The power of community

Quick one today.

I read a really great article in The Conversation (linked from one of the newsletters I subscribe to, I forget which one). This is partially in the realm of "no shit" and partially in the realm of "what a great piece of evidence to have":

> As people around the world escape poverty, you might expect their energy use to increase. But my research in Nepal, Vietnam, and Zambia found the opposite: lower levels of deprivation were linked to lower levels of energy demand.

What gives?

> In general, people are poor not because they have fewer dollars per day to spend than a certain poverty threshold, but because they cannot access goods and services that provide sanitation, education, or health. Often, these cannot be accessed even with increased incomes.

And the kicker...

> instead of focusing on how much energy is used, we are pointing to the importance of collective services (like electricity, indoor sanitation and public transport) for alleviating the multiple deprivations of poverty.

So to recap: pretty much exactly the same countries that have been forced by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to sell off all their public infrastructure and reduce public services in order to "stimulate the economy" and "grow their economy" have worse energy efficiency and higher rates of real poverty than they would have otherwise. Not a surprise to me, but interesting to have a study looking at it in this way. It reminds me of a twitter thread I saw a while back explaining the tortured logic of "increased incomes" as a proxy for human flourishing, and how it is actually merely a measure of the marketisation of any given society — as this piece in The Conversation points out, people can have increased financial incomes and simultaneously be much worse off materially, and vice-versa.

This is one of the major reasons I'm a sceptic of Universal Basic Income. Many people know Marx's articulation of "surplus value" — the way capitalists extract profit out of the labour power of workers. But fewer people understand the equally important concept of commodification. A guaranteed fixed income is not much use when everything you need to sustain life is for sale at ever-increasing prices in an unregulated market. Just ask Weimar Germany. Forget money income, and forget this "basic" business. If we must have a state, then let it provide Universal Best Quality Services. If COVID has taught us anything, surely it's that being prepared with well-resourced public services and providing life-sustaining goods and services to people on the basis of need rather than ability to pay is the only way to live a civilised life.

Reducing poverty can actually lower energy demand, finds research