http://www.angusrobertson.com.au/book/the-quest-energy-security-and-the-remaking-of-the-modern-world/24602190/

Bazz, before you slit your throat worrying about us running out of
energy next week, perhaps you should read this new, 800 page, detailed
analysis of the whole energy market as it stands. The book was
released a couple of days ago, so its up to date. The author,
Daniel Yergin, is a Pulitzer Prize winner. Both the Economist
and Bloomberg take it seriously, so it should be a credible source
of information.

I downloaded the Kindle version a couple of days ago for 19$,
but a hard copy is available in Australia for about 60$.

By what I have read so far, its enlightening information and the
sort of stuff that is worth knowing, for those who think about the
future.

I have enjoyed the thread.
Just wandered again from first post to last.
Noted hasbeens apparent rage,the idea Aboriginal Australians may have been Socialists/Communists, still chuckling !
But unconvinced returning to stone age living is the answer.
I suspect if I am not the only once truly poor and under privileged follower of the ism dream I would be close to it here.
FAILURES! every one of them failed ,other failures include tribal Chiefdoms- leading to equally primitive Kingships.
Egyptian God Kings too failed ,all attempts to unite humans under power structures that held them together and gave power to others.
Capitalism, unlike those other isms rewarded individuals for effort.
It said get up have a go and you just may make it.
Too many did not.
Too many do by climbing over the rights of others.
Too many is our problem, we are too many and for that reason our problems are too many.
Capitalism is driven by sell interest, but squatting in the hills chanting will change nothing.
A future generation will understand we have too many voices to many opinions and no directions, then we may find a system that includes not yet.

Loudmouth I've noticed in other posts that, although you think you know lots about indigenous people and their traditional society, I'm pretty sure your knowledge is sparce and inaccurate. And as Squeers has pointed out your use of emotive language means you are not trying to make a rational point.

Traditional indigenous societies were not communist you know. It was the idea of reciprocity - that everyone was responsible for everyone else - that underpinned the stability and functionality of their societies. And they had developed a very strict and complex set of rules or laws that governed everyone's behaviour, from when they were born until they died.

There wasn't much freedom; you couldn't decide not to be initiated or have your front tooth pulled out and there certainly was a lot of physical hardship and now that we are used to something softer, we could not cope with the conditions. It's interesting though that the legendary Spartans choose a level of hardship that was similarly harsh; rejecting the comforts that the Athenians chose. Amazing how different human societies can and have been.

But the indigenous people thrived before we came, they weren't just here doing nothing. They created an amazingly rich and complex spiritual and artistic life and their emphasis on security and reciprocity, provided each person with a high level of psychological health.

They did not have wars; they had ritualised conflicts that dealt with problems between different societies and usually didn't result in any deaths. Personal conflicts were equally carefully managed through rituals that ensured that both victim and perpertrator left feeling ok.

The capitalist system with it's emphasis on freedom and individualism, is the opposite and although it certainly has provided us with a lot of really good material stuff, it's given us nothing to believe in and makes it very difficult for some of us to find happiness; and the psychological and physical problems in all capitalist societies are growing.

So I'm suggesting that perhaps there might be something that they did, that we could use.

It is a mistake to generalise about tribal societies as they vary greatly. Morgan, a nineteenth century anthropologist, studied the Iroquois and found that some of them were communist sharing most goods in common. Marx picked that up and extropolated it to assume all tribal societies were communist. He created a narrative where humans progressed from primitive communism in an economy of scarcity through a period of class struggle to advanced communism in an economy of plenty.

However, all tribal societies are not the same. The Kwakiutl of British Columbia may be one of the most acquisitive and status conscious societies on earth.

Yabby, well yes Yergin made his reputation on his first book
"The Prize" and his position at IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
However his problem is he has made a number of way out projections on
both supply and price that were a long way out.
He has only slightly modified those projections despite the evidence.
Except for price of course, oil is now nowhere near $38 a barrel.
Anyway Prof Alklett can explain better than I can.

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-09-21/there-will-be-peak-oil

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-09-21/more-thoughts-peak-oil

On the engergy bulletin towards the bottom there are a number of articles.I will read the link you gave.

Mollydukes,

I have a book titled "The Gift" by Lewis Hyde. In it he tells of the cycle of gift giving in primitive societies which helped to create a sense of wholeness and connection among various tribes.

He writes:
"....a circulation of gifts nourishes those parts of our spirit that are not entirely personal, parts that derive from nature, the group, the race, or the gods. Furthermore, although those wider spirits are part of us, they are not "ours"; they are endowments bestowed upon us. To feed them by giving away the increase they have brought us is to accept that our participation in them brings with it an obligation to preserve their vitality. When, on the other hand, we reverse the direction of the increase - when we profit on exchange or convert "one man's gift to another man's capital" - we nourish that part of our being (or our group) which is distinct and separate from others. Negative reciprocity strengthens the spirits - constructive or destructive - of individualism and clannishness.
In the present century the opposition between negative and positive reciprocity has taken the form between "capitalist" and "communist", "individual" and "socialist"; but the conflict is much older than that, because it is an essential polarity between the part and the whole, the one and the many. Every age must find a balance between the two..."