Five Stages of Collapse (6)

In his book called The Five Stages of Collapse, Dimitry Orlov suggests that lack of personal virtual could be disastrous during a time of social collapse.

Personal virtues are all but destroyed in Western society, but for the time being their absence is being masked by the impersonal institutions of finance, commerce and government. In the wake of financial, commercial, political and social collapse will we become ruthless and vicious?

The civilized world is a cold world. Its citizens are theoretically expected to fend for themselves, but in reality, they can only survive thanks to the impersonal services of finance, commerce and government. What will happen to us once these impersonalised services are longer available? Will we have our humanity to fall back on, or will we go the way of ruthlessness and viciousness (229).

Good question.

Five Stages of Collapse (5)

In his bookcalled The Five Stages ofCollapse, Dimitry Orlov suggests that the western world is not ready for social collapse.

To my mind, social collapse is not a political or economic or technological problem for the elites to solve, but a cultural one (196)

All of the coping mechanisms that exist to deal with societal are designed to treat it as the exception rather than the norm; there is no safety net designed to catch entire societies as they fall. International aid, charity, disaster management, peacekeeping efforts and military interventions are designed to handle singular, localized limited crises and cannot be expected to be useful within an international landscape of constant and accelerating collapse. Few places are likely to remain sufficiently insular to escape the onslaught of internationally displaced groups driven from their land by a variety of forces from political unrest to economic dislocation caused by globalization to habitation destruction created by rapid climate change.

Some who see the inevitability of this onslaught react by attempting to isolate themselves by building a well-stocked “doomstead” in a remote area. This may work for a few people; for the rest, it might be better to abandon the idea of finding a safe place to be, and to concentrate instead on discovering a safe way to be-in company with others. (197)

I describe a safe way for Christians to be in the company of others in Being Church Where We Live.

Five Stages of Collapse (4)

In his book called The Five Stages of Collapse, Dimitry Orlov suggests that we should not be afraid of anarchy.

In the face of political collapse it is quite reasonable to expect that the good people of almost any nation will cower in their homes and, al themselves to be herded like domesticated animals, because their worst fear is not despotism-it is anarchy. Anarchy! Are you afraid, of anarchy? Or are you more afraid of hierarchy? Colour me strange, but I am much more afraid of being subjected to a chain of command, than of anarchy (which is a lack of hierarchy).

A bit of hierarchy may be temporarily justified while facing down a specific, temporary threat or while an ambitious task that requires a big, coordinated team effort. But once that is over, it's back to anarchy. Few of us enjoy taking orders from the sorts of characters who enjoy ordering people, be they numbnuts who rose through the ranks, or pampered children of privilege, but to realise that there is an alternative we need to overcome our fear of anarchy (125)

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Five Stages of Collapse (3)

In a book called The Five Stages of Collapse, 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.

Five Stages of Collapse (2)

In a book called The Five Stages of Collapse, Dimitry Orlov suggests that communities and extended families will important during seasons of financial collapse.

What I am laying out here may be starting to sound hopelessly idealistic. After all, strong extended families that pool all their resources and are presided over by elders, of the sort could band together form a community and achieve self-governance via a council of elders, may seem like something from a century long gone. But they aren't there are plenty of communities of this sort still to be found around the world. They just happen to be those families and communities that have not become addicted to economic growth, either because of their conservatism or their adverse circumstances, or both. They will be around following the collapse. But families and communities of this sort may be rather difficult to reconstitute within a western European or a North American context of atomic families, parents who can hardly wait until their children grow up and “become independent”, alienated children who yearn to grow up and abandon their parents, elders not worthy of the name, who only care about preserving their independence, for which they have neither savings, nor the mental fortitude-an anonymous crowd of pseudo-rugged individualists abjectly dependent on the consumer economy and government services for survival. This gaping chasm between what should exist and what does exist is going to be very difficult to bridge (41).

Far from sketching out some sort of financial utopia, I am describing a successful human cultural universal: a family is three generations at a minimum, living together, pooling resources and allocating them in the best interests of the whole. A community is a band of such families capable of self-governance. The traditional form of self-governance, for the reasons outlined above, is a council of elders (42)

Orlov doubts that people of the West are capable of forming communities that could survive and grow during troubled times. In my book Being Church Where We Live, I explain how Christians can achieve this goal. This model of church is recession and persecution proof.

I am amazed at the number of pastors who are warning their people of troubled times ahead, but are doing nothing to reorganize their church to be ready. They seem to think they will be able to carry on a model of church that is designed for prosperous times, without any consequences. This seems unwise.

Five Stages of Collapse (1)

I have just finished a book called The Five Stages ofCollapse by Dimitry Orlov. He has some strange ideas, about the functioning of capital and markets, but some parts of the book are really interesting. He says that the collapse of a society comes in five stages.

1. Financial Collapse
   Financial institutions become insolvent. Savings are wiped and access to financial capital is lost.

2. Commercial Collapse
   Faith that the market will provide what we need is lost, as supply chains breakdown. Widespread shortages will be common.

3. Political Collapse
   Faith in the government is lost. The political establishment loses legitimacy and relevance.

4. Social Collapse
   Trust in other people is lost. Social institutions run out of resources and fail through internal conflict.

5. Cultural Collapse
   Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. Families disband and compete as individuals. People lose the capacity for kindness, generosity, compassion, hospitality, honesty, charity. Every man for himself, in a dog-eat-dog world.

I am not sure about the order of the stages that he outlines. He says that financial collapse leads to commercial collapse. He suggests that when the financial systems breaks down, importers and exporters will be unable to get loans, so international trade will come to a halt and international shipping will be laid up everywhere.

I am not sure that this is correct. The financing of international trade through letters of credit was one of the first forms of financial activity to develop. I expect that if existing financial institutions collapse, traders and merchants will find other ways to finance their activities and make international exchanges.

I expect that international trade is more likely to be disrupted through wars and other political struggles.

Orlov also describes the challenges that will occur during each stage of collapse. This is probably more important than the causal connections between the various stages of collapse.