Potential Stages of Societal Collapse (Thanks to Dmitry Orlov)

Stage 1: Moral Collapse. You stop trusting people. You hear many empty promises, even by politicians, doctors, teachers and your neighbors. You feel alienated and abandoned by your government, and you expect people to try to abuse you. Unhealthy relationships, depression, anxiety and mental health problems are normal. Freedom is another word for bondage.

Stage 2: Financial Collapse. You stop trusting currency and banks. You realize that the paper in your wallet and the digits in bank computers are only fantasies, based on faith and magic. You cannot assess risk and your assets are not guaranteed. When financial institutions become insolvent; your savings evaporate, and you cannot access capital or get a loan. Authorities call it a temporary emergency and blame liberals, anarchists or terrorists.

Stage 3: Commercial Collapse. You stop trusting businesses. Money is either devalued and scarce or hyperinflation makes it worthless. People hoard and trade basic commodities. Import and retail chains cease, and there are widespread shortages of necessities. Supermarkets have  armed guards and you hear of food riots. Martial law may be declared and essential supplies are taken by troops.

Stage 4: Political Collapse. You stop trusting governments. Attempts to provide survival necessities are ineffective; and politicians lose legitimacy and relevance. Emergency calls are not answered. Strict rationing and forced labor begins. Starving people seek food, medical supplies and weapons. Airlines, borders and some cities are closed. You hear of migrations of starving people spreading pandemics.

Stage 5: Social Collapse. You stop trusting authorities. Social institutions are resourceless. Many violent prisoners have escaped. Dead bodies are commonplace. Cities are centers of starvation and disease. Families allow the old and weak to die. Might is right ... but who has weapons? Internment camps conceal slavery, starvation and genocide ... for a while.

Stage 6: Military Collapse. You stop trusting the military. Martial law transitions into local dictatorships. Para-military forces perceive you and your family as targets competing for the same resources as themselves - or as potential slaves. They create systems of forced labor and slavery ... fighting local wars to control local resources. Kindness becomes a strange concept.

Stage 7: Civilization Collapse. You stop trusting hope. Death is everywhere. People cannot afford to be kind. Many urban regions have become death zones. Nothing is more dangerous than desperate men. Whose children will live - and whose will die? You hear stories of starvation ... you might be killed for a candy bar ... you might be butchered for your meat.

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You have a short time. Are you (even slightly) prepared?

The last straw hardly matters - government bankruptcy, global warming, oil wars or space aliens. Misinformation dominates the media and instructions and advice given to avoid widespread panic often worsen any chance of survival. This is not be a good time to be patient, stay indoors and listen to a radio. This is a last chance to get out of a city fast while you still can.

In a collapsing economy, virtual money is ... virtual!

Government agencies tell you, while communications last, that their instructions will ensure your survival. But your survival may not support their survival. Police in most countries (including America) are not obligated to protect you even now. Many unprepared people will die during a fast economic collapse. People who are prepared, tough and intelligent ... well, some will survive.

During moral collapse, family values deteriorate and communities disintegrate. The only crime is getting caught. Parents allow media to damage their children's mental health. More parents reject their children, more teachers fear their students and more doctors fear their patients. Identity loss, drug use and sexual abuse became normal - all hidden in plain sight.

During financial collapse your paper assets and perhaps even banknotes are exposed as worthless. You keep records of your stocks and bonds, certificates of deposit, insurance, taxes and pensions in case of a recovery. However, you are prepared for hyperinflation with stocks of money-substitutes for trading ... coffee, sugar, salt, tools, herbs, pain-killers, etc. Hoarding is not yet a crime.

Food and supplies will immediately disappear in a commercial collapse.

During commercial collapse most consumer goods become unavailable, except in trade for useful items or services. Shops and supermarket staff hoard their goods awaiting some sign of recovery - only distributing goods in return for trade or protection, or at gunpoint. Communications cease and food riots begin. Police, military or firemen do not protect you or your home. You cannot get essential medications. Suspected looters or terrorists may be shot on sight ... which means anybody.

Martial law is imposed by military forces when civil authority breaks down. Curfews, rationing, closed borders and travel permits at first ... later you hear of sealed cities, slave labor and concentration camps. Armed forces suppress domestic violence - or increase it. See: Guidelines for Troops in a Domestic Disturbance and Steps to Disperse Insurgents and Restore Order.

During political collapse government services vanish. Your contracts, pensions and tax returns have little meaning or relevance. Police and military use their weapons to protect their own property from hordes of hungry people. Suicides skyrocket. Highways resemble parking lots. Starving city people converge on farms near cities. Strict rules and road barricades attempt to contain riots and epidemics, and summary executions start for minor offences - such as hoarding or even walking.

During social collapse most hospitals, clinics and schools cease to function. Their unpaid staff are forced to work or they become local enterprises trading their services for food and essentials. Disease is everywhere. Electrical equipment is operated from local generators - while fuel is available. Few people care whether you live or die ... and many would prefer to loot your dead body.

During military collapse the military becomes a new aristocracy based on scavenging and feudal farming. Much of your food and property is confiscated and little if any effort is invested in your survival. Executions and murder are commonplace. Nuclear weapons are used to sterilize some starving, disease centers once called cities. Unless you are in a safe community you are on your own. Unless you have needed skills you are an easily-replaced field slave or grunt soldier.

During civilization collapse most of your time is spent gathering and protecting whatever you can hoard, trade or scavenge; without being robbed, enslaved ... or eaten. Pity ... what a concept!

But that is not the end of the human story. Some people will survive. After a period of anarchy, signs of social recovery include:

1. Medieval power struggles last for years
2. Barter economies until hard currencies emerge
3. Cults and religions attract vast numbers of converts
4. Industrial plant and scientific equipment are recycled for reuse
5. Organized crime and / or law enforcement and / or military are governing bodies

Survival Coaching - Preparation

A probably-fatal mistake is to assume that you can gain essential knowledge and survival skills during the chaos of a regional crash or global collapse - without internet or books and with intense competition. Maybe take time to decide now ...

1. What is essential to your survival?
2. What would simplify or comfort your survival?
3. If you cannot survive without luxuries - how do you want to die?

Repair family ties. Build strong relationships so that you can support each other. Encourage financial responsibility and personal responsibility. Help people break obsessions and addictions. Encourage young adults to select spouses who are compatible and willing to make lasting commitments.

Preparation is a better investment than stocks, bonds or gold. Stockpiling basic necessities is cheap insurance, but be discrete, or you may be accused of hoarding, or be robbed. Plan to survive. Have what you need instead of desperately searching or fighting for it.

Other good insurance if you can afford it may be a large sailboat or a small country house with space to grow and store crops. Seek a rather isolated location, over a hundred miles from a major city, not visible from the road, with woodland and surface water nearby.

(And if there is no collapse in your lifetime, you will have a nice boat / vacation house / smallholding investment with a good resale value which can be used by your children.

Buy essentials now. Essentials are what you cannot live without. Extreme basics include food, water, clothing, shelter, heat and medicines. (Given the shelf life of medicines, get some books about herbs!)

Agrarian ways may seem relics of the past. Your ancestors stored fruits, vegetables and canned meat in cellars. They survived severe winters without electricity. You may not like it - but you can too.

1. Get healthy. Have and use a bicycle. Build family connections.
2. Read about survival. Use but don't depend on the internet - or on electricity.
3. Sort out your fears and concerns now ... you will need a healthy mind to protect your family through bad times. Life will be tough enough without depression, neuroses and panic attacks.
4. Dry foods such as rice, grain and beans are cheap insurance against a crisis. Stock enough long term storage food for a family of four persons to survive for three months, or for one person for a year. Use this food regularly and restock it regularly.
5. Keep a supply of clean water ... if you lose electric power you may lose drinking water too.
6. Wean yourself off addictive and unhealthy foods. Learn about and explore wild foods. Know which local wild plants are edible and which are toxic.
7. Stock needed medications and emergency medical supplies; learn first aid and CPR.
8. Ten acres of good land can support 4-10 people indefinitely, depending upon available water, land quality, tools, foiling thieves and management skills.
9. If you can, purchase a large sailboat - or a holiday home in a low population density area - the lower the better - more than 160 km / 100 miles from any large town or city.
10. Survival is the best revenge.

Drug dealers do not benefit from healthy customers. Most physical and mental diseases are consequences of unhealthy lifestyles and unhappy relationships. We can help you sort it out!

Survival - Coaching Communities

Following a collapse, many unprepared people will die and survivors must cooperate to live. In remote areas and in rural villages, neighbors are still valued. We can help people create community - to resolve most internal and external conflicts - by dissolving enmeshments, limiting beliefs and trauma. We help people assimilate any shadows from the past and be all of who they are.

Do you want to be stranded amongst angry and hungry strangers? Whilst there is still Internet, we can coach people to dissolve emotional blocks and work together, and develop a dynamic sense of survival. We can coach communities to develop leaders and build Community Visions. We can help potential leaders solve problems and resolve conflicts while encouraging members to cooperate.

Most people, even with huge emotional baggage, even in horrendous crisis, can participate in community - unless they prefer loneliness. Community requires people who prefer co-operation to individualism. It is possible. We can coach people to build community and develop leaders.

In the event of a collapse, joining a successful rural community will become a dream for most starving people. How will your community decide who to accept - and who to turn away? How kind can you be? How will you deal with armed intruders? How will you commence trade with other survivor communities? You may find our community and emergency training useful.

Survival Intelligence ... Study  Survival Books

Read, read, read ... and talk to people who have training and experience in the risks associated with your region. Is your home at risk of floods, hurricanes, blizzards or earthquake? What can you do if your savings become worthless, if your supermarkets are empty or if armed gangs loot your area?

Most survival books are tips on what to do if you get lost in the woods, or if the weather is unusually bad. Get some books on self-sufficiency, first aid, small farms, trapping, raising livestock, basic construction and repair, and using and making hand tools. Your personal and family survival will be a great victory in a starving land that is being looted, ransacked and ravaged. Don't rely on the Internet!

You may better consider the effects of social collapse if you read novels or watch post-apocalyptic movies about economic disasters and societal collapse ... The Postman by David Brin, for example, The Road, by Cormac McCarthy or Lucifer's Hammer by Larry Niven.

Nuclear War Survival Skills, by Cresson H. Kearny (ultimate self-help book on civil defense.)

The Long Emergency, by James Howard Kunstler (Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2005).
Kunstler writes that as energy becomes scarce, transportation will become difficult, causing food and other commodities to become unavailable. Local communities must become self-sufficient for food production, but some, particularly large cities, will be unable to do so, leading to mass starvation, disease and civil unrest. Kunstler suggests that governments cannot manage these problems.

Sense of Survival, by J. Allan South (Timpanogos Publishers, 1990).
Comprehensive, including fallout studies and protection. How to grow a garden, find drinkable water, and raise animals. This is useful knowledge if the infrastructure collapses.

Life After Doomsday, by Bruce D. Clayton, PhD (Paladin Press, 1980).
Thoughtful and intelligent. General insights and specific survival strategies following economic collapse, civil unrest and natural disasters. Excellent fallout studies.

No Such Thing As Doomsday, by Phillip L. Hoag (Yellowstone Publishing, 1996)
Useful information.