What follows in the middle of this article was my previous attempt to visualize how the future economy will be both similar and different from Europe after the end of the Roman Empire. I wrote it a week or two ago but didn’t publish it as I was unhappy with my thought process. It didn’t “mesh”. Something was wrong with it. I put it on the back burner of my sub-consciousness until the answer presented itself. Since long hot showers are no longer possible, now my best Eureka moments are while riding my bicycle when cold enough to increase circulation more ( eight months out of the year at least in the morning ). My whole thinking on firearms displacing the feudal structure was wrong. Read the original article, then we can pick up on this train of thought.
FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY
Last weeks Druid Dude Report (http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/ ) was as good as usual. One of my favorite writers even if he is a hopeless Slow Decliner. I can appreciate authors of different persuasions such as the extreme commie Kunstler (http://kunstler.com/blog/ ) who not only would kiss the tan off Obammies ass but has committed the unpardonable sin of being a damn Yankee. Yet he is so funny with such a caustic wit that one simply must love him. Anyway, our favorite Druid Dude pointed out the reasoning behind the economic structure of medieval Europe
which was a response in part to the collapse of the Roman currency debacle ( primarily it was due to a lack of surplus energy that the Romans had- Europe inherited a mess of overpopulation, hyperinflation, soil degradation, etc. and the only way to compensate for a lack of trade was decentralization and land wealth ). As went dark ages Europe so will go Post Oil Age America. *
To visualize our near future, you can’t look at resource rich colonial or pre-Depression America or post-Enlightenment Europe as parasite on colonies. Those times were ones of riches and wealth due to mining the wealth of vast stretches of land. As DD pointed out, the average peasant usually never saw a coin, certainly never on a daily basis. Precious metals were scarce and were a small part of the economy ( one wonders how much gold and silver was carried out of Roman Europe
in the last days in a desperate last attempt to buy food, or later carried out as plunder, for such a shortage to remain that there couldn’t be a viable medium of exchange ). Land was the basis of all wealth and obligations based on that land formed the economy. Now, land has always formed the basis of wealth, but DD explains these things much better than me as far as the three tiers of the economy and the medieval devolution to using just the basic one. The basics are that not only did trade collapse causing decentralization, its lack made the economy oversimplified. In the future, we will once again reach that level. Yet it would be silly to think we will revisit Maid Marian
and the Merry Men despite the favorite fantasy world of SM Sterling. There most certainly won’t be kings and queens and armored knights and what not. So how will our feudal future look? *
I can’t see us ever devolving past a blackpowder
and flintlock existence on a large basis. It might not even sink below breech loading blackpowder and primer ( although I believe that would be contingent on mercury availability- remember, regardless of knowledge, without the support infrastructure nothing above a cottage industry level will be made and mercury based primers are very cottage industry ). We certainly have enough smelted metal aboveground to be able to “mine” ores for many lifetimes if extreme stupidity isn’t involved. I think the bottleneck will be nitrates since only so much fertilizer can be taken from food production. The existence of firearms negates the feudal structure because massed fire from common soldiers
trumps single combat and the use of cannon necessitates mobility rather than fortifications which requires armies of masses of conscripts, and on and on. In other words, chemical energy weapons do not allow what we think of traditional feudal structures. But that doesn’t mean you won’t be living in a dictatorship. It just means there won’t be a liege lord that pledges his life to the king.*
The basic common denominator is that there will be no to little trade and that almost no one will travel. Food production will be 90+% of the economy. Since precious metals
will be rare, yet the only acceptable currency after embedded memories of horrid paper currency inflation will make a multigenerational mark, there will be few merchants and they will only deal in low weight high value items for the rich. Unfortunately, we will have a severe coffee shortage ( which seems like motive enough to me to claw your way up to the top ). I don’t see private land ownership disappearing, but certainly the vast majority of farmers will be sharecroppers. The owners of that land will in turn both pay in kind taxes but also furnish their soldiers in certain circumstances. So, yes, in much we will have a return to feudal structures. Medieval Europe came about naturally in response to shortages of one kind or another. My point is, even though I find it hard to visualize the details, we won’t exactly duplicate the whole kings and serfs type of thing because of firearms. There has to be fixed agriculture for survival and weapons production, but enough mobility to be militarily effective, but with no medium of exchange. The economics will be similar but the culture has to be different with the more widespread use of weapons. Crap, no wonder few try to flesh all that out. I’ll need to work on this a bit more. Feel free to help with suggestions. END ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Extreme localization will still happen. The shrinking size of political units will still take place, because of similar conditions with the fall of Rome
. Our soil will be depleted, our money totally debased, our far flung infrastructure unsustainable. The scarcity of precious metal will mean the end of almost all trade ( in effect, this historic round of paper currency was sustainable for this long due to it being backed by oil ). We will contract. The depleted soil means no surplus fodder for cavalry, no surplus food for larger armies, nor surplus nitrates for gunpowder production ( I’m not saying it won’t happen, just that it will be at the expense of the general population ). All that is obvious. Where my thinking grew cloudy was when I believed feudal structures were defeated by gunpowder. Middle ages knights were made obsolete by gunpowder ( with a head start from crossbows
, but that was possible when trade resumed enough to allow for mercenary armies to form with the latest military hardware ), but the nation state was formed. The only real difference was an expansion of trade allowing growth in government. *
Firearms certainly help the individual oppose tyranny. But they don’t help him defeat it. Gunpowder and metal production can easily be controlled by the state, thus controlling the used of guns themselves. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a dyed in the wool anarchist
and always will be. But recognizing the preferred way of organizing our lives is not the same as recognizing the realities that make it impossible. Guns can be controlled by the State. Guns do not make you free. The government decides how free you will be, with or without guns. Put aside your militia porn fantasies for a moment and ask yourself this. Can you produce your own smokeless powder and primers? I realize my article presumes a blackpowder arms future, but follow me a second as I make my case using three countries as examples in the modern world. Switzerland
, America and Russia. Compared to Switzerland, almost all of the US is a totalitarian gun control nightmare. Pistols are highly taxed, but not discouraged in America. This allows the illusion of self protection and allows high crime ( supporting the pretext for our Police State
). Battle rifles are more controlled. This allows little chance for rebellion and the citizens are certainly not free ( the financially well off can afford battle weapons [ short range carbines such as the SKS are not effective against an industrialized army and thus the only cheap rifle is nearly worthless ] but they are the least likely to use them since they can lose their wealth ). Switzerland makes it simple to rebel effectively with all its young males armed from home. Yet there is little fear from the authorities as there is little central control or abuse. It is far more equal and free than the US. Russia got early firearms and effectively used them against the mostly eastern invaders. In many ways, they paralleled our western expansion ( but going east ). Firearms made it possible to defeat and expand. Yet, Russians never became free. The State decides how much freedom to allow. And that usually, at least over time, follows how much freedom is allowed by external/economic/energy forces. Individual settlers helped defeat the American natives, and did so with military weapons available on the open market. Russian settlers defeated the lower tech invaders with firearms but were more collective in their defense.*
Rebellions
can be waged successfully, with or without firearms. The State doesn’t always win. But it usually prevails. Rebelling veterans from the Revolution were crushed by federal forces here. The Indians were crushed using biological and famine weapons ( more so than with guns ). The collective can easily defeat guns. Guns don’t mean a magic shield against the government. And guns don’t mean the end of tyranny. Or tyrannical rule. Just look at modern Africa. Tomorrows feudal society will be armed with firearms. The future won’t mirror the past perfectly because of that. But it should still be close.END
The Official Bison Web Site http://www.bisonpress.com/
*
Please support Bison by buying through the Amazon links in each article. You can purchase anything, not just the linked item. Enter Amazon through my item link and then go to whatever other item you desire. As long as you don’t leave Amazon until after the order is placed, I get credit for your purchase. Thank you.
”. And what did I think about it, a collective gasp goes up awaiting my response? Let me put it this way. You know how after you are married for awhile you have to wait way too long in between having sex? And then when it happens it is over in two minutes because you waited too long and your wife uses that as an excuse to not give it up for an even longer time so you didn’t really enjoy it. At least it was sex, but on the scale between “copulating like bunnies to conceive when barely out of our teens and in perfect health” and “after a bottle of wine and three 
’s it still doesn’t work and then you forget what you were trying to do anyway so you go back to watching 
” it is definitely leaning closer to the later rather than the former. Watching “The Road” was like having sex that sucked ( and not in a good way ). At least it was a post-apocalypse but it wasn’t that great of a genre movie. It has been about four or five years since I read the book so I can’t really say it was worse than the book, although that was the vague impression, but it was a bad movie. Mental diarrhea works fine in print, but a movie needs to be really good to pull that off. This movie moved between rambling “feelings movie” to “some action almost happened” ( I understand the 
wasn’t action packed, my beef is that the movie tried to do both and failed ). And, for the love of all that is holy, shut that friggin kid up! He was born after the collapse, and ten years later ( or how ever old he as ) he is afraid and crying and complaining and has no conception of keeping quiet when 
are near. Dad, who actually experienced the good life previously, was a lot less of a girl. I liked the wood powered war wagon the cannibals drove around in, but as became common practice, they just gave you a glimpse and then moved rapidly on to sharing their feelings. Shove a damn 
in and go kill something, Jesus! And the ending! Good God, the ending! ( spoiler alert ). A family befriends the now orphaned boy and they all live happily ever after. What the Hell!!?? They have a dog, yet they aren’t 
. Or so they claim. What is the dog eating? And a reasonably healthy looking wife, husband and two kids? Do they feed the dog humans and then eat the dog? So, technically, they aren’t actually eating human flesh. I’ll have to remember that one ( if any post-apocalyptic lawyers make the same claim, and own a dog, you can guess they are human eaters ). Totally lame ending. You need a happy ending, but not some action or boobs? The only nudity was the fathers white and hairy ass, and I was not thrilled. 
. And he mentions the author of The Road to illustrate Doomer Porn. The 
is usually pretty polite to liberal politicians, lawyers, child molesters and vegetarians ( okay, he doesn’t single them out for criticism, anyway ) but he turns pretty nasty pretty quick when it comes to doomers. Now, I would expect nothing less, as I never fail to take the opportunity to rag on Slow Decliners, 
, or Yuppie Scum so turn around is fair play. What caught my attention was his bafflement over the general doomer attraction. Why would people be lusting after collapse? I would think that is an easy one. Doomers were born from 
fear of instant 
wipe out ( no, I don’t count the religious nuts and the actual Apocalypse here- there is no logic with bible thumpers, outside of the contrived logic which varies by biblical translation ). Instant annihilation was a given from day one. And wanting to 1) be king of the hill after being the only one smart enough to prepare and, 2) go back to a rational and meaningful existence outside of petroleum age consumerism are not irrational desires. The Druid Dude is a slow collapse, hug a tree, worship asparagus kind of guy. He seeks salvation in the blissful assurance that we can change the world peacefully ( slow evolution to a sustainable future ). I like the idea of having to kill everybody to avoid going in the stewpot. But my point here today is that we are both right.
. The gradual staircase 
is a fantasy. It might work in a lower population independent of oil, but not in today’s world. We agree with the far future. Hell, Greer is one smart cookie. I admire his work. We disagree with the shape of the collapse, though. He is wrong in that it will be slow. Doomers are wrong to think order will not be swiftly re-established. The local baron will very quickly take over your independent self sustaining homestead. Which is one of the reasons I’m betting on herding myself. It might be doomed, it might be unrealistic, but at least your freedoms are maximized compared to feudal agriculture. So, really, we are feuding over the angle of descent for the collapse. The immediate future. The far future is plain enough, agreeable by all. We should all get along, but the gamble of how the collapse happens is too important for compromise I imagine.
I can get away with this kind of thing. I just got done singing the praises of Creekmore so now it is time to reverse direction and disagree with an assessment of his. Okay, I usually only write about disagreeing with everyone else’s opinion, but I felt that since I might be giving you the impression that I don’t like 
it was time to clear that up and at the same time disagree with someone’s opinion. Which is what I do best. Remember, I’m striving to be the gadfly of the survivalist movement. The crap I do for fame and fortune. I disagree with what most of what is written over at 
”. He plainly states that it is only his opinion, that his review is subjective. We all like and dislike different things. You love semi-auto carbines while I love them as a toy and hate them as a survival tool. You love that crap fiction 
and I proclaim it offal. I’m not saying Creekmore is wrong for hating Patriots as much as I’m saying we have different opinions on it. I thought it was a pretty decent novel, at least up until page 300. After that it took a different track and I didn’t care for it. I’ve read most survival fiction and Patriots is far better than most of the 80’s pulp prepper fiction. It beats most of the 
crap. It is not poorly written in my opinion. I think it is a dislike of the message more than the style most people have. I just wanted to throw all that out here, to give the devil his due.
. If you look at 
as the first western energy surplus and oil as the second, anything economic in that period is unique and hence not applicable to the future. So, while one argument about the value of gold claims that a nice business suit five hundred years ago could be purchased for the same amount of gold as it can today ( arguing for the stable value of gold ), it is on one level flawed. Not that gold doesn’t hold its value, it does. That is the whole reason to own gold, as a long term storehouse of wealth. Not as an investment so much as a guaranteed protector of your earnings. Paper currency ultimately is only good for tinder. No paper currency has ever held its value for too long. The flaw is that the time measured only covers the time we must discount as a historic norm.
we have seen a period of gold deflation. Gold was found in such abundance that it actually crippled the Spanish economy ( well, gold and silver to be fair ) through an explosion in the money supply. This was followed by the colonization of North America. The 
was an unexploited continent ( in terms of an economy much above hunter/gatherer- the natives pretty much lived a sustainable life ) which gave up vast treasures. Then, coal and oil came along. We have had five hundreds years of abundance in the West. When that ends, gold will no longer be artificially constrained. I contend that gold is actually much more valuable than currently measured against 
, and that gold is far more valuable than the last half a millennium might indicate. Of course, at this time I only claim that this is my newest pet theory and is backed by little more than casual research. Use it as investment advice at your own risk. 
, anyone? ). The question this article got me asking was, how much has gold been manipulated? How far and for how long has it been held down? On top of a general trend in gold deflation over five hundred years, we also have a recent clamp by the central banks. How much is gold, an extremely rare metal all the more so with so many people on the planet, really worth? My best guess is, far more than $1200 an ounce. There is absolutely no way that gold wouldn’t be reaching the stratosphere right now in a free economy, with all the life altering bad economic news crowding out any other events for the last several years ( although in our corporate whore media, news stories such as Korean ship sinking and oil spills are given more importance than is warranted just to cover up the bad economic news ). It is being manipulated right along with the stock market. Any precious metal should, with or without 
, shoot up in value ( not just price but actual buying power- especially once oil stops subsidizing low prices ) as soon as the money master cease to control it. And then shoot up again after the end of the Oil Age.
