Nate Hagens has published a thought-provoking essay entitled Mordor to the Long Repair: How Might Daily Life Feel in the Next Decades? It can be read here:
Rather than attempting to predict the future, the essay explores a series of possible futures and asks a much more useful question: what might everyday life actually feel like as industrial civilisation encounters increasing economic, energy and ecological constraints?
The central argument is that there is no single future waiting ahead. Instead, society may travel along several different paths depending upon political choices, resource availability and human behaviour. Some futures are darker than others, but all acknowledge that the era of abundant, cheap energy and perpetual economic growth is drawing to a close.
One of these futures is described as “Mordor.” Here, societies become increasingly authoritarian as governments struggle to preserve existing institutions despite declining resources. Living standards fall, inequality widens, public services deteriorate and social tensions become commonplace. Industrial systems continue to operate, but with increasing difficulty and at ever greater cost.
At the other end of the spectrum lies “The Long Repair.” This is not a return to some imagined golden age, nor is it a technological miracle. Instead, it is a gradual adaptation to a world with fewer resources, lower energy availability and reduced complexity. Communities slowly rebuild resilience by becoming less dependent on fragile global systems and more capable of meeting their own needs.
This vision resonates strongly with the principles of localism.
The Long Repair is not simply about surviving decline. It is about reorganising society around what is practical rather than what is merely efficient. Global supply chains give way to regional and local production wherever possible. Repair replaces replacement. Skills become more valuable than consumption. Communities rediscover cooperation because it becomes economically necessary rather than socially desirable.
These ideas are entirely consistent with the concept of a shrinking economy. As surplus energy declines, discretionary spending contracts and the economic landscape changes fundamentally. Many industries that flourished during decades of growth gradually disappear, while activities meeting essential human needs become increasingly important.
The essay provides an excellent explanation of why this transition may occur. However, it says relatively little about how communities might organise themselves once the transition begins. That is where the practical ideas of localism become important.
A resilient locality needs more than goodwill. It requires practical systems. Local food production, local water supplies, community energy, workshops, repair skills, local communications, community ownership of assets and neighbourhood governance all become essential components of everyday life. These are not nostalgic ambitions but rational responses to a world of increasing uncertainty.
Perhaps the most valuable aspect of Hagens’ essay is its emphasis on imagination. Much discussion about the future focuses on economic statistics, politics or technology. Far less attention is given to how daily life may actually change. What work will people do? Where will food come from? How will homes be heated? What skills will children need? Which institutions will remain important?
These are the questions that deserve serious attention.
There is, however, another perspective that helps explain why a Long Repair may be more than simply one possible future. Tim Morgan’s Surplus Energy Economics provides a compelling underlying mechanism.
Morgan argues that prosperity is determined not by the total amount of energy produced, but by the amount of surplus energy remaining after the energy sector has supplied its own needs. As the Energy Cost of Energy (ECoE) rises, less surplus energy is available to support the wider economy. The result is a gradual decline in discretionary prosperity, slowing economic growth, increasing financial instability and growing pressure on governments, businesses and households.
From this perspective, many of the trends described by Hagens are not isolated problems. They are symptoms of a deeper physical reality. Modern industrial civilisation has been built upon abundant, inexpensive surplus energy. As that surplus diminishes, society is forced to simplify. Complexity becomes increasingly expensive to maintain, while localisation becomes increasingly attractive because it reduces dependence upon long, energy-intensive supply chains.
This interpretation also explains why many current policies appear unable to restore sustained economic growth. Governments continue to pursue growth because the existing financial system depends upon it. Yet if declining surplus energy is the underlying constraint, policies alone cannot reverse the trend. They may delay the adjustment, but they cannot remove its physical causes.
Seen in this light, localism is not a political ideology or a nostalgic movement. It is an adaptive response to changing economic and energetic realities. Communities that can produce more of their own food, energy, water, goods and essential services are likely to prove more resilient than those dependent upon increasingly fragile national and global systems.
The Long Repair is therefore much more than an interesting scenario. It represents the gradual rebuilding of society around the resources that are actually available rather than those that were once assumed to be limitless.
For those seeking to understand the decades ahead, Nate Hagens provides an insightful picture of what the transition may feel like, while Tim Morgan offers a persuasive explanation of why it may be happening. Together they point towards a future in which local resilience, practical skills and strong communities become not simply desirable, but essential.
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