Slide [15] The Soviet agricultural sector was
notoriously inefficient. Many people grew and gathered their own food even in
relatively prosperous times. There were food warehouses in every city, stocked
according to a government allocation scheme. There were very few restaurants,
and most families cooked and ate at home. Shopping was rather labor-intensive,
and involved carrying heavy loads. Sometimes it resembled hunting – stalking
that elusive piece of meat lurking behind some store counter. So the people
were well-prepared for what came next.
In the United States, most people get their food
from a supermarket, which is supplied from far away using refrigerated diesel
trucks. Many people don't even bother to shop and just eat fast food. When
people do cook, they rarely cook from scratch. This is all very unhealthy, and
the effect on the nation's girth, is visible, clear across the parking lot. A
lot of the people, who just waddle to and from their cars, seem unprepared for
what comes next. If they suddenly had to start living like the Russians, they
would blow out their knees.
Slide [16] The Soviet government threw resources at
immunization programs, infectious disease control, and basic care. It directly
operated a system of state-owned clinics, hospitals, and sanatoriums. People
with fatal ailments or chronic conditions often had reason to complain, and had
to pay for private care – if they had the money.
In the United States, medicine is for profit.
People seems to think nothing of this fact. There are really very few fields of
endeavor to which Americans would deny the profit motive. The problem is, once
the economy is removed, so is the profit, along with the services it once
helped to motivate.
Slide [17] The Soviet education system was
generally quite excellent. It produced an overwhelmingly literate population
and many great specialists. The education was free at all levels, but higher
education sometimes paid a stipend, and often provided room and board. The educational
system held together quite well after the economy collapsed. The problem was
that the graduates had no jobs to look forward to upon graduation. Many of them
lost their way.
The higher education system in the United States is
good at many things – government and industrial research, team sports,
vocational training... Primary and secondary education fails to achieve in 12
years what Soviet schools generally achieved in 8. The massive scale and
expense of maintaining these institutions is likely to prove too much for the
post-collapse environment. Illiteracy is already a problem in the United
States, and we should expect it to get a lot worse.
Slide [18] The Soviet Union did not need to import
energy. The production and distribution system faltered, but never collapsed.
Price controls kept the lights on even as hyperinflation raged.
The term "market failure" seems to fit
the energy situation in the United States. Free markets develop some pernicious
characteristics when there are shortages of key commodities. During World War
II, the United States government understood this, and successfully rationed
many things, from gasoline to bicycle parts. But that was a long time ago.
Since then, the inviolability of free markets has become an article of faith.
Slide [19] My conclusion is that the Soviet Union
was much better-prepared for economic collapse than the United States is.
I have left out two important superpower
asymmetries, because they don't have anything to do with collapse-preparedness.
Some countries are simply luckier than others. But I will mention them, for the
sake of completeness.
In terms of racial and ethnic composition, the
United States resembles Yugoslavia more than it resembles Russia, so we
shouldn't expect it to be as peaceful as Russia was, following the collapse.
Ethnically mixed societies are fragile and have a tendency to explode.
In terms of religion, the Soviet Union was
relatively free of apocalyptic doomsday cults. Very few people there wished for
a planet-sized atomic fireball to herald the second coming of their savior.
This was indeed a blessing.
Slide [20] One area in which I cannot discern any
Collapse Gap is national politics. The ideologies may be different, but the
blind adherence to them couldn't be more similar.
It is certainly more fun to watch two Capitalist
parties go at each other than just having the one Communist party to vote for.
The things they fight over in public are generally symbolic little tokens of
social policy, chosen for ease of public posturing. The Communist party offered
just one bitter pill. The two Capitalist parties offer a choice of two
placebos. The latest innovation is the photo finish election, where each party
buys 50% of the vote, and the result is pulled out of statistical noise, like a
rabbit out of a hat.
The American way of dealing with dissent and with
protest is certainly more advanced: why imprison dissidents when you can just
let them shout into the wind to their heart's content?
The American approach to bookkeeping is more subtle
and nuanced than the Soviet. Why make a state secret of some statistic, when
you can just distort it, in obscure ways? Here's a simple example: inflation is
"controlled" by substituting hamburger for steak, in order to
minimize increases to Social Security payments.
Slide [21] Many people expend a lot of energy
protesting against their irresponsible, unresponsive government. It seems like
a terrible waste of time, considering how ineffectual their protests are. Is it
enough of a consolation for them to be able to read about their efforts in the
foreign press? I think that they would feel better if they tuned out the
politicians, the way the politicians tune them out. It's as easy as turning off
the television set. If they try it, they will probably observe that nothing
about their lives has changed, nothing at all, except maybe their mood has
improved. They might also find that they have more time and energy to devote to
more important things.
Slide [22] I will now sketch out some approaches,
realistic and otherwise, to closing the Collapse Gap. My little list of
approaches might seem a bit glib, but keep in mind that this is a very
difficult problem. In fact, it's important to keep in mind that not all
problems have solutions. I can promise you that we will not solve this problem
tonight. What I will try to do is to shed some light on it from several angles.
Slide [23] Many people rail against the
unresponsiveness and irresponsibility of the government. They often say things
like "What is needed is..." plus the name of some big, successful
government project from the glorious past – the Marshall Plan, the Manhattan
Project, the Apollo program. But there is nothing in the history books about a
government preparing for collapse. Gorbachev's "Perestroika" is an
example of a government trying to avert or delay collapse. It probably helped
speed it along.
Slide [24] There are some things that I would like
the government to take care of in preparation for collapse. I am particularly
concerned about all the radioactive and toxic installations, stockpiles, and
dumps. Future generations are unlikely to able to control them, especially if
global warming puts them underwater. There is enough of this muck sitting
around to kill off most of us. I am also worried about soldiers getting
stranded overseas – abandoning one's soldiers is among the most shameful things
a country can do. Overseas military bases should be dismantled, and the troops
repatriated. I'd like to see the huge prison population whittled away in a
controlled manner, ahead of time, instead of in a chaotic general amnesty.
Lastly, I think that this farce with debts that will never be repaid, has gone
on long enough. Wiping the slate clean will give society time to readjust. So,
you see, I am not asking for any miracles. Although, if any of these things do
get done, I would consider it a miracle.
Slide [25] A private sector solution is not
impossible; just very, very unlikely. Certain Soviet state enterprises were
basically states within states. They controlled what amounted to an entire
economic system, and could go on even without the larger economy. They kept to
this arrangement even after they were privatized. They drove Western management
consultants mad, with their endless kindergartens, retirement homes, laundries,
and free clinics. These weren't part of their core competency, you see. They
needed to divest and to streamline their operations. The Western management
gurus overlooked the most important thing: the core competency of these
enterprises lay in their ability to survive economic collapse. Maybe the young
geniuses at Google can wrap their heads around this one, but I doubt that their
stockholders will.
Slide [26] It's important to understand that the
Soviet Union achieved collapse-preparedness inadvertently, and not because of
the success of some crash program. Economic collapse has a way of turning
economic negatives into positives. The last thing we want is a perfectly
functioning, growing, prosperous economy that suddenly collapses one day, and
leaves everybody in the lurch. It is not necessary for us to embrace the tenets
of command economy and central planning to match the Soviet lackluster
performance in this area. We have our own methods, that are working almost as
well. I call them "boondoggles." They are solutions to problems that
cause more problems than they solve.
Just look around you, and you will see boondoggles
sprouting up everywhere, in every field of endeavor: we have military
boondoggles like Iraq, financial boondoggles like the doomed retirement system,
medical boondoggles like private health insurance, legal boondoggles like the
intellectual property system. The combined weight of all these boondoggles is
slowly but surely pushing us all down. If it pushes us down far enough, then
economic collapse, when it arrives, will be like falling out of a ground floor
window. We just have to help this process along, or at least not interfere with
it. So if somebody comes to you and says "I want to make a boondoggle that
runs on hydrogen" – by all means encourage him! It's not as good as a
boondoggle that burns money directly, but it's a step in the right direction.
Slide [27] Certain types of mainstream economic
behavior are not prudent on a personal level, and are also counterproductive to
bridging the Collapse Gap. Any behavior that might result in continued economic
growth and prosperity is counterproductive: the higher you jump, the harder you
land. It is traumatic to go from having a big retirement fund to having no
retirement fund because of a market crash. It is also traumatic to go from a
high income to little or no income. If, on top of that, you have kept yourself
incredibly busy, and suddenly have nothing to do, then you will really be in
rough shape.
Economic collapse is about the worst possible time
for someone to suffer a nervous breakdown, yet this is what often happens. The
people who are most at risk psychologically are successful middle-aged men.
When their career is suddenly over, their savings are gone, and their property
worthless, much of their sense of self-worth is gone as well. They tend to drink
themselves to death and commit suicide in disproportionate numbers. Since they
tend to be the most experienced and capable people, this is a staggering loss
to society.
If the economy, and your place within it, is really
important to you, you will be really hurt when it goes away. You can cultivate
an attitude of studied indifference, but it has to be more than just a conceit.
You have to develop the lifestyle and the habits and the physical stamina to
back it up. It takes a lot of creativity and effort to put together a
fulfilling existence on the margins of society. After the collapse, these
margins may turn out to be some of the best places to live.
Slide [28] I hope that I didn't make it sound as if
the Soviet collapse was a walk in the park, because it was really quite awful
in many ways. The point that I do want to stress is that when this economy
collapses, it is bound to be much worse. Another point I would like to stress
is that collapse here is likely to be permanent. The factors that allowed
Russia and the other former Soviet republics to recover are not present here.
In spite of all this, I believe that in every age
and circumstance, people can sometimes find not just a means and a reason to
survive, but enlightenment, fulfillment, and freedom. If we can find them even
after the economy collapses, then why not start looking for them now?
Thank you.
Editorial
Notes: Energy Bulletin published an
excerpt from this talk yesterday (Dec 3), and Dmitry reported that his small
webserver was overwhelmed with requests. Although it's good news that his
writing has such a following, PLEASE don't access the document on his web
server (Club Orlov). The same content is here, on Energy Bulletin's heavier
duty webserver. --- Orlov has many penetrating insights, couched in his dark
humor. Particularly striking is the strong case he makes that the peoples of
the USSR were actually better prepared for a collapse because
·
they had learned to
be more self-reliant
·
many crucial
functions (like housing and transportation) were taken care of by the state
sector which was more stable than a private sector would have been.
Orlov's cynicism
about the possibility of intelligent government action was probably justified
in the case of the Soviet Union, but I think it would be a tragic mistake to
abandon efforts to change the direction of the U.S. The Soviets had little
chance to make democratic institutions work. We do have that chance. -BA
UPDATE: Dmitri Orlov writes on March 4, 2007: You wrote that "The Soviets
had little chance to make democratic institutions work." That's not
entirely true. Perestroika and Glasnost were all about democracy, and in my
opinion it had the same chance of success as the hopelessly gerrymandered
system that passes for democracy in the US, (although much less than any
proper, modern democracy, in which the Bush regime would have been put out of
power quite a while ago, after a simple parliamentary vote of no confidence and
early elections). The problem is that, in a collapse scenario, democracy is the
least effective system of government one can possibly think of (think Weimar,
or the Russian Interim Government) - a topic I cover in Post-Soviet Lessons.
Lastly, I don't think calling me a cynic is exactly accurate: I've been in the
US a long time, watching the system become progressively more dysfunctional
with each passing political season. It seems to me that it is not necessarily
cynical to be able to spot a solid trend, but that it could be simply
observant.
UPDATE (October 30, 2007): We've noticed an influx of visitors to
Dmitry Orlov's article, since its mention on several websites. Dmitry writes
that his new book, "Reinventing Collapse," is due from New Society
Publishers in the springtime.
taken, Gaza would be "unlivable" by 2020. Since the report was issued in August 2012, the situation has grown much worse.
