Karl Hess: Presidential Speechwriter Turned Homesteader

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The sun, as you know, is our prime powerhouse. The best source of energy we have. Solar power is abundant. It's free, and-as far as we're concerned-the main dynamo never has to be replaced, repaired, or rebuilt. It's also quite clear, at least to me, that solar energy is most efficiently gathered in small collectors. Big solar farms, for instance, cause major ecological problems in the areas under their massive collecting surfaces. And, of course, you run into transportation problems when you try to convert huge amounts of sunlight into other forms of energy in just one spot and then ship that electricity or whatever to all the hundreds of thousands of places you want to use it. Which means that the most practical way to handle solar power-which is the energy source of the future-is to collect it as close as possible to where you need it.

Or how about the production of minerals, which used to be very decentralized. If you ride around this area you'll find all sorts of little iron mines and coal shafts that were closed years ago simply because they were small operations. Their pick and shovel output wasn't-at least during the "bigger is always better" fifties and sixties large enough to compete economically against the machines of the big mines. But that's all changing now that some of the big operations are being worked out and now that we have so many unemployed people on our hands. The labor-intensive production of the little mines is beginning to look attractive once again at least for the local market.

And that's why I say that it doesn't matter whether you want to grow food, build cars, or make clothing. The technology is already here to do it on a decentralized, small-scale basis. And, as we enter an age of scarcity, that's the only way we're going to be able to supply our needs and wants.

PLOWBOY: And-I assume-whether we like it or not, this decentralization of the physical plant of our society will inevitably force the decentralization of all our institutions.

HESS: Absolutely. Form will follow function on a much larger scale than ever dreamed by the old Bauhaus school of design. Government, business-everything-will have no choice but to decentralize or vanish.

Naturally this change will not always take place easily. You can't expect all the elements of the Old Guard to give up their privileges and their power without at least an argument.

The federal government, for instance, will probably try to keep right on doing everything it does now. Despite that, however, it will become increasingly less important as people increasingly do more for themselves on a personal, family, and local community basis.

The power of the federal government, by the way, is likely to shrink most dramatically when the citizens demand the right to vote directly on the use of the taxes they pay. And you'll know that the little people have really won if the withholding tax-that device which allows bureaucrats to take money from wage earners before they even get their hands on it themselves-is ever repealed.

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