Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

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While Mitchell creates solid arguments for the impacts of fossil fuels on socio-political outcomes throughout his book, there are times when his arguments would benefit from more cohesion as he toes the line between historian, political commentator, and anthropologist. Articles on The Middle East in the Past and Future of Social Science, The Properties of Markets, Rethinking Economy, and The Work of Economics: How a Discipline Makes Its World, explored these concerns, and developed Mitchell's interest in the broader field of science and technology studies (STS). Following this, he argues that oil transported in pipes evades the striking worker's ability to strangle output, and this stifles democratic engagement.

An insightful historical account of how changes in energy production have expanded and restricted possibilities for democratic governance.Because it is bulky and requires many men to move it around, coal was a catalyst for democracy and progress. Unlike coal, oil and petroleum products was extracted by small, specialized crews in specific locations, then shipped around the world.

The conclusion and afterward has a great analysis on peak oil, and global warming, as well as technical aspects for extracting unconventional forms of oil. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.Mitchell argues that carbon democracy in the West has been based on the assumption that unlimited oil will produce endless economic growth, and he concludes that this model cannot survive the exhaustion of these fuels and associated climate change. In this way, Mitchell challenges critical approaches to capitalism which have granted it a lamentable but single logic, and instead shows that there is little logic in a system built on tenuous ‘science’ and even more tenuous alliances.