Carbon Democracy: Political Power in the Age of Oil

“Fossil fuels helped create both the possibility of modern democracy and its limits.”

This sentence summarizes one of the key themes of Carbon Democracy. Mitchell sets out to demonstrate that the specific characteristics of coal energy, including that high-quality coal was concentrated only in a few parts of the world and that workers were essential to both coal’s production and distribution, made the industry vulnerable. Workers from various sectors, including mining, transportation, and manufacturing, could come together to disrupt or stop the flow of coal energy. This ability gave workers tremendous political power, enabling them to fight for collective rights (e.g., better working conditions, higher pay, and voting rights). Oil, in contrast, did not have these same vulnerabilities. In comparison to coal, oil was much easier to remove from the ground and transport. It did not require as many workers in the production and distribution processes and workers were less able to disrupt or stop the flow of oil. As such, the switch from reliance on coal to oil energy sharply curtailed the rights of workers. This switch also impacted democratic tendencies in countries that both relied on oil for daily-life and produced oil. Mitchell concludes that coal shows the possibilities of modern