May 18, 2012

Weekend Economists Make Their Marx, May 18-20, 2012

As promised, a brief look at the Marx family...Groucho, Chico, Harpo, Zeppo, Gummo, and Karl....

I'm sure all the Marx were related, as all of us are related in some fashion to every other human---something amazing and appalling to contemplate. I swear, I'd pay good money to have no relationship whatsoever to W....but unless he's from another planet (a distinct possibility), we must claim him as estranged (and strange) kin....AnneD has first-hand knowledge of the vagaries of DNA, and she bears up. So must we all.

Anyway, about Karl:

Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement. He published various books during his lifetime, with the most notable being The Communist Manifesto (1848) and Capital (1867–1894); some of his works were co-written with his friend and fellow German revolutionary socialist, Friedrich Engels.

Born into a wealthy middle class family in Trier, formerly in Prussian Rhineland now called Rhineland-Palatinate, Marx studied at both the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. In 1836, he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, marrying her in 1843. After his studies, he wrote for a radical newspaper in Cologne, and began to work out his theory of dialectical materialism. Moving to Paris in 1843, he began writing for other radical newspapers. He met Engels in Paris, and the two men worked together on a series of books. Exiled to Brussels, he became a leading figure of the Communist League, before moving back to Cologne, where he founded his own newspaper. In 1849 he was exiled again and moved to London together with his wife and children. In London, where the family was reduced to poverty, Marx continued writing and formulating his theories about the nature of society and how he believed it could be improved, and also campaigned for socialism—he became a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association.

Marx's theories about society, economics and politics—collectively known as Marxism—hold that all societies progress through the dialectic of class struggle: a conflict between an ownership class which controls production and a lower class which produces the labour for such goods. Heavily critical of the current socio-economic form of society, capitalism, he called it the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", believing it to be run by the wealthy classes purely for their own benefit, and predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, it would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism. He argued that under socialism society would be governed by the working class in what he called the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the "workers state" or "workers' democracy". He believed that socialism would, in its turn, eventually be replaced by a stateless, classless society called communism. Along with believing in the inevitability of socialism and communism, Marx actively fought for the former's implementation, arguing that both social theorists and underprivileged people should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic change.

Revolutionary socialist governments espousing Marxist concepts took power in a variety of countries in the 20th century, leading to the formation of such socialist states as the Soviet Union in 1922 and the People's Republic of China in 1949. Many labor unions and worker's parties worldwide were also influenced by Marxist ideas. Various theoretical variants, such as Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and Maoism, were developed. Marx is typically cited, with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history...

What did he say? As one who didn't study any of these fields, I will have to look it all up and get back to you over this weekend. And I shall.

But as to what people did with this man's ideas....well, we'll look into that, too.

But when the going gets too heavy, there's always the OTHER side of the family:

Duck Soup is a 1933 Marx Brothers anarchic comedy film written by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby, with additional dialogue by Arthur Sheekman and Nat Perrin, and directed by Leo McCarey. First released theatrically by Paramount Pictures on November 17, 1933, it starred what were then billed as the "Four Marx Brothers" (Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Zeppo) and also featured Margaret Dumont, Raquel Torres, Louis Calhern and Edgar Kennedy. It was the last Marx Brothers film to feature Zeppo, and the last of five Marx Brothers movies released by Paramount.

Compared to the Marx Brothers' previous Paramount films, Duck Soup was a box-office disappointment, although it was not a "flop" as is sometimes reported. The film opened to mixed reviews, although this by itself did not end the group's business with Paramount. Bitter contract disputes, including a threatened walk-out by the Marxes, crippled relationships between them and Paramount just as Duck Soup went into production. After the film fulfilled their five-picture contract with the studio, the Marxes and Paramount agreed to part ways.

While critics of Duck Soup felt it did not quite meet the standards of its predecessors, critical opinion has evolved and the film has since achieved the status of a classic. Duck Soup is now widely considered to be a masterpiece, and the Marx Brothers' finest film.

In 1990 the United States Library of Congress deemed Duck Soup "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot

The wealthy Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) insists that Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) be appointed leader of the small, bankrupt country of Freedonia before she will continue to provide much-needed financial backing. Meanwhile, neighboring Sylvania is attempting to take over the country. Sylvanian ambassador Trentino (Louis Calhern) tries to foment a revolution, woos Mrs. Teasdale, and attempts to dig up dirt on Firefly by sending in spies Chicolini (Chico Marx) and Pinky (Harpo Marx).

After failing to collect worthwhile information about Firefly, Chicolini and Pinky infiltrate the government when Chicolini is appointed Secretary of War after Firefly sees him on the street selling peanuts. Meanwhile, Firefly's personal assistant, Bob Roland (Zeppo Marx) suspects Trentino's questionable motives, and counsels Firefly to "get rid of that man at once" by saying "something to make him mad, and he'll strike you, and we'll force him to leave the country." Firefly agrees to the plan, but after a series of personal insults exchanged between Firefly and Trentino, the plan backfires and Firefly slaps Trentino instead. As a result, the two countries reach the brink of war. Adding to the international friction is the fact that Firefly is also wooing Mrs. Teasdale, and likewise hoping to get his hands on her late husband's wealth.

Trentino learns that Freedonia's war plans are in Mrs. Teasdale's possession and orders Chicolini and Pinky to steal them. Chicolini is caught by Firefly and put on trial, during which war is officially declared, and everyone is overcome by war frenzy, breaking into song and dance. The trial put aside, Chicolini and Pinky join Firefly and Bob Roland in anarchic battle, resulting in general mayhem.

The end of the film finds Trentino caught in makeshift stocks, with the Brothers pelting him with fruit. Trentino surrenders, but Firefly tells him to wait until they run out of fruit. Mrs. Teasdale begins singing the Freedonia national anthem in her operatic voice and the Brothers begin hurling fruit at her instead.

So, let's contrast what either side of the Marx family has to say about government, while we catch up on the anarchy of the day.

May 15, 2012

Why the Occupy Movement Frightens the Corporate Elite

BECAUSE THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT CONSISTS OF THE PEOPLE THEY STEPPED ON, ON THE WAY UP THEIR GOLDEN LADDER. THEY WON BY PULL, NOT BY MERIT. AND WE KNOW IT.


http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9112-why-the-occupy-movement-frightens-the-corporate-elite

In Robert E. Gamer's book "The Developing Nations" is a chapter called "Why Men Do Not Revolt." In it Gamer notes that although the oppressed often do revolt, the object of their hostility is misplaced. They vent their fury on a political puppet, someone who masks colonial power, a despised racial or ethnic group or an apostate within their own political class. The useless battles serve as an effective mask for what Gamer calls the "patron-client" networks that are responsible for the continuity of colonial oppression. The squabbles among the oppressed, the political campaigns between candidates who each are servants of colonial power, Gamer writes, absolve the actual centers of power from addressing the conditions that cause the frustrations of the people. Inequities, political disenfranchisement and injustices are never seriously addressed. "The government merely does the minimum necessary to prevent those few who are prone toward political action from organizing into politically effective groups," he writes.

Gamer and many others who study the nature of colonial rule offer the best insights into the functioning of our corporate state. We have been, like nations on the periphery of empire, colonized. We are controlled by tiny corporate entities that have no loyalty to the nation and indeed in the language of traditional patriotism are traitors. They strip us of our resources, keep us politically passive and enrich themselves at our expense. The mechanisms of control are familiar to those whom the Martinique-born French psychiatrist and writer Frantz Fanon called "the wretched of the earth," including African-Americans. The colonized are denied job security. Incomes are reduced to subsistence level. The poor are plunged into desperation. Mass movements, such as labor unions, are dismantled. The school system is degraded so only the elites have access to a superior education. Laws are written to legalize corporate plunder and abuse, as well as criminalize dissent. And the ensuing fear and instability—keenly felt this past weekend by the more than 200,000 Americans who lost their unemployment benefits—ensure political passivity by diverting all personal energy toward survival. It is an old, old game.

A change of power does not require the election of a Mitt Romney or a Barack Obama or a Democratic majority in Congress, or an attempt to reform the system or electing progressive candidates, but rather a destruction of corporate domination of the political process—Gamer's "patron-client" networks. It requires the establishment of new mechanisms of governance to distribute wealth and protect resources, to curtail corporate power, to cope with the destruction of the ecosystem and to foster the common good. But we must first recognize ourselves as colonial subjects. We must accept that we have no effective voice in the way we are governed. We must accept the hollowness of electoral politics, the futility of our political theater, and we must destroy the corporate structure itself.

The danger the corporate state faces does not come from the poor. The poor, those Karl Marx dismissed as the Lumpenproletariat, do not mount revolutions, although they join them and often become cannon fodder. The real danger to the elite comes from déclassé intellectuals, those educated middle-class men and women who are barred by a calcified system from advancement. Artists without studios or theaters, teachers without classrooms, lawyers without clients, doctors without patients and journalists without newspapers descend economically. They become, as they mingle with the underclass, a bridge between the worlds of the elite and the oppressed. And they are the dynamite that triggers revolt. This is why the Occupy movement frightens the corporate elite. What fosters revolution is not misery, but the gap between what people expect from their lives and what is offered. This is especially acute among the educated and the talented. They feel, with much justification, that they have been denied what they deserve. They set out to rectify this injustice. And the longer the injustice festers, the more radical they become.

MORE

May 11, 2012

Weekend Economists Lost in Space (and Time) May 11-13, 2012

Does anybody remember what I was going to do this weekend? Sigh. I checked back through several postings, and couldn't find it. The last two weeks have been so non-routine that my brains are scrambled. The Kid hasn't been helping, either. The more I do for her amusement, the more she demands. No gratitude.

Well, the latest bomb went off this week. Two bombs, actually, maybe 4 if you count Spain and France. Greece and JPMorgan still take the spotlight, though. There's a word for this situation, and it isn't a nice one.

So let's escape this weekend--as far as the mind can go! That's right, outer space...way way out.

&feature=related

This is a Kurt Weill classic tune, sung by a not-so-classic singer...

Leonard Simon Nimoy (play /ˈniːmɔɪ/ NEE-moy; born March 26, 1931) is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series (1966–1969), and in multiple film, television, and video-game sequels.

Early life

Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts in the West End, to Yiddish-speaking Orthodox Jewish immigrants from Iziaslav, Soviet Union (now Ukraine). His father, Max Nimoy, owned a barbershop in the Mattapan section of the city. His mother, Dora Nimoy (née Spinner), was a homemaker. Nimoy began acting at the age of eight in children's and neighborhood theater. His parents wanted him to attend college and pursue a stable career, or even learn to play the accordion—which, his father advised, Nimoy could always make a living with—but his grandfather encouraged him to become an actor. His first major role was at 17, as Ralphie in an amateur production of Clifford Odets' Awake and Sing!. Nimoy took drama classes at Boston College in 1953 but failed to complete his studies, and in the 1970s studied photography at the University of California, Los Angeles. He has an MA in Education from Antioch College and an honorary doctorate from Antioch University in Ohio.

Nimoy served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army from 1953 through 1955, alongside fellow actor Ken Berry and architect Frank Gehry.

Nimoy began his career in his early twenties, teaching acting classes in Hollywood and making minor film and television appearances through the 1950s, as well as playing the title role in Kid Monk Baroni. In 1953, he served in the United States Army. In 1965, he made his first appearance in the rejected Star Trek pilot, "The Cage", and would go on to play the character of Mr. Spock until 1969, followed by seven feature films and guest slots in various sequels. His character of Spock had a significant cultural impact and garnered Nimoy three Emmy Award nominations; TV Guide named Spock one of the 50 greatest TV characters. After the original Star Trek series, Nimoy starred in Mission: Impossible for two seasons, hosted the documentary series In Search of..., and narrated Civilization IV, as well as making several well-received stage appearances.

Nimoy's fame as Spock is such that both his autobiographies, I Am Not Spock (1977) and I Am Spock (1995) detail his existence as being shared between the character and himself.

May 10, 2012

An truly revolutionary concept!

That would lead to an equal wage...everyone's hour having the same value, regardless. Assuming all work was equally safe, that is. A lot of dirty, unnecessary work could be shut down: coal mining, war...and safety could be mandated by demanding either safety improvements, or higher wages for those at risk, or mandating alternatives (solar instead of drilling for oil, etc).

If education was freely given, a society without war could be built upon such premises....

May 10, 2012

Captured?

Well...it is a best a temporary victory. Because a complete victory would require the total destruction of the 99%. And who would do the "menial" work then?

There's nothing worse than capturing a prisoner you can't afford to kill.

Because you really have no power over the prisoner that he doesn't permit, or that you don't gain by deceptions, and deceptions are easily broken.

May 8, 2012

How Wall Street Drives Up Gas Prices -- Ripping Us Off and Killing Jobs By Les Leopold

http://www.alternet.org/story/155193/how_wall_street_drives_up_gas_prices_--_ripping_us_off_and_killing_jobs?akid=8724.227380.iU2Mwi&rd=1&t=20

Next time you fill up your tank, remember that $10 to $25 is going right from your pocket to the financial sector...Gasoline prices have been falling in recent weeks, but they're still close to their five-year high after climbing steeply for three years. For every penny increase at the pump, $1.4 billion per year leaves our collective pockets, creating a drag on the sluggish “recovery.” Where does it go and what caused the price explosion at the pump? It's a common belief that oil prices are set on the world market by supply and demand. Less supply and/or more demand causes prices to rise. Oil is getting harder to find; OPEC is holding back supply; China and India are guzzling it up; Iran is threatening to blow it up. And regulations are getting in the way of drill, baby, drill -- end of story.

But this fixation on blind market forces ignores the fact that Wall Street is financializing the commodities markets – especially oil – as it seeks new ways to pick our pockets. The same greedy swindlers who puffed up the housing bubble and then milked it dry are now hard at work doing the same with gasoline.

What is financialization and why is it coming to the oil industry?

Here’s a chilling definition provided by economist Thomas I. Palley:



In short, we’re talking about the spread and growing supremacy of financial gambling – the ability to bet on the prices of goods produced in the real economy without actually owning those goods. The vital activities of manufacturing, resource extraction and agriculture are turned into financial instruments that can be rapidly bought and sold. More to the point, financialization allows financial gamblers to extract profits from the real economy to enrich themselves without producing any real economic value for our economy. When markets are financialized, they offer a myriad of ways for Wall Street firms to bend or break laws to manipulate markets and haul in enormous profits. In effect, financialization extracts a hidden tax from the real economy which is then passed onto us in the form of higher prices, economic hardship and then government bailouts when it all comes crashing down.

The oil markets have become just another profitable Wall Street casino. Why? Because, as the infamous outlaw Willie Sutton said, “That’s where the money is.” Oil markets as well as other commodity markets require a certain number of speculators. Oil producers and end users go to these markets in order to lock in prices for the products they use or sell. From refiners to shippers to airlines, oil markets provide a way to obtain price certainty for a specified period of time. To make these markets function, speculators are needed to take the other side of those trades. For more than a century about 30 percent of these commodity markets involved speculators and 70 percent of the participants in terms of volume were real producers, distributors and users. That’s what a healthy commodities market looks like. But once financialization metastasized, the proportions flipped. Now 70 percent of the action comes from speculators, while only 30 percent comes from those who really produce, distribute and use the actual commodities. The casino has taken over. This speculative invasion is why gasoline prices are climbing rapidly. The only question remaining is how much of the price rise is due to excess speculation. Here’s what the experts say:

The St. Louis Federal Reserve (not exactly a Marxist institution) claims that 15 percent of the rise in gasoline prices is due to Wall Street speculation (PDF).

A report from the House Committee on Government Oversight claims that up to 30 percent of the rise may be due to speculators.

Even experts at Goldman Sachs, of all places, say that “excessive speculation is causing oil prices to spike by up to 40%.”

And Saudi Arabia, ”the largest exporter of oil in the world, told the Bush administration back in 2008, during the last major spike in oil prices, that speculation was responsible for about $40 of a barrel of oil.”

THERE'S MUCH MORE...READ IT AND WEEP, AND STUFF IT IN THE FACE OF ANYONE CLAIMING THERE IS NO SPECULATION....

May 7, 2012

The Crushing Burden of Student Debt

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8901-the-crushing-burden-of-student-debt

...I’m sort of walking along the corner of Broadway and Liberty, and there’s this guy, he’s playing a carnival barker, and he says, “Step right up! Write down what you owe to the bank; write down what you’re worth to the 1 percent!” He had these huge sheets of paper, and he had probably, you know, two dozen markers, and people were writing down what they owed and what type of debt. I actually walked by and went into the park and had this weird hesitation about putting that number down—because I would have to think about it. I would have to think about how much money I owed. But, as we were leaving, I went and I took the marker and I wrote it down, and it was $42,000. I felt sick to my stomach. Behind me, a girl who couldn’t have been more than 22 or 23 years old writes down $120,000 of student debt. And I thought, this is a radical moment, because we are articulating this number out loud, and we are putting it in a political context, and this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. I’ve known that something was wrong with this, people haven’t been really discussing this issue, something’s happening.

...Graduating seniors in 2010 carried an average debt of $25,000, while unemployment for that same group was at 9.1 percent. College tuition has increased more than 400 percent since the 1980s, with of course no appreciable increase in wages or inflation; it outstrips inflation. The debt default rate at for-profit institutions is 29 percent, and more than half of the student population at these for-profit colleges is African American or Latino. It’s a problem that affects the whole spectrum. Student loan debts are exceptional in that they’re afforded no protections. Student debtors are not protected from bankruptcy; student loan debt can follow you to the grave. As of 2005, benefits like Social Security can be garnished, which is unprecedented. It’s very easy for loans to double or triple in a period of ten years—you fall behind on a payment, suddenly there’s this whole chain of fees that is triggered, and you’re sort of like underwater trying to get back, just recovering those fees, and then you start paying the interest, let alone getting to the principAL.

All that is to say that student loans are predatory loans. And they’re not loans taken out—you know, it’s not a privilege. There’s a view like, “Well, you know what you’re getting into, taking out student loans, you know, this is like a privilege problem.” Well, it’s not a privilege problem, for several reasons. One is that a college degree has become a prerequisite in a knowledge economy. You have to take on student loan debt to get this degree, but then you graduate with this debt increasingly into an economy where you can’t get a job. So you’re already in a position of indenture-tude. The Occupy Student Debt campaign launched a few weeks ago, and it centers around a student debt pledge of refusal.

The pledge begins, “As members of the most indebted generations in history, we pledge to stop making student loan payments after one million of us have signed this pledge.” There’s also a pledge for faculty supporters; there’s a pledge for non-debtors, a non-debtor pledge of support. Pledges in the campaign are based around four principles: 1) That the federal government should cover the cost of tuition at public colleges and universities, which incidentally would be a price tag of about $70 billion as of this year, which is a paltry sum actually—it sounds like a lot but it’s not. 2) We believe that any student loans should be interest-free. 3) We believe that private and for-profit colleges and universities, which are largely financed through student debt, should open their books. So these for-profit universities and private schools like the New School and NYU, they’re financed through student debt, and yet their operations are a private matter. They’re not a matter of public record. And finally, 4) the current student debt load should be written off.

MUCH MORE AT LINK

May 3, 2012

How the Amendment to End Slavery Was Damaged by Racism

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/8709-how-the-amendment-to-end-slavery-was-crippled-by-racism

The Constitution of the United States of America was created to enable the founding ideals and principles of the Declaration of Independence. Yet something went terribly wrong. It failed to recognize, defend and enable those ideals. The tragedy of such a gargantuan failure is still with us today in the form of institutionalized and systemic racism and a deeply embedded exploitation of labor. Both are still given constitutional sanction. Such sanction resides in the very constitutional amendment that was supposed to free the slaves and end the exploitation of labor in America forever: the 13th Amendment.



"Except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted." The reality of emancipation and racial equality cannot be fulfilled until the collective mindset of the nation is firmly turned away from the idea that slavery or involuntary servitude has any place within the constitutional fabric of the United States. Until the notion is gotten rid of that a person who is convicted of a crime is something less than other citizens, or is something less than human, there cannot be the necessary transformation of the American law enforcement and judicial system from one that is based upon vengeance and negative punishment to one that is focused on 21st-century restorative justice.

So, why does the Constitution of the United States of America still allow for the existence of servitude in America that can be triggered as a punishment for crime?

What America got in the 13th Amendment was a mindset reflected in legislation, law and customary practice best described in 1845 by Frederick Douglass in his "Narrative of the Life of a Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself": "To be accused was to be convicted, and to be convicted was to be punished; the one always following the other with immutable certainty. To escape punishment was to escape accusation ... " Think, please, of a young, black boy - Trayvon Martin - wearing a hoodie, who only wanted some Skittles and iced tea when he was shot to death on February 26, 2012, by a neighborhood vigilante because he looked "suspicious."

As Douglas A. Blackmon has pointed out in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Slavery By Another Name," those so-called crimes have run the gamut from the actually nonexistent or fictional to relatively minor offenses that would have been handled with non-penal consequences had the offender not been black, but the objective was to procure cheap, nearly free black labor for white farms, other businesses, state and local governments and large American corporations. And the 13th Amendment facilitated this via its language, which empowered law enforcement and the courts to traffic in African Americans for the purpose of rendering them into a post-Emancipation iteration of slavery and involuntary servitude. It is therefore no accident that there exists a great disparity in the way the American criminal justice system deals with African Americans versus whites. Until the connection between the criminal justice system and slavery and involuntary servitude is condemned and forever severed, America will remain a nation plagued by a criminal justice system, the essence of which is racial inequality...

May 3, 2012

How to Muddy Your Tracks on the Internet By KATE MURPH MUST READ!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/technology/personaltech/how-to-muddy-your-tracks-on-the-internet.html?_r=1&src=dayp

I'M BOOKMARKING THIS ONE!

May 2, 2012

Farmers Foil Utilities Using Cell Phones to Access Solar

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-04-11/farmers-foil-utilities-using-cell-phones-to-access-solar.html

The villagers of Halliberu in southern India are on the crest of an electricity revolution. Bangalore-based Simpa Networks Inc. has been installing solar power equipment in their non-electrified houses. From the poorest parts of Africa and Asia to the most-developed regions in the U.S. and Europe, solar units and small-scale wind and biomass generators promise to extend access to power to more people than ever before....In October, Bangalore-based Simpa Networks Inc. installed a solar panel on Anand’s whitewashed adobe house along with a small metal box in his living room to monitor electricity usage. The 25-year-old rice farmer, who goes by one name, purchases energy credits to unlock the system via his mobile phone on a pay-as-you-go model. When his balance runs low, Anand pays 50 rupees ($1) -- money he would have otherwise spent on kerosene. Then he receives a text message with a code to punch into the box, giving him about another week of electric light. When he pays off the full cost of the system in about three years, it will be unlocked and he will get free power.

Before the solar panel arrived, Anand lit his home with kerosene lamps that streaked the walls with smoke and barely penetrated the darkness of the village, which lacks electrification. Twice a week, he trudged 45 minutes to a nearby town just to charge his phone. “Things are much easier now,” Anand says, describing how he used to go through 5 liters (1 gallon) of fuel a month, almost half of it bought from the black market at four times the price of government kerosene rations. “There was never enough.” Anand is on the crest of an electricity revolution that’s sweeping through power markets and threatening traditional utilities’ dominance of the world’s supply. Across India and Africa, startups and mobile phone companies are developing so-called microgrids, in which stand- alone generators power clusters of homes and businesses in places where electric utilities have never operated.

In Europe, cooperatives are building their own generators and selling power back to the national or regional grid while information technology developers and phone companies are helping consumers reduce their power consumption and pay less for the electricity they do use. The revolution is just beginning, says Jeremy Rifkin, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Third Industrial Revolution (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Disruptive to the economic status quo, the transformation opens up huge opportunities to consumers who may find themselves trading power in the future much as they swap information over the Internet today, he says.

“This is power to the people,” says Rifkin, who was once best known as a leading opponent of the Vietnam War....India has 30 gigawatts of mainly diesel generators that could be replaced by cheaper solar power tomorrow, says Tarun Kapoor, joint secretary at the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. (One gigawatt is enough energy to power about 200,000 U.S. homes.)...Within a decade, installing photovoltaic panels may be cheaper for many families than buying power from national grids in much of the world, including the U.S., Japan, Brazil and the U.K., according to data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The ultimate losers in this shifting balance of power may be established utilities. They’ve invested billions of dollars in centralized networks that are slowly being edged out of markets they’ve dominated. “Over the next decade, utilities are going to be under a lot of pressure,” says Gerard Reid, a partner and energy banker at London-based investment adviser Alexa Capital. Reid predicts that power prices will come down across Europe as new entrants that create electricity from renewable sources break up traditional utilities’ oligopoly....MORE