Survive- The Economic Collapse

by Piero San Giorgio

  If, under normal circumstances, a person on guard duty falls asleep on the job, the consequences for the group will be slight: perhaps a fox will steal a chicken. In times of chaos, this dereliction of duty may lead to much more serious consequences. This is why the regulations must include punishments: light for the less serious lapses, severe for more serious behavior or lapses. Let us take a concrete example: in your SAB, Claire is married to Laurent, the only veterinarian. Handsome, muscular François seduces her. Claire and François have a fling; Laurent finds out. Mad with rage, he seizes an axe and kills François. What do you do? Do you try and convict Laurent of murder? In this case, the sentence might be, for example, banishment. Or, perhaps, you do not condemn him because you need his skills next season when the animals give birth. But that amounts to saying crime is allowed if the murderer is indispensable. A delicate situation, isn’t it? Let us complicate the situation further by imagining that François is not a member of the SAB but a woodcutter, the mayor’s son from a nearby village. What law applies? That of your country, which no longer exists? That of the angry crowd in your SAB? Or that of the village?

  This example illustrates the importance of careful forethought in order to establish a legal framework, including rituals, if possible, to daily life in your SAB. Rituals would serve to accept a new member, celebrate seasons’ passage, harvests, remembering important moments, traditional local festivities, etc. These functions are ensured in industrial societies through other means; in a collapse situation, you will gain a new appreciation for the necessity and usefulness of ritual, both practical and spiritual.

  Once the legal framework has been put in place, you must define the functions of the members in your SAB. Keep it simple, but differentiate between various functions:

  The leader makes the final decisions. This leader can be natural (the SAB belongs to him) or elected according to the rules foreseen by your code, which allows you to name the most competent (or charismatic) and the most appropriate person (whether based on wisdom, intelligence, intuition, etc.) to make decisions, resolve conflicts, and carry out justice.

  An “overseer” manages the details of production and stocks for consumption.

  An adjutant, or “gunnery sergeant,” sees to it that everyone carries out the tasks assigned to him with the necessary speed and discipline. The idea is that the SAB should run like a clock, and that “gunny” applies consistent pressure so that everything is done correctly, just like the character played by Louis Gosset Jr. in the 1982 movie An Officer and a Gentleman.

  Then, educators should organize the instruction of children and the transfer of as much knowledge as possible to all members of the SAB: mechanics, medicine, veterinary medicine, plants and gardens, weapons, cooking, etc. Everyone in an SAB can and should be an educator according to his or her skills.

  Carefully manage envy in people’s perception of preferences and privileges. (The adjutant can quickly get everyone to agree against him—that’s his role in a way.)

  Finally, it is possible that we may have to thoroughly reassess those social relations that we have learned over the past three generations. The collapse of the economy and the chaos which ensues will force us to reflect a great deal on this problem and try new ways of living together: simpler, more natural, and probably more spiritual.

  In this context, I will quote the French historian and specialist of Africa, Bernard Lugan, who explains how a simple society functions:

  How were preliterate populations able to live without money? It did not exist because there was no occasion for it to exist. Barter was how goods of the greatest necessity were regulated. There were neither social security, nor insurance, nor retirement pensions. One’s offspring saw to the latter need, according to a principle of direct mutual assistance from generation to generation. Communities were close in their way of life or survival—to their earth, their water, their seed, their knowledge, and their know-how. They built their houses themselves with the help of their friends and neighbors. They also answered their immaterial and cultural needs. They constituted not a social agglomeration resulting from migrations but a social body where each individual is in the place where he is useful to himself and others. It is the power of the social bond which, without guaranteeing ideal relations, abolished solitude. The individual was not identified by his mere physical or moral reality, but as a soul in the strongest sense of the term, as a future deceased with an immortal soul in a very concrete sense: he will live on as an ancestor.

  Relations with the Outside World

  Within the framework of creating ties with the outside world, your aim is twofold: to improve your chances of survival and to contribute to reconstructing a healthy and lasting civilization. It is obvious that an organized and motivated community has better chances of sticking it out in all matters concerning survival than an isolated SAB or an individual. Imagine an entire village, a valley organized for optimal production of food and energy resources, with pooling of resources and know-how (veterinarians, doctors, stonemasons, mechanics, etc.), creating better defense and undertaking works for the common good.

  One might even hope that the SAB concept be applied to an entire community, a neighborhood, a town, a region and—why not?—an entire country? I sincerely believe that countries like Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, Japan, and even Chile could become super-SABs. This sort of community is already being established on the scale of cooperatives, villages, and little towns. These are the concepts of Résilience communautaire in France, Transition Towns, Post-Carbon Cities and Relocalisation Projects in Canada, England, the Netherlands and Sweden, or Belastbar Gemeinde in Germany.

  The cells of an organism, the corals of a coral reef—like the individuals in a bankrupt company, family members confronted with illness, death, poverty, or the members of a society in crisis, which must face up to a war or a civil war--can sometimes adapt themselves spectacularly well to complexity by innovating or summoning new resources. I think that true resilience is necessarily collective. Individuals die or migrate, but their society and civilization (in the broad sense) can endure and largely restore itself after a crisis. You must transform your SAB into a link in a network of SABs.

  Here is the process that will make the community around your SAB increasingly resilient; it begins at the bottom and works its way upward:

  Form your team or the working group of your SAB out of people who share your ideas and values. In the very least, this will mean you alone, and at most, as many persons as you can integrate.

  Install your SAB according to the seven fundamental principles of the SAB described in this book.

  Put a plan in place to create bonds with the communities around your SAB: neighbors, local authorities, villages, etc. Start in a very innocuous manner in order to avoid frightening or upsetting them. First, establish neighborly relations: a little present to announce your presence in the region, a visit to the mayors of the surrounding communities, use of local talents for work necessary to your SAB (ask the cabinetmaker to make you furniture, the mason to repair an old wall, buy food directly from the producer or from the cooperative on the corner). Identify the religions practiced, local beliefs, customs, traditions as well as their origin and significance. In all circumstances, be polite and friendly.

  Evaluate the population of the surrounding communities. How many inhabitants are there? How many refugees? How many are under 15 years old? Do they all know how to read? Is there any way of establishing a school to continue teaching the children and not leave them with nothing to do? How many births were there this year? How many deaths? What caused them? At what age did the deaths occur? What might have prevented them? Is the population size increasing or decreasing? What problems are caused by this development? How many people are struck with chronic illnesses? What illnesses? Are they contagious? Is there a quarantine system?

  Evaluate local nutrition. What is the basic foodstuff of the region? Is it adequate, and where does it come from? Is
it healthy and proper for consumption? Is it polluted? Is there any excess, usable agricultural land? Is there enough free land for possible future distribution? Who are the large landowners? How is food stored? Is there waste, and why? How many children are poorly nourished (underfed or overfed)? Who smokes? Who is an alcoholic? Who uses drugs? What is the social impact of these practices (marital violence, theft, etc.)?

  Evaluate sanitary conditions. What is the state of human habitations? Are they houses, apartments, farms, villas? How good are the walls and floors of these habitations? Are they clean? What animals are allowed inside? What sanitary problems do they cause? Under what conditions is food stored? Is it protected from rodents and harmful insects? Is it protected from all forms of chemical contamination, toxins, and other pollutants? What illnesses, human and animal, are common in the region? Where does the water come from? What precautions are taken to ensure that the water is potable? How do toilets and any possible latrines function? How many people know how to use them correctly? Are they working? Where is waste and garbage consigned? Why that place?

  Evaluate health resources. Are there local doctors or midwives? What is their role? Are there traditional healers? What are the nearest medical centers or hospitals? Are they operational? Are there any shortcomings in the matter of vaccinations?

  In case of relationship turmoil, show sincere empathy; provide emotional support and treat people on equal terms. Behave humanely with the sick, even if nothing can be done. If necessary, help put an end to suffering in the most appropriate and respectful way possible.

  Then, evaluate how important the sense of belonging is to a community. Do the locals even have that sense? Are some people excluded; is there hostility toward the group, an ethnic or religious minority, or anyone at all? If so, why? What are the historic or current leaders of that community? Who are the richest and most notable? How are they treated (respect, mockery) and why?

  Participate in local politics and—why not?—become an elected representative. Make an effort to understand the needs felt in your region, i.e., what people consider to be their biggest problems. Then, try to understand their real needs. Is there anything available to resolve them? Is there a will to do so? Finally, try to understand the human, material, and financial resources available for doing what is necessary.

  Make an inventory of the abilities in your region. Which farmer is cultivating what? What animals are being bred? What local industries are there? What are the local sources of energy (hydro-electric plants, etc.)? What trade does each member of your community practice?

  Take care of people; they are valuable: a good bottle, a few vegetables from your garden, a meal... Maintain your bonds, but in a natural and unostentatious way.

  Work with the local authorities to understand their plans in case of a natural disaster and identify the persons responsible for security (police, firemen, etc.). Offer to help them as a volunteer, but also by contributing to improve plans and capabilities.

  Contact the organizations responsible for drinking water, water treatment, and electricity and take an interest in their emergency plans. Do they even have any?

  Work to establish a coherent plan of resilience in conformity with the means at your community’s disposal, then get it put into action.

  Connect this resilient community with others, then others still... Little by little, you will have mobilized a large number of people and resources in order to increase the resilience of a small region.

  Finally, always respect the property of others. A “private property” or “do not enter” sign should be respected, or you risk serious trouble, especially in rural areas. Learn local customs, respect them and do not try to impose your own. Remember that if you are a city dweller in a rural area, you are almost as much a stranger as if you came from the other end of the world.

  Establishing a social bond takes a lot of time and requires a lot of observation, empathy and discretion (you don’t just arrive with your list of questions and interrogate each inhabitant!), but in the end, you will have the information needed to help people. And when the crisis sweeps away the world, the community in which you are integrated and find your place will be grateful to you for having started so many projects destined to strengthen and protect them. You will have transformed them into a Sustainable Autonomous Base!

  Then, one might imagine your region developing thanks to the installation of security, following Maslow’s hierarchy: first food security (food can be obtained in your region), then physical security (there is no violence, thanks to locally raised militia), then self-accomplishment (you can educate your children, work or participate in a common project). You can conduct business (barter and trade, etc.)... If you succeed in doing that much, you will really have contributed to humanity!

  I believe you will discover in the process of creating social bonds that communal solidarity founded on work as the creator of the common good brings much greater and lasting satisfaction than the ephemeral satisfaction of individualist consumerism. You will discover the emotional advantages brought by a sense of community, personal autonomy, the satisfaction of honest labor well performed, intergenerational solidarity, cooperation, contact with nature, and even happiness.

  Race and Racism

  Sadly, history is replete with misfortunes caused by racial hatred and resentment. You must make sure that racism never rears its ugly head in your SAB. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that we are all equal—we aren’t. And without question, most people are simply more comfortable around people like them (whether they admit it or not). But what is racism and where does it come from? We should remember that our differences are so varied that there exists no simple hierarchy between races. Is this race “superior” to that one? This raises the question, in what? Moreover, no people has ever invented “self-racism”; surprise, surprise, the “chosen people” always happen to be ourselves! In Antiquity and the Middle Ages, the slave was a member of the lowest social class, but not a racial class: the vanquished became a slave, but he could buy back his freedom under certain conditions. Whatever one might think about the scientific validity of race, the fact is that the enslavement of African populations, first by Arabs and then Europeans, as well as the ethno-nationalism and chauvinism of the two World Wars, have all left a bitter taste in the West’s mouth. For the last 40 years, it has been fashionable to point the finger at White people as uniquely exploitative; but “racism,” in the sense of a wish to dominate or exterminate other peoples, no longer exists in Europe or the United States, apart, perhaps, from a tiny minority of persons.

  Alas, it is possible that racism of this sort will return in force due to several factors. Certain maleficent groups have been able to instrumentalize public resentment for imaginary or exaggerated crimes in order to create scapegoats. And the so-called liberals and multiculturalists, too, have contributed to racial resentment. The policies of mass immigration, associated with an expressed preference for institutionalized miscegenation, could effectively destroy all cultures by rendering them uniform. Moreover, in uprooting and acculturating individuals, the ancestral wisdom of nations is being suppressed. All of this risks recreating racist movements—first against Western populations, then as a White-European-American reaction against the populations of the Global South that have been implanted into the North on a mass scale. If one wanted to create the conditions for future civil wars, one could hardly have done a better job!

  Now, of course, racism is quite unpleasant and offensive to modern man. We don’t like judging people by a prioris, that is, things they cannot change. And in terms of analysis, sometimes race can whitewash more consequential differences: an Irishman and an Englishman, or a Ukrainian and a Pole at times hardly get along despite the fact that they are all White! And what will you say about a Fulani, a Fang, an Ashanti, a Baoulé, a Kikuyu and a Xhosa? That they are alike because they are all Black? This is both absurd and insulting! In many cases, culture, climate, environment, history and, above all, individua
l character can trump race.

  The question that interests us within the framework of an SAB is not so much philosophical as practical. Are you increasing the risk of internal conflict because of racial selection? Are you depriving yourself of talents and abilities? Although the question of identity is fundamental, I encourage you to still consider each person with regard to the qualities and defects intrinsic to his individual character.

  In general, you must be careful not to acquire a “siege mentality.” Be mistrustful, defend and protect yourself, yes! But remain open-minded and know how to communicate, share information, understand what is going on beyond your own thought horizon. Know how to be generous and charitable by stocking food and essential objects (bars of soap, medicines, preserves), which you can give to refugees or people in need.

  If you are a stranger to a community, it’s up to you to make the maximum effort to integrate yourself into it and better assimilate yourself to it (it should be this way all the time anyway!). It is possible they will require you to prove your new allegiance and go through difficult rites of passage. Especially at the beginning, you must prove that you are worthy of confidence and capable of being a member of the group. For this purpose, you should leave behind certain notions about individualism and your own culture. However, it can be useful not to abandon your culture of origin totally, for every culture has some good and useful things and acts as a vehicle for wisdom. These are elements that will bring renewal and richness to the host culture.

  Communication with the Outside World