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Page added on December 27, 2017
John Michael Greer: Systems That Suck Less
Last week’s post on political economy attracted plenty of disagreement. Now of course this came as no surprise, and it was also not exactly surprising that most of the disagreement took the shape of strident claims that I’d used the wrong definition of socialism. That’s actually worth addressing here, because it will help clear the ground for this week’s discussion.
The definition I used, for those who weren’t here last week, is that socialism is the system of political economy in which the means of production are owned by the national government. Is that the only possible definition of socialism, or the only definition that’s ever been used? Of course not. The meanings of words are not handed down from on high by God or somebody; the meanings of words are always contested among competing points of view, and when a word has become as loaded with raw emotions as the word “socialism” has, you can bet that every one of the definitions you’ll be offered is slanted in one direction or another.
That’s just as true of the definition I’ve offered, of course, as it is of any other. I want to talk about who owns the means of production in society, since this is arguably the most important issue in political economy, and it so happens that socialism, capitalism, and many other systems can be defined quite neatly in this way. A century ago, when it was still acceptable to talk about systems of political economy other than capitalism and socialism, the definition I’ve proposed was one of the most common. You don’t hear it very often now, and there’s a reason for that.
Since 1945 the conventional wisdom across most of the world has insisted that there are two and only two possible systems of political economy: socialism on the one hand, capitalism on the other. That’s very convenient for socialists and capitalists, since it allows both sides to contrast an idealized and highly sentimental picture of the system they favor with the real and disastrous failings of the one they don’t, and insist that since the two systems are the only available options, you’d better choose theirs. This allows both sides to ignore the fact that the system they prefer is just as bad as the one they hate.
Let us please be real. In theory, socialism is a wonderful system in which the workers own the means of production, and people contribute what they can and receive what they need. In practice, as seen in actual socialist societies? It sucks. Get past the rhetoric, and what happens is that the workers’ ownership of the means of production becomes a convenient fiction; an inner circle of politicians controls the means of production, and uses it to advance its own interests rather than that of the workers. Centralized bureaucracy becomes the order of the day, fossilization follows, and you end up with the familiar sclerosis of the mature socialist economy, guided by hopelessly inefficient policies mandated by clueless central planners, and carried out grudgingly by workers who know that they have nothing to gain by doing more than the minimum. Eventually this leads to the collapse of the system and its replacement by some other system of political economy.
In theory, equally, capitalism is a wonderful system in which anyone willing to work hard can get ahead, and the invisible hand of the market inevitably generates the best possible state of affairs for everyone. In practice, as seen in actual capitalist societies? It sucks. Get past the rhetoric, and what happens is that social mobility becomes a convenient fiction; an inner circle of plutocrats controls the means of production, and uses economic power backed by political corruption to choke the free market and stomp potential competitors. Monopoly and oligopoly become the order of the day, wealth concentrates at the top of the pyramid, and you end up with the familiar sclerosis of the mature capitalist society, in which the workers who actually make the goods and provide the services can’t afford to buy them, resulting in catastrophic booms and busts, soaring unemployment, and the rise of a violent and impoverished underclass. Eventually this leads to the collapse of the system and its replacement by some other system of political economy.
Yes, this is as true of capitalism as it is of socialism. Unrestricted capitalism has already collapsed once—the aftermath of the Great Depression saw it replaced by social democracy, socialism, or fascism over all of the industrial world—and we didn’t begin to return to it again until the Reagan-Thatcher counterrevolution of the 1980s. Now that we’ve gotten back to something fairly close to unrestricted capitalism, we’ve got all the same spiraling dysfunctions that brought things crashing down in the 1930s. The possibility that it could end the same way, with a similar quota of armbands and jackboots, is rather hard to dismiss out of hand just at the moment.
At the same time, the notion that we can fix the current mess by exchanging capitalism for socialism doesn’t bear close examination. We know how socialism works out, just as we know how capitalism works out. As previously noted, both of them suck. The obvious solution—unthinkable these days, oh, granted, but obvious—is to look for other options.
The best way to do this, it seems to me, is to pay attention to the core similarity between capitalism and socialism. Both systems reliably end up dominated by massive bureaucracies—corporate bureaucracies in the former case, government bureaucracies in the latter—and the bureaucracies do so stunningly bad a job of getting people the goods and services they need that it becomes necessary to paper over the gaps with propaganda and police violence. There’s a reason for the similarity, and it’s one that people who studied political economy a century and more ago had no trouble at all recognizing: in capitalism and socialism alike, control of the means of production is concentrated in too few hands.
Promoters of socialist systems like to pretend that if the means of production are owned by the government, they’re really owned by the workers, but I trust none of my readers are simple-minded enough to fall for that bait-and-switch tactic. In the same way, promoters of capitalist systems like to pretend that if the means of production are owned by stockholders, a little old lady who has five shares of Microsoft has just as much effective ownership as Bill Gates; here again, the old bait-and-switch tactic gets a hefty workout. In socialist systems, control of the means of production is kept within a small circle of upper-level bureaucrats; in capitalist systems, control of the means of production is kept within a small circle of upper-level plutocrats.
That’s not something either socialists or capitalists like to talk about, in turn, because once you start looking at who owns the means of production, it really doesn’t make sense to insist that the only choice your society has is either to hand them over to a small coterie of bureaucrats, or to hand them over to an equally small coterie of plutocrats. Most people, considering that choice, will quite sensibly ask why some other arrangement is out of the question—and that is not a question either socialists or capitalists want to answer, or even to hear.
Here again, there’s good reason for that. In a modern industrial society, after all, the people who control most of the wealth are also the people who exercise disproportionate influence over the political system. The choice between capitalism and socialism thus amounts to asking whether you want the means of production in the hands of corporate bureaucracies owned by the elite class, or political bureaucracies controlled by the elite class. “Meet the new boss,” sang the Who, “same as the old boss.” There are other options, and they begin with getting the means of production into many more hands.
What happens if we ask ourselves how control over the means of production can be spread more widely? Why, then we would end up revisiting the lively world of alternative systems of political economy that existed before 1945, when the US and the Soviet Union between them squeezed out every alternative to social democracy on the one hand and socialism on the other, and kept on squeezing. We would find that the question of the ownership and control of the means of production was the focus of vigorous and thoughtful discussion from the second half of the nineteenth century straight through the first half of the twentieth. There were quite a few systems proposed during that time, but those that didn’t gravitate either toward capitalism or toward socialism generally embraced one form or another of syndicalism.
Syndicalism? That’s the form of political economy in which each business enterprise is owned and run by its own employees.
Before we go on, I’d like to encourage my readers to stop, reread that definition, and remember that we’re talking about the ownership and control of the means of production. It’s possible to approach political economy from other directions, sure, and there’s a point to those discussions as well, but—ahem—not when those discussions are used to try to stonewall discussion of who gets to own and run the means of production. We can talk about those other things later.
Okay, with that settled, let’s talk about the most important feature of syndicalism: it’s already been tried, and it works. Right now there’s a very large number of employee-owned enterprises in the United States, and an even larger number elsewhere in the industrial world. They are by and large just as successful as companies owned by stockholders who aren’t employees. There are several different ways to set up a worker-owned enterprise—the two most common are the worker-owned cooperative, on the one hand, and the closely held corporation whose stock can only be owned by employees, on the other—and they’ve been around long enough to have had the bugs worked out. Thus we’re not talking about a pie-in-the-sky system, we’re talking about something with a long and relatively successful track record. You’ve probably shopped at worker-owned enterprises, dear reader; I certainly have.
In a very real sense, syndicalism is what happens when you take the basic unit of a market economy—the individual sole proprietor with no employees, who sells the product of his or her labor directly to customers—and maintain the same relationship with the means of production at a larger scale. In a capitalist society, only the owners of capital own the means of production: the mass of the population, not being rich enough to be able to invest in ownership of the means of production, are excluded from any economic activity other than selling their labor at whatever wages employers want to pay, and buying products at whatever price companies want to charge. In a socialist economy, no individual owns the means of production: everyone is an employee of the state, and the bureaucrats who draft the latest Five-Year Plan in blissful ignorance of shop-floor realities have no more of a personal stake in how things turn out than the working stiffs on the shop floor who have to carry out the dictates of the plan despite its obvious cluelessness.
In a syndicalist society, by contrast, every employee is an owner. Every employee benefits when the business prospers and suffers when the business takes a loss. Every employee has some influence over the management of the business—the usual approach is to have employees elect a board of directors, which then hires and fires the management personnel. Every employee thus has a personal stake in the business—and every business is owned and run by people who have a personal stake in its success. That’s one of the reasons syndicalism works well.
Let’s deal with some of the usual questions at this point. Do sole proprietorships exist in a syndicalist system? Of course. An individual who goes into business for himself or herself is the simplest form of syndicalist economic organization: a business wholly owned and operated by its one employee. A family business—the sort of thing where Mom and Dad own the business and their kids work there—is also a syndicalist business in miniature. It’s when things get larger than that, and there are employees other than the individual proprietor or the members of a family, that the classic forms of syndicalist ownership come into play.
Wouldn’t syndicalism mean that new employees coming in could simply take over the business and throw the founder out on his or her ear? Not at all, because the way you organize a business in a syndicalist society prevents that. Let’s say you’ve founded a blivet-making business, just you and your blivet press, and you do well enough that you need a second employee. You hire someone, and part of the terms of hire are that she gets a share in the business for each year of employment. The business is worth thirty thousand dollars at the time of hire, we’ll say, so she gets, as part of her compensation package, one share with a five hundred dollar face value each year. This cannot be sold or transferred; it remains with her only as long as she remains an employee of the company; but it gives her voting rights in the shareholders meeting and a cut of the annual dividend. A year after she’s hired, she has one vote in the shareholder’s meeting and you’ve got fifty-nine, so she’s not going to be throwing you out any time soon.
By the time she’s put in thirty years, she owns half the original value of the company, but of course by then you’ve retired, and your shares are the basis of your pension. (Your shares revert to the company when you retire, remember—they can only be owned by employees—but your pension makes up for the income.) In the meantime, as the business grows and you bring in more employees, they also start earning shares on the same basis. A hundred years down the road the business you founded is a thriving blivet firm with three hundred fifty employees, all of whom are part owners, and each new employee starts out in the same place as your first hire, working for a year and getting that first share. Again, this was all worked out a long time ago.
Can you fire someone in a syndicalist company? Of course, if they’re not doing their job, or do something that deserves termination. That’s why the employees elect a board of directors, and the board hires management: so there’s somebody who’s not on the shop floor who can take responsibility for hiring and firing, and the other tasks management has to do. A management team that tries to offshore jobs to Third World sweatshops is going to be out on its ear in a hurry, of course, because the board of directors has to worry about being thrown out by vote of the employees; in the same way, any board of directors that tried to pay a management team the kind of absurdly kleptocratic salary packages that management thinks it deserves in today’s America had better empty its desk and pack its bags in advance. When every employee has a personal stake in the success of the enterprise, though, firing somebody who’s not pulling their weight, or is a problem in some other way, is rarely a controversial issue.
Now, the big one: could such a thing actually happen? Of course it could, for the same reason that unrestricted capitalism gave way to social democracy, socialism, and fascism across the industrial world in the 1930s. Capitalism, as we discussed last week, has a self-destruct button wired into it: as the distribution of wealth becomes more and more imbalanced, the production of goods and services stops being profitable, speculative booms and busts replace investment in productive activity, and sooner or later the economy hits a crash devastating enough that the voters turn to somebody who promises to replace unrestricted capitalism with something else. We’re arguably not that many crises away from such a moment here in America right now.
That’s why it’s time to start talking again about the alternatives to capitalism and socialism. Since, as already noted, both of them suck, and the third alternative most often tried back in the 1930s—fascism—sucks even more, other options are worth considering.
It’s worth noting that classic social democracy is also an option. That’s the system we had in the United States from 1932 to 1980—a period, please note, when this country achieved the highest standard of living and the widest distribution of wealth and income in its history. As mentioned in last week’s post, social democracy balances the power of government against the power of the corporations. It’s an unsteady balance, and eventually breaks down when the wealthy forget that limiting the excesses of the capitalist system is the one thing that keeps them from being strung up from lampposts, but during the time that it works, it sucks less than either of the two alternatives that get all the air time these days.
It’s also worth noting that syndicalism comes in many flavors. Those of my readers who happen to be Roman Catholics will want to check out distributism, the specifically Catholic version of syndicalism, which draws its basic principles from encyclicals issued by Leo XIII and Pius IX in the nineteenth century, and was worked out in some detail by G.K. Chesterton in the early twentieth. Those who aren’t Roman Catholics, or sympathetic to Catholic moral doctrines, will probably not find it to their tastes, because it incorporates quite a bit of conservative Catholic morality; I mention it here partly because I have quite a few readers who are either Catholic or comfortable with Catholic moral thought, and partly as a reminder that syndicalism isn’t necessarily associated with the political left—you’d have a hard time convincing anyone who knows the first thing about Pius IX or G.K. Chesterton that either man was a leftist.
There are other versions, ranging from anarchosyndicalism on the extreme left to national syndicalism on the extreme right. The version I tend to favor, as previously noted, is democratic syndicalism: the system of political economy that combines a syndicalist economy with a politics based on constitutional representative democracy. I also favor a firm distinction between public utilities, which are best owned and operated by local governments, and private businesses, which are best owned and operated by the people who work for them; readers of my book Retrotopia already know that I consider banking to be a public utility rather than a private business, but that’s a matter for another post.
Is what I’ve just very roughly sketched out a perfect system? Of course not. In the real world, there are no perfect systems. Every possible system of political economy will inevitably turn out to have glaring flaws, for the simple reason that human beings have glaring flaws. The best we can hope to achieve is a system that sucks less than the ones that have been tried so far.
I think that’s potentially within reach, even given the many other pressures on the United States and industrial society in general as we lurch through the opening phases of the Long Descent. If such a thing is going to be possible, though, the first step is to break out of the mental rut that insists that the only choice we’ve got is between capitalism and socialism, two systems that both unquestionably suck. Attention to the ownership of the means of production is one tolerably effective way to leave that rut and start exploring the vast and interesting spaces outside it.
Ecosophia by John Michael Greer
330 Comments on "John Michael Greer: Systems That Suck Less"
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 4:46 pm
“Systems that suck less” latest:
2017 was very good in Europe, 2018 will be better.
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2017/12/05/expect-european-renaissance-in-2018-amundi-says.html
“Expect ‘European Renaissance’ in 2018, Amundi says”
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/12/boom-to-continue-through-2018-as-dutch-economy-hits-10-year-peak/
The only bottleneck: finding skilled employees.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 5:10 pm
JMG went totally nuts. And needs a fresh shave and shower…And his argument that collapse will happen over an entire century is laughable. He just says that just like all the other peak oil authors because they want their books published and they want to sell them.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 5:11 pm
Clogg
Parroting MSM propaganda from CNBS will only get you laughed at.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 5:34 pm
The MSM has done an excellent job calming the cattle before they are slaughtered.
https://imgur.com/a/SCZDV
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 6:28 pm
“The MSM has done an excellent job calming the cattle before they are slaughtered.”
You should be thankful for that MM. Because once the herd becomes panicked, there will be a stampede towards the exit doors, followed by collapse.
And MM, when the collapse happens, are you going to stick around long enough to protect your girlfriend from the goons, before you commit suicide? Or do you plan on killing her too, before the goons do?
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 6:39 pm
Perhaps MM is going to follow the path of my refereed quote, one way or another?
“Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”
Cowards are cowards, no matter what the age or supposed education. I can see him now:
“Here! Take my bitch but leave me alone! I want to read my old peer reviewed studies saying all of this is not possible.”
As for myself, I prefer to experience life, so I am prepared for what will come as much as possible. I look forward to exciting times. If I die, so what? We all will at some time. Then it is over. No Heaven/Hell. Just nothing.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 6:46 pm
“his argument that collapse will happen over an entire century is laughable.”
The collapse has already been ongoing since at least the 1970s MM, when the US reached Peak Oil, and Nixon slammed shut the gold window.
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 6:53 pm
Greg, when you live in the ‘pot’, especially the USMSM one, it is difficult to see the real world. MM is just an example of the general blindness of Americans to their situation. They are told from birth that they are exceptional and live in the American Dream. They are constantly distracted by that same MSM so that they do not notice the collapse around them. The ‘pot’ heating up. It is too late to save the US, IF it deserved saving. It does not. The sooner it is unable to plunder and kill all over the world the better. Maybe 2018 will be the year that it ends. I hope.
onlooker on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 6:53 pm
and the bureaucracies do so stunningly bad a job of getting people the goods and services they need that it becomes necessary to paper over the gaps with propaganda and police violence. — I agree with most of what JMG stated except this. Capitalism has proven spectacularly successful at giving many people what they need and even want. But that ironically is its greatest failure in hindsight. We unleashed human desires to such an extent ie. witness Chinese in the millions wanting to live like Americans that we created a huge consumer base that has enabled and facilitated both the overpopulation and degrading and depletion of the this planets life support systems and resources
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:05 pm
These are quotes from the kind of people teaching in America:
1) Prof suggests Texans deserve hurricane for supporting Trump
2) Prof says House GOP ‘should be lined up and shot’
3) Prof calls whites ‘inhuman assholes,’ says ‘let them die’
4) Prof says Otto Warmbier ‘got exactly what he deserved’
5) Drexel prof blames ‘whiteness’ for Texas massacre.
https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10304
Out of context? I doubt it. So goes America.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:09 pm
Here is the reason why Greg and Madkat think they can survive the collapse.
American Psychological Association’s Concise Dictionary of Psychology: “An unpleasant reality is ignored, and a realistic interpretation of potentially threatening events is replaced by a benign but inaccurate one
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:14 pm
Madkat
How exactly am I brainwashed by the MSM? I have given several peer reviewed studies showing that collapse is going to happen. I am fully aware and accept my future. Its like you dont even think before you complain about others. Your claims that I am somehow unaware of whats coming are ludicrous and self denying.
And Greg
My girl is not a huge fan of the collaspe subject so I have steered her in the direction of a BAU lite and slow collapse..(Even though that’s an oxymoron)..
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:16 pm
MM,
Obviously nobody can possibly survive the collapse, except for of course, the goons.
When the collapse happens, are you going to stick around long enough to protect your girlfriend from the goons, before you commit suicide? Or do you plan on killing her too, before the goons do?
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:17 pm
Madkat
WOW five professors said something dumb..Who cares we have free speech you snowflake. there are tens of thousands of professors who don’t say outrageous things. Stop being an anti intellectual. You are obviously jealous of others who are highly educated like myself. But I know Madkat what do Doctors knwo anyways..I am sure a construction worker like yourself is much more qualified to know the answer to everything. Especially one who now wears depends (Diapers) everyday.. LOL
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:19 pm
Greg
Once the collapse hits she and everyone else will be on their own. I wont be able to help her at all anymore..I will be worthless.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:24 pm
“I wont be able to help her at all anymore..I will be worthless.”
I thought you said you were going to put a bullet in your head? And did you not tell me, multiple times, that I would not survive the collapse because of the goons?
Because other than the goons, and climatic instability, I see no insurmountable problems here, post collapse.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:26 pm
” Especially one who now wears depends (Diapers) everyday.. LOL”
Resorting to delusional accusations is not exactly a reasonable or intelligent argument MM.
Is that the best you can come up with?
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:28 pm
Greg
Well there is no way for me to know how set up you are. I just know that even the Amish for example in the US buy all of their tools and lumber and stuff from stores. And without the rule of law in place and store shelves stocked their farms would be the first place people would rob to find food to stay alive. And if the Amish couldn’t make post collapse I doubt someone who is on the internet as much as you could. But I have no way of knowing online. So I am sure you will tell yourself you are fine. Personally I dont care what the hell you do and as another fellow human being I wish you well.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:42 pm
“Well there is no way for me to know how set up you are.”
Exactly. So enough with the delusional BS already. The collapse of modern industrial society does not equate to the extinction of the human race.
Those who have positioned themselves well, are already established at a small local community level, who know how to provide food for themselves, will do just fine in an economic collapse scenario. Not everyone on this planet lives in a big city full of potential goons, without the skills and knowledge required to build community, or the land, tools, and skills to provide food for themselves.
FYI MM. Our water comes from a well. Our sewage is gravity fed septic. We have no cellphone service, no cable, no high speed internet, and no crime. My internet connection, and land line, are via satellite.
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:46 pm
Greg, When you cannot think outside the box, as seems to be MM’s problem, you cannot see other possibilities. You are obviously set up for a future without globalization in the location you think is best for that adventure. I too am in the process of such a setup in a very different location and culture in the location I have determined to be the best for my future. In a few months, I will be out of the city and close to the farm while the house is being built. By this time next year, I will be totally independent of globalization. I cold be today, if necessary, but I will use the time to increase that freedom.
That is not possible for most, if not all, Americans. Their whole lifestyle and infrastructure is built around JIT deliveries and FF support, with a functioning financial system and trillions in government handouts. All of that is going to go away. Few will be prepared for that event.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:49 pm
“And without the rule of law in place and store shelves stocked their farms would be the first place people would rob to find food to stay alive.”
Why do you believe, that the goons would travel long distances from densely populated areas to find food, when there would be more than enough stuff to rape, loot, and pillage in the cities to keep them occupied for a very long time? That just doesn’t make any sense.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:50 pm
Greg and Madkat
*Post-collapse Preparation Is the Answer*
Myth:
Well-prepared individuals, groups, and communities will survive our impending collapse and maintain healthy, fulfilling, and productive lives in its aftermath.
Reality:
Those who survive our collapse will be those who can obtain sufficient life sustaining essentials—especially clean water and food—on a continuous basis, both during and after collapse. Those who store large quantities of these essentials and those who attempt to produce
food, either individually or in communities, will be easy targets for the vast majority who have neither the foresight to store nor the skills to produce. No matter how remote or secluded your sanctuary, somebody will know about it; and they will come to call when they become desperate; and they will be well armed and devoid of compassion. You can prepare for a last stand, but you cannot prepare for post-collapse survival. Post-collapse Life Will Be Preferable to Our Industrial Lifestyle Paradigm
Myth:
Industrialization has brought nothing but misery and degradation to the human race; our quality of life (and spiritual wellbeing) will improve substantially in a post-collapse world.
Reality:
The post-collapse lifestyle awaiting the few who survive will, under the best of circumstances, share many attributes with pre-Columbian America. Unfortunately, the realities associated with subsistence level existence bear little semblance to the Hollywood accounts.
Those who anxiously await our post-collapse world will be disappointed, assuming they live to experience it. The fact that nobody is opting to jettison the amenities afforded by an industrialized way of life in favor of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle today should be sufficient proof that our future way of life is not something to be anticipated. Industrialism is not inherently “evil” or immoral; it is simply physically impossible going forward.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 7:53 pm
Greg and Madkat
See all you both are really doing is preparing for a last stand. That is all..And the keyword is “LAST”…Because as they say you can run but you can’t hide…
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 8:15 pm
“No matter how remote or secluded your sanctuary, somebody will know about it; and they will come to call when they become desperate; and they will be well armed and devoid of compassion. ”
Assuming that you are talking about a collapse scenario, where people do not have access to gasoline, very few would be able to survive the journey to get here, and those who have the skills required to do so, wouldn’t bother. And if you think for one second that we aren’t armed to the teeth here, and more than ready, willing, and able to protect ourselves, you would be very sadly mistaken.
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:10 pm
Greg, He obviously does not think through his assertions. You are likely correct that the cities will supply plunder for as long as the gangs may last. Even if they do roam, there will be much to plunder in the burbs. If you are at least 100 miles outside of a large population center, and not along a main highway, you will also likely be safe. Yes, your neighbors will know but they will also be part of your community and know you will share.
Here, they would have to walk as the roads through the mountains (two roads) close with landslides during large storms. They would not be cleared in a collapse scenario. That means any raiders would have to walk at least 40 miles after they entered the mountain range. I doubt they would try. Too much effort for little chance of reward. That area is sparsely populated and then only with poor people not likely to have anything of use. I’m not concerned about ‘raiders’, just climate change and that will likely not be serious until I am gone in 15-20 years.
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:17 pm
“Stop being an anti intellectual. You are obviously jealous of others who are highly educated like myself.“
Could you reveal us in what field you are highly educated? Did you graduate in anything? Did you finish highschool in the first place?
antaris on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:21 pm
MM. On the west coast north of 49,mountains and ocean will Stop most. If the shtf I plan to be north of that.
In the old days it wasn’t easy up here, that’s why population is low. Farther north without the welfare (Alaska), not much will live there.
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:35 pm
Cloggie, he claims to have a degree in chemistry, I think, but his posts tell a different story. No education. No maturity. No intelligence. Likely on drugs. Possible cousin to Davy. Similar closed mind, potty mouth and attitude.
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:37 pm
Chemistry degree.
Thanks for the info mak.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:40 pm
I’d be willing to bet that MM wouldn’t survive the journey here even now, if he was dropped off out in the bush 40 miles from my home. As a matter of fact, I seriously doubt that many people would.
I’ve spent an entire lifetime of backcountry travel in this part of the world, and it isn’t exactly a walk in the park. Very mountainous terrain, with lots of wetlands, and plenty of fast flowing rivers. There are animal trails everywhere, but if you didn’t know the lay of the land, or where you were going, it would quickly become a deadly lesson in futility. People die out in the backcountry of BC, all the time, even today.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:47 pm
When the US financial system collapses it will cause a cascading effect to all the worlds markets simultaneously.
Read page 56 of this peer reviewed scientific study
http://www.feasta.org/2012/06/17/trade-off-financial-system-supply-chain-cross-contagion-a-study-in-global-systemic-collapse/
Cloggie on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:51 pm
“When the US financial system collapses it will cause a cascading effect to all the worlds markets simultaneously.”
That I consider to be a much more realistic possibility than peak oil supply kicking in.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 9:53 pm
I know madkat what do educated people know anyways. I am sure a construction worker like you who ate burger king for lunch every day are the true enlightened people of the world…LOL
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 10:00 pm
Just wait until we experience a 10% or 20% drop in oil supplies. In a few years or sooner we certainly will. The reason being conventional legacy fields declining and lack of new discoveries (Peak Oil), and lack of future investments (2 Trillion Capex Slashed) When it hits the economic and social damage will be catastrophic. The end of Western Civilization, from China to Europe, to the US, will not occur when oil runs out. The economic and social chaos will occur when supplies are merely reduced sufficiently….
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 10:05 pm
Cloggie
Here is the reason you deny peak oil even though the evidence in lack of discoveries speaks for itself.
A world no longer powered by fossil fuels, no matter what incarnation, is almost inconceivable and for many terrifying. . It is indeed traumatic for what it might (probably) mean not just for us but also for our love ones, children, grandchildren. Our hearts break. We want to fix it.
antaris on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 10:07 pm
MM. 10 years ago my business fax, phone and email (not used as much ) stopped. My partner and I were looking at each other trying to figure out what we had done wrong. Nothing financial has been fixed since, just bojanged. Now no partner, better awareness. I’ll just take wife and kid north if given warning. Down south may get ugly. But the system has resilience and will probably be fine for many years. You should tell your gf about the bullet now and let her decide her future.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 10:21 pm
My great grandfather homesteaded on the prairies of Canada. No running water, no electricity, no cars, no planes, no chainsaws, no TVs, no telephones, no radio, no nothing even remotely resembling modern industrial society. He endured winters with temperatures that routinely dropped below -40º C, for weeks at a time, in a single room sod roofed log cabin, that he built by himself with his bare hands. He survived just fine, and died at the age of 98 in 1976.
My father grew up without running water, automobiles, telephones, refrigeration, and even survived the depression and World War 2. He is now 88 and still doing fine.
Our children’s children, will likely not even survive on this planet, if we don’t stop burning fossil fuels, and soon.
MASTERMIND on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 10:32 pm
Greg
Fossil fuels are what give us heat, light, and most important motion..Without those three things your kids go back to not the dark ages but the stone ages. And around 10-20 percent of all humans during the stone ages died at the hands of other human beings. Very violent times. You would just club a woman over the head and then drag her by her hair back to your cave and turn her into your personal fuck toy…And when the nuke plants are deserted and they melt down and explode you will be killed. And very horribly at that. No matter how much you have prepped. But I know you will just ignore that little important factor just like Madkat does.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 10:46 pm
“Fossil fuels are what give us heat, light, and most important motion”
We heat with wood, our electricity is from hydro, and there is no need for people to be travelling all of the world at 60 miles per hour. We were born with feet for motion.
“Without those three things your kids go back to not the dark ages but the stone ages.”
My kids are your age MM, and they just left after the holidays to return back to the city. We talked about the possibility of collapse, and they both know that they will always have a safe place to call home with us here. We have plenty of technology stocked up here, that says that they would never need to go back to the stone ages.
“And around 10-20 percent of all humans during the stone ages died at the hands of other human beings.”
People are still killing each other today. The weapons just happen to be bigger, and the number of murders greater. Very violent times. It’s in our nature.
“You would just club a woman over the head and then drag her by her hair back to your cave and turn her into your personal fuck toy”
You’ve been watching too many sexually deviant cartoons.
“And when the nuke plants are deserted and they melt down and explode you will be killed.”
Three of the closest downwind nuclear reactors from me recently melted down. I still appear to be doing just fine. Wonders never cease…..
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 10:56 pm
“The economic and social chaos will occur when supplies are merely reduced sufficiently….”
And the intelligent people will get out of dodge until the dust settles.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 11:05 pm
Sorry,
Three of the closest upwind nuclear reactors from me recently melted down. I haven’t felt the urge to cough up any internal organs yet, and I haven’t heard of anybody else doing so either. Strange that……….
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 11:20 pm
Greg, I think most of the intelligent people are already out of Dodge or have a place outside of Dodge to retreat to when the SHTF.
MM is a broken record and keeps saying the same bullshit over and over as if that makes it true. He should read “Chernobyl: Facts About the Nuclear Disaster” before he rants about meltdowns killing everyone.
https://www.livescience.com/39961-chernobyl.html
Not that I am worried. There are no nuclear plants in the Ps and the closest one is in China, about 650 miles away from the farm and not in the prevailing winds. I lived ~20 miles from Three Mile Island when it went and no one there died.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 11:36 pm
I don’t think that very many people have any clue about where this is all heading Makati, or they simply don’t want to know. That being said, I have met several people around here over the past couple of years who moved here for that very reason.
I don’t buy into MM’s fast crash scenario. I think we’ll continue to see the same that we have been seeing for the last 30 years, but intensifying over time. The rich will keep getting richer, and more and more of the middle class will find themselves in the poor house. The cost of living will continue to rise exponentially, and employment and wages will continue to drop. Countries will continue to fall, one by one, and more cities will turn into gangland war zones, like Chicago, Baltimore, St. Louis, Cleveland, Atlanta, and Detroit already have.
I have no doubt that at some point the bottom will drop out, but not from oil shortages. More likely from financial mismanagement, and exponentially growing mountains of debt due to oil prices being higher than our economies can afford.
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 11:36 pm
MM, I was born before TV, A/C, electronics of every kind. No indoor plumbing. Basic electric. Coal heat. Etc. Do you think it would be impossible for me to go back to a similar lifestyle? Nope! I am stepping down the ladder to that very lifestyle currently. The farm will have indoor plumbing fed from rainwater collected in tanks on the 2nd floor, by gravity. The rooms are designed to not need lighting or A/C. No heat needed. Temps at the farm range from 70F to 94F year round. Never hotter or colder. 12 feet of rain to feed the tanks annually. Concrete and masonry construction. Earthquake proof. It was engineered by myself using 50 years of learning by doing.
Yes, I will have and use the internet, cell phones and cable TV for as long as they last, but then my extensive book library and working on the farm will be my entertainment and education. The farm will provide what I need. The local craftsmen/women will barter for what I cannot make or grow myself. I am prepared for that also. Community will survive. Useless people will not.
Makati1 on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 11:46 pm
Greg, I pretty much agree. The slide will continue with a few sudden drops along the way. At each point, extraordinary measures will be used to prop up the system, until it cannot. Debt is the killer, not peak oil and climate change, even though they do impact the speed of the slide somewhat.
It is intentional, by TPTB, I think. They have decided to pull the plug on the empire and allow it to collapse. I call it the Great Leveling, as you know. Asia is moving up. The West is moving down. At some point they will be level in most areas. Then the World Government will be in place. I probably will not live that long, but it would be interesting to observe. IF we can avoid another world war.
GregT on Wed, 27th Dec 2017 11:50 pm
Agreed Makati, and thanks for adding what I was also going to say. I would expect the warmongering to continue to intensify, as desperation sets in.
GregT on Thu, 28th Dec 2017 12:50 am
“Just wait until we experience a 10% or 20% drop in oil supplies.”
Prices will escalate, just like they did in the lead up to ’08. More of the dregs will come online, just as they did after ’08, and governments and central banks will continue to mislead the cattle and pretend that it’s still BAU. Everything will appear to hum along quite nicely, until the herd panics. By the time the confidence game is up, the bankers and corporatists will have fleeced the herd in the greatest redistribution of wealth in the history of mankind. The final chapter in the NWO will finally be complete.
deadly on Thu, 28th Dec 2017 1:47 am
Ya but now there is the knowledge-based economy. Political economies are going to be obsolete. Electricity, oil, coal, development of resources make it all different.
The British East India Company was expert at supplying China with opium from India.
Capitalists. Free trade. As long as it pays, then it is all good.
China had legal heroin for medicinal purposes, so the trade was not illegally supplied. Then all of a sudden there were between four million and 12 million opium addicts in China. You gotta wonder why.
Until 1840 something then the Opium Wars broke out and Hong Kong became a British colony until the late 20th Century.
All that money from the opium trade went to England. We know how much the Brits love the British Isles, they write catchy tunes.
Some of that money is probably still in the bank. Lloyd’s of London probably insured those opium shipments. They did. They insure Bitcoin too.
Have to trade something for something, and hefty sums of silver and gold will do.
http://www.victorianweb.org/history/empire/opiumwars/opiumwars1.html
Socialists produce tyrants like Stalin who made good use of the gulag system, Solzhenitzyn wrote a thick book about the conditions in the Siberian outback.
If you want millions of people to die, embrace socialism, it’s a happening thing, killing fields everywhere you go with socialists running the show.
If you really want to know, in China, the Christian religion has gained a foothold and the number of Christians in China has grown from three million to 115 million since 1980. The socialists in China do not like the Christian religion, so most Christian churches in China operate underground.
So the Roman catacombs are now in China.
Socialists always insist that people do not understand socialists and socialism. China anschlussed Tibet, so they get what they want. With socialism, there is no apostasy and you get to be an atheist too, so shut up about it. Good Lord.
If you want collapse, do it the socialist way, it’ll happen.
As in everything else, it works until it doesn’t.
Just become Hutterites, live on farms with barracks style housing, eat in a mess hall, grow homegrown tomatoes, potatoes, raise chickens, pigs, cows and goats. You’ll be reading the Bible, so get used to that.
Live out in the country on the Europe side of the Urals over in Russia, you’ll be at the edge of nowhere.
An ag economy isn’t as desirable, if you want to eat, you’ll have to raise your own food. You’ll probably learn how to hunt and fish. Sorry, but you get the picture.
If you don’t work, you won’t eat. The ‘If you don’t work, you don’t eat’ political economy will exist too.
People want to be more sophisticated than a Hutterite community growing thousands of chickens for the chicken market. As basic and mundane as it will get. It will be no ecstasy, all agony for just about everyone.
Urban environments can be desirable, food, music, the arts, the theater, everything. Living is easy and the digs are cool. Seafood, ports, hubs, it’s all there and yours for the asking.
It’s summer every day on the 25th floor of the high-rise, why would you want to be outside in the open air for more than two days at a time? Ridiculous! The aquarium and the tropical plants are the garden and the farm both. Don’t bother with any of the rest of it. Book a flight to the French Riviera and walk the beaches for outdoor enjoyment, not a getaway to a farm in the Swiss Alps. For goodness sake, get real. A two week stay at Lake Geneva is what it will be.
Can’t keep them down on the farm when there is Boston and New York City. What Jewish American Princess is going to milk cows and shovel manure from the dairy barn? Maggie’s Farm is too far away, so the answer will be no.
Not when you can have concert halls where symphonies are performed. You won’t hear cellos and oboes in the cornfields of Illinois unless you are listening to the radio.
Everything will suck then.
Makati1 on Thu, 28th Dec 2017 2:04 am
Deadly, but we will have a more peaceful, slow life. Less stress. You can easily grow enough to eat with an average hours work daily. Occasional repairs to the hut. Some maintenance on the stuff you use and need like knives and gardening tools. No hour commute to work and an hour back. No Hauling the kids all over for their sports and music lessons, etc.
Why cannot there be music? Orchestras are made up of non-electronic instruments and I doubt anyone is going to forget how to play them. Music is thousands of years old and is not likely to disappear when the SHTF. The orchestra performed even during the siege of Leningrad in WW2.
Yes, many will not be able to adapt and will suffer and die. They will be just ‘collateral damage’ as the US likes to call them. But those whose life styles are not much different than that now, will hardly notice the change. My farm neighbors are those kind of people. Skilled, self-reliant, educated, friendly people. Living by the sweat of their brow, not their ‘investments’ or the dole. They are not the mix of races, religions and income of the US. They are mostly Catholic and Filipino. A few of us whiteys there also. but less than five out of the thousands of Filipinos in a 50 mile radius. No blacks or Muslims.
Cloggie on Thu, 28th Dec 2017 2:53 am
Here is the reason you deny peak oil even though the evidence in lack of discoveries speaks for itself.
A world no longer powered by fossil fuels, no matter what incarnation, is almost inconceivable and for many terrifying. . It is indeed traumatic for what it might (probably) mean not just for us but also for our love ones, children, grandchildren. Our hearts break.
I thought exactly like you millimind between 2008-2012, but new data came in and I moved on.
We want to fix it.
Of course we want to fix it and we are going to fix it, because we can fix it:
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/15/north-sea-offshore-wind-hubs/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/05/09/the-giants-of-a-new-energy-age/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/01/07/gold-mine-north-sea/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/05/16/the-enormous-energy-potential-of-the-north-sea/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/08/european-north-sea-energy-alliance/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/high-temperature-electrolysis/