Abstract
The level of energy use determines the technological level, which in turn determines what can be used as resources. Technology also determines the scope of political organization. Attempts to form a world-government fail because high-energy technology today can provide only limited goods for the world's people. The nation-state is appropriate for competing at this stage; for it provides to some the means to obtain more than their share in a world where equitable distribution would mean poverty for all. World peace would result from reduction to a low-energy technology supporting a city-state world in which people would not have the means to cause worldwide disruption, or through advancement to an unlimited-energy technology supporting a world-state in which abundance could be had for all.
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