Possible threats ahead…
To prepare… one has to know WHAT one should prepare for.
That means one must have a hypothesis (or several) on what is plausible to happen.
To have a feeling for trends, and predict evolutionary steps (bursts in development)… or smaller or bigger collapses. And how different happenings in the world work together, or affect each other.
Its a generalists ”game”.
As an example of factors:
There are several things in ”Decline”:
For example:
Child mortality, democracies, species… (even human tendency of de-population), US interest in European affairs (?), and so forth…
There are several things in ”Increase”:
For example:
Wealth centralizing, debt (printing of money), CO2 in the atmosphere, inflation e t c
Among all the things that can break/collapse – the economy and maybe the economic system is the first to be affected in any major way. Its more volatile than for instance the ecosystems.
It seems that:
Productivity and profit decreases and GDP falls…in the western world.
All based on:
– Energy prices (Ukraine war being one reason)
– Lack of resources, based on depletion and/or geopolitics and disrupted trade.
– Decreased demand – less consumers (older and also more poor people).
In this negative trend…
What happens if the debt bubble bursts – everyone wants their money back. The whole financial sector will have to reshuffle and most likely that will be more severe than 2008. The whole economic system might be shaken, because now, some 15 years later we have printed A LOT more money. There is debt… or rater DEBT. Based on a gamble on future profits / hope of increased productivity… that seems to be not fulfilled since it was in the hope of cheap energy.
This may lead to BOTH… Unemployment and… an Inflation not based on higher demand on goods, but on a surplus of money in the system, as well as lack of goods.
Inflation ”kills” governments and can threaten democracies.
One can say its a state/governments main task to supply a monetary system suitable for trade… since we buy stuff from each other every day.
Westerners (mostly Europeans) expects a high standard of living compared to the work we are willing to do. We have grown complacent on average. And on top of that; early retirement ages in an aging population.
All of this above is a perfect storm… that may lead to collapse in the trust of money itself. Why sell something for money… if the money looses value overnight. Bartering will be next in line.
If huge inflation and unemployment… next is:
– social unrest,
– less citizens to tax… less social services… even more social unrest.
Criminality will increase. How fast will the organized crime expand?
All this will lead to democracies being centrally un-governable. There are less resources to re-distribute or control possible. A central government that can dictate to a lesser degree.
Next step is:
Martial law
Possible scenarios would include:
– State trying to keep electricity fueling society even if there is no functioning system for payment. Free electricity (otherwise we would loose most things related to civilization).
– State would be focusing on giving fuel to military and farmers and transporters.
Trying to keep a flow of food and water functioning. Just to prevent total uprising and chaos.
A country (like Sweden) that has an economy that:
– Is dependent on export for positive GDP, and
– is importing food.
Is in dire straits.
The next step would be an attempt to:
– Reset the currency, start all over with a new currency.
But that would be hard when trust has been lost and while there are real fundamental weaknesses in the function of a global industrial consumer trade system.
How long does it take repair an economic system from a position of distrust?
In a setting of criminality, lack of goods, huge unemployment… probably decades.
Two issues in the scenario above are especially interesting:
Governing may have to be restarted locally, in small islands. The emergence of citystates.
One of the most interesting thing is what will happen in local governments that will try to hold on to their control and power. Much of it, apart from running both very essential civil services and less essential dito… is spent on monitoring and checking its citizens. Permissions and statistics and the like.
Certain state employees would be holding in to their beurocratic jobs, expecting the rest of society to pay for their salaries.
How fast would local governments adapt and start focusing on the essentials and just letting go of things like: Culture, statistic gathering, permissions (for this and that), handling social welfare (even though they have no funds for it), reform and expansion projects that long since proved to be impossible to fund…
The second interesting thing in the above scenario would be how society handles the organized criminality that would no doubt expand manifold. Young men without money that have nothing to do.
Will police handle it?… at first no. When things go… they go fast. Widespread looting for one..
How fast will civil society level up and create some ”violance capital”, in plain words: fight back, against criminals; stealing, kidnapping, killing, raping and extortion and such.
If elections are possible to be held: they would most likely favor populists that have great capacity to blame others and offer magical solutions, but in the end have no experience in governance and will just fuck up things in new different ways.
Where would you be in all this mess?
Kollapsologen är ett kollektiv av skribenter som tillsammans skapar en civilisationskritisk blogg som resonerar kring frågor som: klimatförändring, kollaps, omställning, prepping, ekonomisk recession, hot mot demokratin, hot mot välfärdssamhället, matförsörjning, ekologi, energibrist, fossila bränslen, krig, geopolitik, svält, migration, samhällskollaps e t c.
Vad är kollapsologi? Hur stor är risken för en samhällskollaps? Hur kan en kollaps kunna komma att se ut? Hur kan civilisationen se ut efter olika kollapser?
