[Peakoil] Fwd: Dmitri Orlov on stages of collapse

[Alex Pollard]

An interesting read

Alex
O4O4873828

ACT Peak Oil
http://act-peakoil.org

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Here, Dmitri Orlov writes about what he calls the five stages of 
collapse.

Orlov, you may recall, is the author of the classic must-read 
(must-STUDY) "collapse gap" document:

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=221239
The Collapse Gap: How the USSR was BETTER PREPARED for Collapse than 
U.S. 

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=220104
Closing the Collapse Gap

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http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2008/02/five-stages-of-collapse.html

Friday, February 22, 2008

The Five Stages of Collapse

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross defined the five stages of coming to terms 
with grief and tragedy as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and 
acceptance, and applied it quite successfully to various forms of 
catastrophic personal loss, such as death of a loved one, sudden end 
to one's career, and so forth. Several thinkers, notably James 
Howard Kunstler and, more recently John Michael Greer, have pointed 
out that the Kübler-Ross model is also quite terrifyingly accurate 
in reflecting the process by which society as a whole (or at least 
the informed and thinking parts of it) is reconciling itself to the 
inevitability of a discontinuous future, with our institutions and 
life support systems undermined by a combination of resource 
depletion, catastrophic climate change, and political impotence. But 
so far, little has been said specifically about the finer structure 
of these discontinuities. Instead, there is to be found continuum of 
subjective judgments, ranging from "a severe and prolonged 
recession" (the prediction we most often read in the financial 
press), to Kunstler's evocative but unscientific-
sounding "clusterfuck," to the ever-popular "Collapse of Western 
Civilization," painted with an ever-wider brush-stroke.

For those of us who have already gone through all of the emotional 
stages of reconciling ourselves to the prospect of social and 
economic upheaval, it might be helpful to have a more precise 
terminology that goes beyond such emotionally charged phrases. 
Defining a taxonomy of collapses might prove to be more than just an 
intellectual exercise: based on our abilities and circumstances, 
some of us may be able to specifically plan for a certain stage of 
collapse as a temporary, or even permanent, stopping point. Even if 
society at the current stage of socioeconomic complexity will no 
longer be possible, and even if, as Tainter points in his "Collapse 
of Complex Societies," there are circumstances in which collapse 
happens to be the correct adaptive response, it need not 
automatically cause a population crash, with the survivors 
disbanding into solitary, feral humans dispersed in the wilderness 
and subsisting miserably. Collapse can be conceived of as an 
orderly, organized retreat rather than a rout.

For instance, the collapse of the Soviet Union - our most recent and 
my personal favorite example of an imperial collapse - did not reach 
the point of political disintegration of the republics that made it 
up, although some of them (Georgia, Moldova) did lose some territory 
to separatist movements. And although most of the economy shut down 
for a time, many institutions, including the military, public 
utilities, and public transportation, continued to function 
throughout. And although there was much social dislocation and 
suffering, society as a whole did not collapse, because most of the 
population did not lose access to food, housing, medicine, or any of 
the other survival necessities. The command-and-control structure of 
the Soviet economy largely decoupled the necessities of daily life 
from any element of market psychology, associating them instead with 
physical flows of energy and physical access to resources. Thus 
situation, as I argue in my forthcoming book, Reinventing Collapse, 
allowed the Soviet population to inadvertently achieve a greater 
level of collapse-preparedness than is currently possible in the 
United States.

Having given a lot of thought to both the differences and the 
similarities between the two superpowers - the one that has 
collapsed already, and the one that is collapsing as I write this - 
I feel ready to attempt a bold conjecture, and define five stages of 
collapse, to serve as mental milestones as we gauge our own collapse-
preparedness and see what can be done to improve it. Rather than 
tying each phase to a particular emotion, as in the Kübler-Ross 
model, the proposed taxonomy ties each of the five collapse stages 
to the breaching of a specific level of trust, or faith, in the 
status quo. Although each stage causes physical, observable changes 
in the environment, these can be gradual, while the mental flip is 
generally quite swift. It is something of a cultural universal that 
nobody (but a real fool) wants to be the last fool to believe in a 
lie.

Stages of Collapse

Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost. 
The future is no longer assumed resemble the past in any way that 
allows risk to be assessed and financial assets to be guaranteed. 
Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out, and 
access to capital is lost.

Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" 
is lost. Money is devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are 
hoarded, import and retail chains break down, and widespread 
shortages of survival necessities become the norm.

Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take 
care of you" is lost. As official attempts to mitigate widespread 
loss of access to commercial sources of survival necessities fail to 
make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and 
relevance.

Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of 
you" is lost. As local social institutions, be they charities, 
community leaders, or other groups that rush in to fill the power 
vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.

Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is 
lost. People lose their capacity for "kindness, generosity, 
consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality, compassion, charity" 
(Turnbull, The Mountain People). Families disband and compete as 
individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes "May you die 
today so that I die tomorrow" (Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago). 
There may even be some cannibalism.

Although many people imagine collapse to be a sort of elevator that 
goes to the sub-basement (our Stage 5) no matter which button you 
push, no such automatic mechanism can be discerned. Rather, driving 
us all to Stage 5 will require that a concerted effort be made at 
each of the intervening stages. That all the players seem poised to 
make just such an effort may give this collapse the form a classical 
tragedy - a conscious but inexorable march to perdition - rather 
than a farce ("Oops! Ah, here we are, Stage 5." - "So, whom do we 
eat first?" - "Me! I am delicious!") Let us sketch out this process.

Financial collapse, as we are are currently observing it, consists 
of two parts. One is that a part of the general population is forced 
to move, no longer able to afford the house they bought based on 
inflated assessments, forged income numbers, and foolish 
expectations of endless asset inflation. Since, technically, they 
should never have been allowed to buy these houses, and were only 
able to do so because of financial and political malfeasance, this 
is actually a healthy development. The second part consists of men 
in expensive suits tossing bundles of suddenly worthless paper up in 
the air, ripping out their remaining hair, and (some of us might 
uncharitably hope) setting themselves on fire on the steps of the 
Federal Reserve. They, to express it in their own 
vernacular, "fucked up," and so this is also just as it should be.

The government response to this could be to offer some helpful 
homilies about "the wages of sin" and to open a few soup kitchens 
and flop houses in a variety of locations including Wall Street. The 
message would be: "You former debt addicts and gamblers, as you 
say, 'fucked up,' and so this will really hurt for a long time. We 
will never let you anywhere near big money again. Get yourselves 
over to the soup kitchen, and bring your own bowl, because we don't 
do dishes." This would result in a stable Stage 1 collapse - the 
Second Great Depression.

However, this is unlikely, because in the US the government happens 
to be debt addict and gambler number one. As individuals, we may 
have been as virtuous as we wished, but the government will have 
still run up exorbitant debts on our behalf. Every level of 
government, from local municipalities and authorities, which need 
the financial markets to finance their public works and public 
services, to the federal government, which relies on foreign 
investment to finance its endless wars, is addicted to public debt. 
They know they cannot stop borrowing, and so they will do anything 
they can to keep the game going for as long as possible.

About the only thing the government currently seems it fit to do is 
extend further credit to those in trouble, by setting interest rates 
at far below inflation, by accepting worthless bits of paper as 
collateral and by pumping money into insolvent financial 
institutions. This has the effect of diluting the dollar, further 
undermining its value, and will, in due course, lead to 
hyperinflation, which is bad enough in any economy, but is 
especially serious for one dominated by imports. As imports dry up 
and the associated parts of the economy shut down, we pass Stage 2: 
Commercial Collapse.

As businesses shut down, storefronts are boarded up and the 
population is left largely penniless and dependent on FEMA and 
charity for survival, the government may consider what to do next. 
It could, for example, repatriate all foreign troops and set them to 
work on public works projects designed to directly help the 
population. It could promote local economic self-sufficiency, by 
establishing community-supported agriculture programs, erecting 
renewable energy systems, and organizing and training local self-
defence forces to maintain law and order. The Army Corps of 
Engineers could be ordered to bulldoze buildings erected on former 
farmland around city centers, return the land to cultivation, and to 
construct high-density solar-heated housing in urban centers to 
resettle those who are displaced. In the interim, it could reduce 
homelessness by imposing a steep tax on vacant residential 
properties and funneling the proceeds into rent subsidies for the 
indigent. With plenty of luck, such measures may be able to reverse 
the trend, eventually providing for a restoration of pre-Stage 2 
conditions.

This may or may not be a good plan, but in any case it is rather 
unrealistic, because the United States, being so deeply in debt, 
will be forced to accede to the wishes of its foreign creditors, who 
own a lot of national assets (land, buildings, and businesses) and 
who would rather see a dependent American population slaving away 
working off their debt than a self-sufficient one, conveniently 
forgetting that they have mortgaged their children's futures to pay 
for military fiascos, big houses, big cars, and flat-screen 
television sets. Thus, a much more likely scenario is that the 
federal government (knowing who butters their bread) will remain 
subservient to foreign financial interests. It will impose austerity 
conditions, maintain law and order through draconian means, and aide 
in the construction of foreign-owned factory towns and plantations. 
As people start to think that having a government may not be such a 
good idea, conditions become ripe for Stage 3.

If Stage 1 collapse can be observed by watching television, 
observing Stage 2 might require a hike or a bicycle ride to the 
nearest population center, while Stage 3 collapse is more than 
likely to be visible directly through one's own living-room window, 
which may or may not still have glass in it. After a significant 
amount of bloodletting, much of the country becomes a no-go zone for 
the remaining authorities. Foreign creditors decide that their debts 
might not be repaid after all, cut their losses and depart in haste. 
The rest of the world decides to act as if there is no such place as 
The United States - because "nobody goes there any more." So as not 
to lose out on the entertainment value, the foreign press still 
prints sporadic fables about Americans who eat their young, much as 
they did about Russia following the Soviet collapse. A few brave 
American expatriates who still come back to visit bring back amazing 
stories of a different kind, but everyone considers them eccentric 
and perhaps a little bit crazy.

Stage 3 collapse can sometimes be avoided by the timely introduction 
of international peacekeepers and through the efforts of 
international humanitarian NGOs. In the aftermath of a Stage 2 
collapse, domestic authorities are highly unlikely to have either 
the resources or the legitimacy, or even the will, to arrest the 
collapse dynamic and reconstitute themselves in a way that the 
population would accept.

As stage 3 collapse runs its course, the power vacuum left by the 
now defunct fedral, state and local government is filled by a 
variety of new power structures. Remnants of former law enforcement 
and military, urban gangs, ethnic mafias, religious cults and 
wealthy property owners all attempt to build their little empires on 
the ruins of the big one, fighting each other over territory and 
access to resources. This is the age of Big Men: charismatic 
leaders, rabble-rousers, ruthless Macchiavelian princes and war 
lords. In the luckier places, they find it to their common advantage 
to pool their resources and amalgamate into some sort of legitimate 
local government, while in the rest their jostling for power leads 
to a spiral of conflict and open war.

Stage 4 collapse occurs when society becomes so disordered and 
impoverished that it can no longer support the Big Men, who become 
smaller and smaller, and eventually fade from view. Society 
fragments into extended families and small tribes of a dozen or so 
families, who find it advantageous to band together for mutual 
support and defense. This is the form of society that has existed 
over some 98.5% of humanity's existence as a biological species, and 
can be said to be the bedrock of human existence. Humans can exist 
at this level of organization for thousands, perhaps millions of 
years. Most mammalian species go extinct after just a few million 
years, but, for all we know, Homo Sapiens still have a million or 
two left.

If pre-collapse society is too atomized, alienated and 
individualistic to form cohesive extended families and tribes, or if 
its physical environment becomes so disordered and impoverished that 
hunger and starvation become widespread, then Stage 5 collapse 
becomes likely. At this stage, a simpler biological imperative takes 
over, to preserve the life of the breeding couples. Families 
disband, the old are abandoned to their own devices, and children 
are only cared for up to age 3. All social unity is destroyed, and 
even the couples may disband for a time, preferring to forage on 
their own and refusing to share food. This is the state of society 
described by the anthropologist Colin Turnbull in his book The 
Mountain People. If society prior to Stage 5 collapse can be said to 
be the historical norm for humans, Stage 5 collapse brings humanity 
to the verge of physical extinction.

As we can easily imagine, the default is cascaded failure: each 
stage of collapse can easily lead to the next, perhaps even 
overlapping it. In Russia, the process was arrested just past Stage 
3: there was considerable trouble with ethnic mafias and even some 
warlordism, but government authority won out in the end. In my other 
writings, I go into a lot of detail in describing the exact 
conditions that inadvertently made Russian society relatively 
collapse-proof. Here, I will simply say that these ingredients are 
not currently present in the United States.

While attempting to arrest collapse at Stage 1 and Stage 2 would 
probably be a dangerous waste of energy, it is probably worth 
everyone's while to dig in their heels at Stage 3, definitely at 
Stage 4, and it is quite simply a matter of physical survival to 
avoid Stage 5. In certain localities - those with high population 
densities, as well as those that contain dangerous nuclear and 
industrial installations - avoiding Stage 3 collapse is rather 
important, to the point of inviting foreign troops and governments 
in to maintain order and avoid disasters. Other localities may be 
able to prosper indefinitely at Stage 3, and even the most 
impoverished environments may be able to support a sparse population 
subsisting indefinitely at Stage 4.

Although it is possible to prepare directly for surviving Stage 5, 
this seems like an altogether demoralizing thing to attempt. 
Preparing to survive Stages 3 and 4 may seem somewhat more 
reasonable, while explicitly aiming for Stage 3 may be reasonable if 
you plan to become one of the Big Men. Be that as it may, I must 
leave such preparations as an exercise for the reader. My hope is 
that these definitions of specific stages of collapse will enable a 
more specific and fruitful discussion than the one currently 
dominated by such vague and ultimately nonsensical terms as "the 
collapse of Western civilization."

Posted by kollapsnik at 3:15 PM 3 comments

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WHILE AT ORLOV'S BLOG, DON'T MISS:

http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2008/02/money-as-metaphor.html

Friday, February 08, 2008

Money as Metaphor