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?