We're totally doomed

[pozorvlak]

What if the US collapses? Lessons every American needs to know.

Summary: the Soviet Union, by luck more than planning, was much better prepared for economic collapse than the US is currently. They lived in dense cities, well-served by public transport, in rent-free government apartments, close to their families; all their technology was designed to run forever and be user-maintained; they were all used to foraging for food and relying on an informal barter economy*. After the economic collapse, most of these conditions continued to hold: people mostly stayed where they were, and the trains and trams continued to run. The excess stock held by inefficient government monopolies was taken home by employees and bartered; this helped to soften the collapse. Most of the problems that led to the Soviet collapse are evident in the USA today.

For "American", one could easily substitute "Westerner": here in the UK, we're much less vulnerable to the collapse of our transportation infrastructure (given that one could walk from one end of the country to the other in a month), but we're equally exposed to the vagaries of the financial sector and the mortgage market. I know I could easily be accused of being a Chicken Little, always convinced that the sky is falling (I've been predicting that house prices would crash since at least 1998) but I found this piece genuinely chilling.

I'm particularly interested to know what my Russian readers think of this article. How does it reflect your experience of the Soviet collapse?

* When I lived in the Czech Republic in 1998-9, mushrooming was a widespread activity; even though we have no shortage of edible fungi in the UK, I know precisely two people who go out collecting wild mushrooms.

Comments

[neoanjou.livejournal.com]

When I lived in the Czech Republic in 1998-9, mushrooming was a widespread activity; even though we have no shortage of edible fungi in the UK, I know precisely two people who go out collecting wild mushrooms.

Apparently this is a peculiarly anglo-saxon cultural thing as, for instance, the French have no such aversion to fungi.

My parents have gone hunting for mushrooms on occasions. But then we did go though a whole weird 'we live in the countryside - lets exploit it' kick after having moved from London.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's an aversion to fungi, so much as a skill that we've lost now we're richer. I'm pretty sure my mother used to go mushrooming as a child. Interesting that it's still mainstream in France, though.

[half-of-monty.livejournal.com]

It's still very mainstream in Sweden, too.

It's an interesting thing in terms of tipping points, though, cause once the folk knowledge of which mushrooms you can eat has been lost, it's rather hard to re-gain. Apparently looking in books is really inadequate compared to just going mushrooming with your parents for years.

I went mushrooming with a variety of nationalities of people in Sweden. Occasionally I would spot a beautiful specimen, only to be told it was poisonous - but it looked, to me, identical to the ones they were picking. So it's not something I'll be taking up any time soon. Pity, I adore mushrooms and it would fit with my idiom.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

Start with the mushrooms that don't look remotely like any poisonous ones?

[thesz.livejournal.com]

The excess stock held by inefficient government monopolies was taken home by employees and bartered; this helped to soften the collapse.

Nope.

The stock of my mother was sold for, I don't remember, 3000 roubles in 1991-1992.

It is only now common people realized that they can buy stock when in crisis.

Otherwise, SU was very hard target for a crisis, I can testify it. It went for young me almost unnoticed (I was 19-22 at the time of 1990-1993, and I was working person). Chewing gum price grew 10-20% almost weekly, but I know it because my friends told me so. ;)

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

I meant "stock" in the sense of "inventory, raw materials", not "shares in companies". Does that fit more closely with your memory?

[thesz.livejournal.com]

No, I remember shares of company being sold at laughable price.

[bdunbar.livejournal.com]

I'll have to read that closer - but one point jumped out at me - Orlov claims there is an obesity epidemic in the United States.

I'm pretty sure I read a few months ago that this was no true; the whole thing is 'the media' taking a few data points and manufacturing a crisis.

[pozorvlak.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't entirely surprise me to learn that it's been overblown - the media loves manufacturing scare stories. On the other hand, I do see a lot of young fat people around the place.

[bdunbar.livejournal.com]

On the other hand, I do see a lot of young fat people around the place.


My mother once bought a new car - a model that was not terribly common in Oklahoma. She said after she bought it she started seeing them all over the place, where before New Car she didn't recall seeing a single one.

Perception is interesting - we don't see what our eyeballs take in, only what the brain processes and presents for our attention.

ridiculous

[(Anonymous)]

i'd rather live in the US (or any Westerner country) after an economic collapse than in the Soviet Union (or any Communist country) during its most prosperous times. the two systems are so different you can't compare the two. just remember, one system has literally killed 100 million people.

Re: ridiculous

[thesz.livejournal.com]

one system has literally killed 100 million people

I can't help calling bullshit on this one.

Don't you read Solzhenitsin? It's where those numbers (100 millions) come from.

He openly admitted that he lied on that one, not long before his death.

BTW, the very name "Solzhenitsin" comes from root "lozh", "lie" in English.

[ryani.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about this article for a while last night.

While he does make some strikingly good points about how bad things could get, there's a couple bits that don't make any sense.

In particular, he mentions the U.S. giant consumer debt as a bad thing; and then goes on to talk about the hyperinflation that occurs during a collapse. The way I see it, having lots of debt is like an insurance policy against hyperinflation; if money becomes worthless, at least you can pay off your mortgage! So you really just need enough money/stuff to be able to survive until money becomes worthless, at which point you sell a few possessions for tons of "worthless" money and pay off your house.

The finance/credit industry will be the ones left on the hook, and hopefully the recent shocks will put enough caution into the remaining players that they figure out a contingency plan.

The points about disposable consumer items are well taken, but do you think that it would take a long time to correct this state of being? I would think a cottage industry of home appliance repair people would spring up. Automobile repair is another story, however; so much is controlled by computers that I don't know what a local person could do if the computers break down.

And it's not like people have to "stop doing stuff" if the economy goes south; I know that I'd keep doing *something*; the hope is that I can find something to do that is valuable in whatever new economy emerges.

The thing that worries me most in the case of collapse is food. Food is mostly transported from far off in the U.S. and if that infrastructure fails a lot of people are going to die. Hopefully the government/army/national guard/whatever would step in, in the case of mass failure here, and keep the food moving until more local solutions could be worked out.