Do you remember how, years ago, he wrote a series of articles on Life After the Oil Crash describing the experience of the collapse of the Soviet Union and drawing lessons for today's America? (Of course you do.) And the book, which is entitled Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects expands on this topic.
Among other fun facts, the book points out that the Soviets were actually better-prepared for collapse than we are here: Because whatever else was true, they still had public transportation and government food supplies. Here in the US we have a government that refuses to take care of its people -- Up by your bootstraps, boys!; no public transportation to speak of; and a widespread ideology operant among all classes that insists that this situation is not simply acceptable but the very definition of freedom!
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A comic example: I recall when I moved here expressing shock that there is no Amtrak in this town, despite there being, you know, train tracks. The person I was talking to said, "Here everyone likes being independent and having their own cars."
And that's America. Independence is defined as dependence on oil companies. And auto-manufacturers. And insurance companies. We are fucked.
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But back to Orlov. He's posted an excerpt or two on his blog. One of my favorite bits:
In the United States, most people get their food from a supermarket, which is supplied from far away using refrigerated diesel trucks, making them entirely dependent on the widespread availability of transportation fuels and the continued maintenance of the interstate highway system. In an energy-scarce world, neither of these is a given. Most supermarket chains have just a few days’ worth of food in their inventory, relying on advanced logistical planning and just-in-time delivery to meet demand. Thus, in many places, food supply problems are almost guaranteed to develop. When they do, no local authority is in a position to exercise control over the situation and the problem is handed over to federal emergency management authorities. Based on their performance after Hurricane Katrina, these authorities are not only manifestly incompetent, but also appear to be ruled by the ethos that it is better for the government to deny services than provide them, to avoid creating a population that is dependent on government help.
Many people in the United States don’t even bother to shop and just eat fast food. The drive to maximize profit while minimizing costs has resulted in a product that manipulates the senses into accepting as edible something that is mainly a waste product. Under strict process control procedures, agro-industrial wastes, sugar, fat and salt are combined into an appealing presentation, packaged, and reinforced by vigorous advertising. Once accepted, it beguiles the senses by its reliable consistency, creating a lifelong addiction to bad food. The chemical industry obliges with an array of deodorants to mask the sickly body odor such a diet produces. Immersed for a lifetime in a field of artificial sensory perceptions, dominated by chemical, man-made tastes and smells, people recoil in shock when confronted with something natural, be it a simple piece of boiled chicken liver or the smell of a healthy human body. Perversely, they do not mind car exhaust and actually like the carcinogenic “new car smell” of vinyl upholstery.
That last sentence is one of my favorite things anyone's written about anything in a while.
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But let's get back to the subject of Collapse for a minute. We wrote all about it years and years ago. We're at a point now where anymore writing about the If seems futile. One of two things is happening right now in the world:
1. All the predictions are coming true, as indicated by the rising cost of oil-fuel-food, and soon the American way of auto-centric Middle Class life will become impossible to maintain. The financial burden on the so-called Middle Class -- let's define them as people with mortgages and cars -- will soon reveal them for what they are -- deluded serfs, slaves to auto companies, oil companies, banks, big-box shops. At this point predictions become impossible.
2. This is a temporary setback or readjustment, and things will be back to normal, oil back down below $100, or $80 or $50 per barrel and gas back to two bucks a gallon.
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If number 2 is correct, I will have no idea what to do with myself, since I spent most of the previous 6 or 7 years preparing and expecting and even depending on option 1.
On the other hand, if 1 is correct, I'm kind of worried, because I spent the last year or two assuming it was true but that there was nothing to do but go down in a blaze of hedonism.
It's time to reconnect with my own mind.
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I am a little paranoid about saying where I live today, but you all know, I think. It is a place with 10% unemployment, with a population of homeless youth equivalent to 1% of the total population, and with new immigrants largely consisting (as I understand it) of wealthy retirees who (therefore) do nothing to contribute to a sustainable economy. There is, once again, no train; public transportation consists of 1 bus that endlessly circles the town and may or may not see its funding cut off at any point. There is a well-developed "libertarian" movement whose central thesis, as far as I can tell, is "Let's not do anything to make anything better for anybody. Except let's cut down the trees. P.s. Global warming is a myth." There is no grocery store in town. Let me repeat that: There is no place in town to which I can walk and buy a piece of fruit or a vegetable. There is no doctor in town. All these necessities are located Out There, on the highway. Where you have to drive to them.
And the price of gas is rising.
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What will this place, a place like this, a place that is already in a state of economic collapse, do when oil hits $200/barrel? When gas is $5 a gallon? How will these gargantuan pickups survive? The increased price of oil will already increase the price of food -- what happens when one has to choose between putting gas in the tank or buying food?
If I owned a car, I would have to make that choice. I could not afford to keep a car fueled and feed myself.
That's not to start on the price of medicine.
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Maybe option 2 is correct. Six years from now, halfway into President Obama's second term, everything will feel like 1998. I will feel like an idiot for having said all this, and thankful I at least managed to learn a useful skill.
It's possible.
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