Dmitry Orlov -Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century
“Most Americans have heard of Communism, and automatically believe that it is an apt description of the Soviet system, even though there was nothing particularly communal about a welfare state and a vast industrial empire run by an elitist central planning bureaucracy. But very few of them have ever heard of the real operative “ism” that dominated Soviet life: Dofenism, which can be loosely translated as “not giving a rat’s ass”. A lot of people, more and more during the “stagnation” period of the 1980’s, felt nothing but contempt for the system, did what little they had to get by (night watchman and furnace stoker were favorite jobs among the highly educated) and got all their pleasure from their friends, from their reading, or from nature.
This sort of disposition may seem like a cop-out, but when there is a collapse on the horizon, it works as psychological insurance: instead of going through the agonizing process of losing and rediscovering one’s identity in a post-collapse environment, one could simply sit back and watch events unfold. If you are currently “a mover and a shaker”, of things or people or whatever, then collapse will surely come as a shock to you, and it will take you a long time, perhaps forever, to find more things to move and to shake to your satisfaction. However, if your current occupation is as a keen observer of grass and trees, then, post-collapse, you could take on something else that’s useful, such as dismantling useless things.”
I keep thinking back to the big ice storm when the power was down for 10 days. What would I be doing if it had never come back on again? Composting, gardening, milking, bathing, cooking and eating. And a lot of lounging around. Unfortunately, I have pretty much come to the conclusion that disaster won’t happen overnight. Naw, it’s gonna be a decade long powerdown with a few heavy jolts along the way. My buddy who is a lifer car salesman is fucked, but my wife’s teaching job should survive well into the time where the mortgage foreclosure/eviction industry is pretty much toothless.
Not worried about marauding hordes, either. The last thing that will go away is the law enforcement/prison industry. Even the local sheriff’s office will be busy quelling disorder in the stupid town 10 miles down the road leaving me to my own pursuits. My pursuits are pretty trivial today, and won’t change much as time goes by. Hehehe – spending my sunset years puttering in the garden. Does being 44 make that sound odd?
So what’s to worry about? No foreign entity will ever successfully invade America. Bush and the next Republican War Pig in the White House may dream of ICBMs flying about but the rest of the world has more sense. If “terrism” rears up in the continental U.S. we will deal with it. May as well put the Patriot Act to good use, eh? We rounded up Japs in WWII, dark swarthy guys aren’t that hard to spot. If America ever has to wage war on terrorism we’ll come together as a nation like we always have in the past. Our last few wars haven’t been America at war – just the U.S. government waging war. There is a big difference there.
Okay – economic collapse. The whole banking/investing industry and stock market go bazzoo. The whole country becomes unemployed and therefore unevictable. We are a nation of squatters and beggers ten times as bad as The Great Depression. “Hey buddy- wanna buy an Ipod?” Back in the 30’s rural America plodded along just fine in real terms. Bread was baked, pies were made, green beans put up for the winter. At worst you all slept in the room where a fire was burning. Sponge Bath vs: Jacuzzi. Let’s say some rich guy whose asset pile survives the great pfffftt is looking for a nice place and a few serfs to lord over. My 50 acre pile of rocks with a pathetic spring and 900 sq ft 2bd/1bath old house in the dead half of a backward county in rural Missouri won’t be high up on the pickin’s list. I simply can’t be enslaved – fundamentally I have no needs beyond eat sleep and shit.
Thus, I find myself here in the springtime waking up from a long cold winter of darkness and fear of Peak Oil, the housing bubble and the NSA. Not knowing shit from shinola I managed to save radish, turnip, carrot, onion, pea, bean, corn, squash, beet, rutabaga, parsnip, and potato seeds or cuttings. Started peach trees from seeds, apple trees from cuttings, and learned to spot a dozen edible wild plants that grow by the bushel around here in 9 of 12 months. The clothes I have in the closet will last for at least five years with patching. I can make a rocket stove out of junk bricks and dented barrels. Cobbing up walls with rocks and mud is easy, and scrap sheet metal roofs go for 3 1/2 cents a pound. So city boy/ surf bum does good with half an effort.
More fruit trees just pulled up in the mail truck. Gotta move the pig panels and plant behind them – another 256 square feet of soybeans and corn going in. This is the 3rd time in two weeks I’ve had to move the two pigs and they are like maybe 30 pounders. I have thousands of seeds laying around everywhere, plants sprouting all over the house, chickens putting out almost a dozen eggs a day, goat that gives about a gallon and three more due to kid in july, and hundreds of cubic feet of compost in bins everywhere and I haven’t even fired up the lawnmower yet.
And I’m lazy!!! I don’t go much above “milling about” speed more than a couple of hours a day! The hardest stuff I do is infrastructure type crap – fencing, hauling rocks out of garden, etc. If my Dad had done that before me rather than being a fat cat corporate executive I’d grow moss on my bare feet. I guess that’s what I am really doing – making a life for my boy.
Here we are with the energy pot shrinking. The pie just ain’t big enough to feed the gathered crowd. My son with have to do without all the things I’m trying to do away with, and will grow up with an agrarian lifestyle as a natural part of him as opposed to me – hacking, clawing and bumbling my way into damn near forgotten and archaic knowledge and skills. He (we if I live that long) will be one of the “have nots” wondering what life is like inside the castle walls of the elite.
Maybe he will feel cheated. We will be well into powerdown about the time teenager comes on line. No car to zip around in – a trip to town is an all day affair and it sure as hell isn’t for the purpose of hanging out on the square shooting the breeze. I don’t know how systems will hold up, how much commerce will be going on from town to town, or what kind of communication will be reliable in a decade. I suspect a local blacksmith will arise, the small towns are trading centers with bus service to and fro at least once a day, and that phone land lines will be around for awhile.
Perhaps those who are fortunate enough to survive the jolts – wholesale disruption of the medical industry for example, and of course urban implosion and suburban fire sales are going to be bored stiff. Memories of motoring to Vole-Mart and Domino’s pizza always churning in the background. Turnips and mudturtle for dinner again? Woo hoo! Tomorrow we get to haul water and beat the dirt out of our rancid overalls…
