Reading :: Carbon Democracy

Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil
By Timothy Mitchell

Just a brief review for this book. The author notes that oil is often blamed for destabilizing democracies. However,  he says, the relationship is more complicated: mass democracy, he argues, emerged due to fossil fuels. That is, when England transitioned to coal, coal's properties (including where it was found and how it was extracted and transported) allowed coal miners to create chokepoints that they could control, thus exercising political power. The history of coal and oil extraction in the years since has been characterized by a struggle over who would control the extraction and flow of fossil fuels. 

Mitchell characterizes his analysis as Latourean and symmetrical. Although he does make some attempts to carry out a symmetrical analysis, it is not—at least, it doesn't seem to me—Latourean or symmetrical overall. Rather, it reads like a straight history in which individual and collective human actors are attributed with agency and nonhuman actors are typically acted upon. Furthermore, the story is simplified. For instance, I think Mitchell makes a plausible case that controlling chokepoints could allow miners to exercise political power—but that doesn't explain why this power took the form of mass democracy in particular. What other trends, causes, etc. contributed to this particular form of government over others? Why did parliamentary democracy do well in comparison to fascism and communism in the 20th century? Laying the origin and success of democracy at the feet of fossil fuel deposits seems oversimplified. 

I still recommend the book as a fascinating history of fossil fuel development, but only as part of the story.