouro Preto in Brazil, slave gold miners in the 18th century were able to assemble enough money to build an ornate baroque church. In addition, the dangers of underground mining created stronger bonds of solidarity than is normal in a factory. So once coal miners got organised in unions and learnt about socialism in the second half of the 19th century, they became a formidable political force.

By: How coal and oil impact democracy differently - FueladdictsFueladdicts

How coal and oil impact democracy differently - FueladdictsFueladdicts — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 15:02:13 +0000

[…] my previous post on Timothy Mitchell’s book Carbon Democracy, I presented his thesis that democracy comes […]

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Tue, 15 Aug 2017 11:11:39 +0000

The timing doesn’t fit. Democratic movements arose in the first half of the 19th century, when the dominant industry was textiles and labour was unorganised. Andrew Jackson’s version of democracy was agrarian (as well as genocidal against Native Americans). The “people” that élites feared were city mobs, not striking miners.

Churchill’s title in the First World War was First Lord of the Admiralty, not Lord High Admiral. There hasn’t been a real one since 1709, when the job was handed to a committee (“the Commissioners for Exercising the Office of Lord High Admiral”, normally known as the Admiralty). There have been honorific Lords High Admiral, usually the monarch.