Five Stages of Collapse (3)

In a book called The Five Stages ofCollapse, Dimitry Orlov explains that political collapse is more dangerous than financial collapse.

Commercial and commercial collapse are already potential lethal. People lose their bearing and their sense of purpose, or decide to take advantage of those in distress, or fail simply through and inability to adapt to radically altered circumstances, and when that happens people get hurt. Financial and commercial collapses tend to be hard on those who failed to prepare by putting aside objects that hold their value when the national currency hyperinflates and banks close and by stockpiling the necessary supplies to tide them over during the uncertain transition period, when the old ways of doing things no longer work but the new ones have not yet evolved. Both of these causes of potentially lethal circumstances can be avoided first, by choosing the right kind of community second, by laying in supplies or securing independent access to food, water and energy and third, by generally finding a way to bide your time and ignore the world at large until times get barter.

Political collapse is a different animal altogether, because it makes the world at large difficult to ignore. The potential for chaos is still there, but so is the potential for organized action of a very damaging sort, because the ruling class and the classes that serve them (the police, the military, the bureaucrats) generally refuse to go softly into the night and allow the people to self-organize, experiment and come together as autonomous new groups adapted to the new environment in the composition and patterns of self-governance. Instead, they are like to spontaneously hatch a hare-brained new plan and initiative to restore national unity, in the sense of restoring the status quo ante, at least in regard to preserving their own power and privilege, at others expense. In a situation where every person and every neighbourhood should be experimenting on their own to find out what works and what does not, the politicians and the officials are apt to introduce new draconian crime fighting measures, curfews and detentions, allowing only certain activities-ones that benefit them-while mercilessly putting down any sign of insubordination.

To deflect the blame for their failure, the ruling elite usually also does its best to find an internal or external enemy. Those who are the weakest and the least politically connected- the poor, the minorities and the immigrants are accused of dragging everyone down and singled out for the harshest treatment. This is conducive to creating a climate of fear and suppressing free speech. But nothing causes people to band together like an external threat, and, for the sake of preserving national unity, a failing nation state often looks for an external enemy to attack, preferably a weak, defenceless one, so that it poses no risk of reprisal. Putting the nation on a war footing, makes it possible for the government to commandeer resources, reallocate them to the benefit of the ruling class, further restrict movements and activities, round up troublesome youths and ship them off to battle and lock up undesirables.

Financial and commercial collapse creates an opening for those inclined toward the most miserable despotism. Once a despotic regime is established, the weak, demoralized, disoriented population almost inevitably finds itself incapable of rising in opposition to it, and the new despotism may become entrenched and quite durable, lasting for an extended period of time during which the country is hollowed out and traumatized before collapsing through internecine strife or a battle of succession, or through increasing weakness that causes it to succumb to foreign occupation. The spectrum of possible responses to financial and commercial collapse stretches from despotism to chaos. There is sweet spot of autonomous, anarchic social cooperation, with many small skirmishes and standoffs, but well short of armed conflict (124)

My book called Times and Seasons explains how political collapse could become an issue in our time and how Christians will find their way through the chaos.