The Five Stages of Collapse - Dmitry Orlov

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The Five Stages of Collapse – Dmitry Orlov

 

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross defined the five stages of coming to terms with grief and tragedy

as denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, and applied it quite successfully

to various forms of catastrophic personal loss, such as death of a loved one, sudden end to

one's career, and so forth. Several thinkers, notably James Howard Kunstler and, more

recently John Michael Greer, have pointed out that the Kübler-Ross model is also quite

terrifyingly accurate in reflecting the process by which society as a whole (or at least the

informed and thinking parts of it) is reconciling itself to the inevitability of a

discontinuous future, with our institutions and life supp ort systems undermined by a

combination of resource depletion, catastrophic climate change, and political impotence.

But so far, little has been said specifically about the finer structure of these

discontinuities. Instead, there is to be found continuum of subjective judgments, ranging

from "a severe and prolonged recession" (the prediction we most often read in the

financial press), to Kunstler's evocative but unscientific-sounding "clusterf**k," to the

ever-popular "Collapse of Western Civilization," painted with an ever-wider brushstroke.

For those of us who have already gone through all of the emotional stages of reconciling

ourselves to the prospect of social and economic upheaval, it might be helpful to have a

more precise terminology that goes beyond such emotionally charged phrases. Defining a

taxonomy of collapses might prove to be more than just an intellectual exercise: based on

our abilities and circumstances, some of us may be able to sp ecifically plan for a certain

stage of collapse as a temporary, or even permanent, stopping point. Even if society at the

current stage of socioeconomic complexity will no longer be possible, and even if, as

Tainter points in his "Collapse of Complex Societies," there are circumstances in which

collapse happens to be the correct adaptive response, it need not automatically cause a

population crash, with the survivors disbanding into solitary, feral humans dispersed in

the wilderness and subsisting miserably. Collapse can be conceived of as an orderly,

organized retreat rather than a rout.

 

For instance, the collapse of the Soviet Union - our most recent and my personal favorite

example of an imperial collapse - did not reach the point of political disintegration of the

republics that made it up , although some of them (Georgia, Moldova) did lose some

territory to separatist movements. And although most of the economy shut down for a

time, many institutions, including the military, public utilities, and public transp ortation,

continued to function throughout. And although there was much social dislocation and

suffering, society as a whole did not collapse, because most of the population did not lose

access to food, housing, medicine, or any of the other survival necessities. The commandand-

control structure of the Soviet economy largely decoupled the necessities of daily life

from any element of market p sychology, associating them instead with physical flows of

energy and physical access to resources. Thus situation, as I argue in my forthcoming

book, Reinventing Collapse, allowed the Soviet population to inadvertently achieve a

greater level of collapse-preparedness than is currently possible in the United States.

Having given a lot of thought to both the differences and the similarities between the two

superpowers - the one that has collapsed already, and the one that is collapsing as I write

this - I feel ready to attempt a bold conjecture, and define five stages of collapse, to serve

as mental milestones as we gauge our own collapse-preparedness and see what can be

done to improve it. Rather than tying each phase to a particular emotion, as in the Kübler-

Ross model, the proposed taxonomy ties each of the five collapse stages to the breaching

of a specific level of trust, or faith, in the status quo. Although each stage causes physical,

observable changes in the environment, these can be gradual, while the mental flip is

generally quite swift. It is something of a cultural universal that nobody (but a real fool)

wants to be the last fool to believe in a lie.

 

Stages of Collapse

 

Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost. The future is no longer

assumed resemble the past in any way that allows risk to be assessed and financial assets

to be guaranteed. Financial institutions become insolvent; savings are wiped out, and

access to capital is lost.

 

Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost. Money is

devalued and/or becomes scarce, commodities are hoarded, import and retail chains break

down, and widespread shortages of survival necessities become the norm.

Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is lost. As

official attempts to mitigate widespread loss of access to commercial sources of survival

necessities fail to make a difference, the political establishment loses legitimacy and

relevance.

 

Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost. As local

social institutions, be they charities, community leaders, or other groups that rush in to

fill the power vacuum, run out of resources or fail through internal conflict.

 

Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in the goodness of humanity is lost. People lose their

capacity for "kindness, generosity, consideration, affection, honesty, hospitality,

compassion, charity " (Turnbull, The Mountain People). Families disband and compete as

individuals for scarce resources. The new motto becomes "M ay you die today so that I

die tomorrow" (Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago). There may even be some

cannibalism.

 

Although many people imagine collapse to be a sort of elevator that goes to the subbasement

(our Stage 5) no matter which button you push, no such automatic mechanism

can be discerned. Rather, driving us all to Stage 5 will require that a concerted effort be

made at each of the intervening stages. That all the players seem poised to make just such

an effort may give this collapse the form a classical tragedy - a conscious but inexorable

march to p erdition - rather than a farce ("Oop s! Ah, here we are, Stage 5." - "So, whom

do we eat first?" - "Me! I am delicious!") Let us sketch out this process.

 

Financial collapse, as we are are currently observing it, consists of two parts. One is that

a part of the general population is forced to move, no longer able to afford the house they

bought based on inflated assessments, forged income numbers, and foolish expectations

of endless asset inflation. Since, technically, they should never have been allowed to buy

these houses, and were only able to do so because of financial and political malfeasance,

this is actually a healthy development. The second part consists of men in expensive suits

tossing bundles of suddenly worthless paper up in the air, ripping out their remaining

hair, and (some of us might uncharitably hope) setting themselves on fire on the steps of

the Federal Reserve. They, to express it in their own vernacular, "f**ked up," and so this

is also just as it should be.

 

The government response to this could be to offer some helpful homilies about "the

wages of sin" and to op en a few soup kitchens and flop houses in a variety of locations

including Wall Street. The message would be: "You former debt addicts and gamblers, as

you say, 'f**ked up,' and so this will really hurt for a long time. We will never let y ou

anywhere near big money again. Get yourselves over to the soup kitchen, and bring your

own bowl, because we don't do dishes." This would result in a stable Stage 1 collapse -

the Second Great Depression.

 

However, this is unlikely, because in the US the government happens to be debt addict

and gambler number one. As individuals, we may have been as virtuous as we wished,

but the government will have still run up exorbitant debts on our behalf. Every level of

government, from local municipalities and authorities, which need the financial markets

to finance their public works and public services, to the federal government, which relies

on foreign investment to finance its endless wars, is addicted to public debt. They know

they cannot stop borrowing, and so they will do anything they can to keep the game

going for as long as possible.

 

About the only thing the government currently seems it fit to do is extend further credit to

those in trouble, by setting interest rates at far below inflation, by accepting worthless bits

of paper as collateral and by pumping money into insolvent financial institutions. This

has the effect of diluting the dollar, further undermining its value, and will, in due course,

lead to hyp erinflation, which is bad enough in any economy, but is especially serious for

one dominated by imports. As imports dry up and the associated parts of the economy

shut down, we pass Stage 2: Commercial Collapse.

 

As businesses shut down, storefronts are boarded up and the population is left largely

penniless and dependent on FEMA and charity for survival, the government may

consider what to do next. It could, for example, repatriate all foreign troops and set them

to work on public works projects designed to directly help the population. It could

promote local economic self-sufficiency, by establishing community -supported

agriculture programs, erecting renewable energy systems, and organizing and training

local self-defence forces to maintain law and order. The Army Corps of Engineers could

be ordered to bulldoze buildings erected on former farmland around city centers, return

the land to cultivation, and to construct high-density solar-heated housing in urban

centers to resettle those who are displaced. In the interim, it could reduce homelessness

by imposing a steep tax on vacant residential properties and funneling the proceeds into

rent subsidies for the indigent. With p lenty of luck, such measures may be able to reverse

the trend, eventually providing for a restoration of pre-Stage 2 conditions.

This may or may not be a good plan, but in any case it is rather unrealistic, because the

United States, being so deeply in debt, will be forced to accede to the wishes of its

foreign creditors, who own a lot of national assets (land, buildings, and businesses) and

who would rather see a dependent American population slaving away working off their

debt than a self-sufficient one, conveniently forgetting that they have mortgaged their

children's futures to pay for military fiascos, big houses, big cars, and flat-screen

television sets. Thus, a much more likely scenario is that the federal government

(knowing who butters their bread) will remain subservient to foreign financial interests. It

will impose austerity conditions, maintain law and order through draconian means, and

aide in the construction of foreign-owned factory towns and plantations. As people start

to think that having a government may not be such a good idea, conditions become ripe

for Stage 3.

 

If Stage 1 collapse can be observed by watching television, observing Stage 2 might

require a hike or a bicycle ride to the nearest population center, while Stage 3 collapse is

more than likely to be visible directly through one's own living-room window, which

may or may not still have glass in it. After a significant amount of bloodletting, much of

the country becomes a no-go zone for the remaining authorities. Foreign creditors decide

that their debts might not be repaid after all, cut their losses and depart in haste. The rest

of the world decides to act as if there is no such place as The United States - because

"nobody goes there any more." So as not to lose out on the entertainment value, the

foreign press still prints sporadic fables about Americans who eat their young, much as

they did about Russia following the Soviet collapse. A few brave American expatriates

who still come back to visit bring back amazing stories of a different kind, but everyone

considers them eccentric and perhaps a little bit crazy.

 

Stage 3 collapse can sometimes be avoided by the timely introduction of international

peacekeepers and through the efforts of international humanitarian NGOs. In the

aftermath of a Stage 2 collapse, domestic authorities are highly unlikely to have either the

resources or the legitimacy, or even the will, to arrest the collapse dynamic and

reconstitute themselves in a way that the population would accept.

 

As stage 3 collapse runs its course, the power vacuum left by the now defunct fedral,

state and local government is filled by a variety of new power structures. Remnants of

former law enforcement and military, urban gangs, ethnic mafias, religious cults and

wealthy property owners all attempt to build their little empires on the ruins of the big

one, fighting each other over territory and access to resources. This is the age of Big

Men: charismatic leaders, rabble-rousers, ruthless Macchiavelian princes and war lords.

In the luckier places, they find it to their common advantage to p ool their resources and

amalgamate into some sort of legitimate local government, while in the rest their jostling

for power leads to a spiral of conflict and open war.

 

Stage 4 collapse occurs when society becomes so disordered and impoverished that it can

no longer supp ort the Big Men, who become smaller and smaller, and eventually fade

from view. Society fragments into extended families and small tribes of a dozen or so

families, who find it advantageous to band together for mutual support and defense. This

is the form of society that has existed over some 98.5% of humanity 's existence as a

biological species, and can be said to be the bedrock of human existence. Humans can

exist at this level of organization for thousands, perhaps millions of y ears. M ost

mammalian species go extinct after just a few million years, but, for all we know, Homo

Sapiens still have a million or two left.

 

If pre-collapse society is too atomized, alienated and individualistic to form cohesive

extended families and tribes, or if its physical environment becomes so disordered and

impoverished that hunger and starvation become widespread, then Stage 5 collapse

becomes likely. At this stage, a simpler biological imperative takes over, to preserve the

life of the breeding couples. Families disband, the old are abandoned to their own

devices, and children are only cared for up to age 3. All social unity is destroyed, and

even the couples may disband for a time, preferring to forage on their own and refusing

to share food. This is the state of society described by the anthropologist Colin Turnbull

in his book The Mountain People. If society prior to Stage 5 collapse can be said to be the

historical norm for humans, Stage 5 collapse brings humanity to the verge of physical

extinction.

 

As we can easily imagine, the default is cascaded failure: each stage of collapse can

easily lead to the next, perhaps even overlapping it. In Russia, the process was arrested

just past Stage 3: there was considerable trouble with ethnic mafias and even some

warlordism, but government authority won out in the end. In my other writings, I go into

a lot of detail in describing the exact conditions that inadvertently made Russian society

relatively collapse-proof. Here, I will simply say that these ingredients are not currently

present in the United States.

 

While attempting to arrest collapse at Stage 1 and Stage 2 would probably be a dangerous

waste of energy, it is p robably worth everyone's while to dig in their heels at Stage 3,

definitely at Stage 4, and it is quite simply a matter of physical survival to avoid Stage 5.

In certain localities - those with high population densities, as well as those that contain

dangerous nuclear and industrial installations - avoiding Stage 3 collapse is rather

important, to the point of inviting foreign troops and governments in to maintain order

and avoid disasters. Other localities may be able to prosper indefinitely at Stage 3, and

even the most impoverished environments may be able to supp ort a sparse population

subsisting indefinitely at Stage 4.

 

Although it is possible to prepare directly for surviving Stage 5, this seems like an

altogether demoralizing thing to attempt. Preparing to survive Stages 3 and 4 may seem

somewhat more reasonable, while explicitly aiming for Stage 3 may be reasonable if you

plan to become one of the Big Men. Be that as it may, I must leave such preparations as

an exercise for the reader. My hope is that these definitions of specific stages of collapse

will enable a more sp ecific and fruitful discussion than the one currently dominated by

such vague and ultimately nonsensical terms as "the collapse of Western civilization."