Promise Coming Dark Age: Human Endvr

Published in 1976, but even more relevant now. As nation-states lose control, with the coming of peak oil and whatever global climate changes occur, some will panic. Stavrianos took a look at the innovations that occurred after Rome lost its "colonies", a period that came to be known as the "Dark Ages". However, in terms of people's day-to-day well-being, it was far from dark. As control returned to local communities, and slavery gave way to the manor system, living conditions actually improved, with the invention of many labor-saving devices, such as the "three-field" system of rotation farming, the heavy wheeled plow that made possible the cultivation of rich bottom lands [please don't take this as an argument for continuing to use the plow, however], a new harness that multiplied the tractive performance of the horse four to five times, the watermill and the windmill. Stavrianos notes, "By the tenth century the Western European serf was enjoying a level of living significantly better than that of the proletarian during the height of Augustan Rome". This applies equally to the 21st century, just as it did when Upton Sinclair was saying virtually the same thing during the height of the US's 1930s depression: the stronger becomes worker control and participatory democracy, the shorter the chain of command, the more people take responsibility for their own well-being, the more re-integration and re-generation will result. Read this with "The Third Wave" to understand the possibilities and potentials of the future. The examples are dated, but still accurate.