“There is a deeper principle underneath all of this. Abundance distributes optionality. Scarcity concentrates dependency. A person with multiple independent energy sources has choices. A country with multiple energy suppliers has leverage. A farmer with stored fuel has autonomy. A citizen holding cash possesses a means of exchange that does not require real-time authorization by a digital network. Constraint reverses those relationships. The more essential a resource becomes and the fewer channels through which it can be obtained, the more power accrues to whoever controls those channels.”

~ Harry Blazer, “Peak Oil and the Architecture of Control”