Self sufficiency can only stretch so far, and specialization has always resulted in higher quality of life.

How do you manage that in a world where the currency value has gone to pot? Well, hippies have some practice at this sort of thing. Not that communal living represents an ideal situation long term, but there are useful lessons to be learned.

At the link is an article about a place called "The Farm", started in Tennessee in the early 1970's, it still exists and has been gaining popularity again recently (gee I wonder why):
ClubOrlov: Lifeboats: A Memoir

Ideally a barter system must emerge, perhaps including the trade of such stores of value as silver coins, common caliber firearm cartridges and the like. Pure communalism is fraught with problems that simple trade can cure.

Incidentally I got to the link above via this article at Survivalblog.com, which has more thoughts on the topic.

I know I keep harping on this topic, but it continues to grate me that I am but one man attempting to do everything, and I know I can't. And yet those who will undoubtedly benefit from my efforts refuse to take the time to develop their own set of complementary skills, and put forth their own complementary efforts to developing this retreat. It is not "prepping" if you think you will start doing it **after** the world we all know falls apart. It will be too late to gather the required materials, tools and skills then.

There is no doubt that it requires sacrifices today to be ready to face tomorrow. It is funny how so many people realize this when they think of retirement (need for retirement funds), emergencies (need for insurance policies for every conceivable contingency), but never think of what sort of "insurance" would cushion them against the collapse of the money economy that their retirement funds and insurance policies rely upon. Middle managers of every stripe, technicians, therapists, paper pushers and form-fillers will be utterly lost in a world where farming, gardening, animal husbandry, hunting, weaving, tanning, carpentry, blacksmithing, forging, welding and the other various craft skills that were important over 100 years are the new economy.

Yes it will cost you today. Yes there are things you will have to do without, including your spare time to "relax" and "recreate" and "recoup". Why do you believe your personal comfort today is so important that you are willing to endure abject misery tomorrow? Or is it that you are unwilling to face what is assuredly coming?

As an engineer for public agency I ought to be able to sit back and coast into retirement if I believed as these do. I have a good job with a stable retirement system being funded, and in less than ten years I could be done with working and start on retirement living. I could be spending my weekends playing now, because everything else is assured. Instead I am effectively working a second job on the weekends because I do not believe the illusion of security. Unless I am fully prepared to live my life with the complete loss of the monetary security I now see with my eyes, I have no security for retirement. Neither do you, and it is time to open your eyes and commit to doing what is required to obtain that security.

Time to pull your head out of the sand and SEE. And then DO.

Labels: personal responsibility, preparedness, society and culture