Maximizing Power Principle

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Description

"The maximum power principle explains why early succession minimizes diversity and later succession maximizes diversity. The first priority of a system is to maximize energy intake, to cover the area with energy receivers quickly, with units adapted for most rapid growth. The system reinforces the uncontrolled expression of the ecological principle of competitive exclusion, which states that one of two populations of self-duplicating organism, whn given excess resources to expand with Malhusian growth, will overgrow and displace the other...

The second priority is to maximize efficiency in its energy processing. When there are no excess, unused resources to be found, a high diversity of cooperating units develops, with better efficiency and division of labor. Succession such as that in a rainforest develops a higher diversity of species and repair mechanisms that give the system resilience to disturbances such wind damage and atomic radiation...

When resources are in excess, maximum power is achieved by the uncontrolled overgrowth of a few species specialized for quick capture of energy and materials. They do it by throwing up flimsy structures quickly. In human society we have the example of the American colonization of North America with weedy structures, fanatic elimination of diversity, capitalistic elimination of competitors, and laws written to facilitate growth. Religious reasons were used for displacing native people, a process that maximized the growth and power of the colonists.

It is a well-known property of growth acceleration that the competitor that starts first wins out. Thus in capitalism enterprises that begin by borrowing money to get a quick start win out as long as resources are not limiting. Later, after all sources are in use, they are replaced with more diversity, more controls, and longer-lasting structures. But many, if not most, people believe humans are somehow above the limits of energy resources. Ignorance about energy develops during a lifetime of accelerating growth."

- Howard T. Odum, Environment, Power, and Society for the Twenty-First Century: The Hierarchy of Energy (2007)