Sir,
Thanks very much for maintaining this terrific blog. I try to read it every day and frequently find useful information that assists in my preparations. I found particularly useful D.T.R.’s recent article, “Post Collapse Barter: The Rest of the Story,” which I think contained a more realistic description of the post-collapse economy than perhaps many preppers have in mind. I agree with D.T.R. that the majority of non-preppers are unlikely to have anything valuable to trade for the salt, iodine, alcohol and other items that preppers are setting aside for barter. Furthermore, the needs of non-preppers can be predicted quite easily and are insatiable: all of them will want food, water, and (eventually) medicine, and they will have for all intents and purposes an unlimited capacity to consume them. Non-preppers are more likely to be targets of our charity rather than trading partners. However, I would take issue with the author’s suggestion that preppers may be unlikely to trade with each other for the reason that they all already have everything they need.
Let’s say that our survival group has made it through the first winter, maybe even the second, we can come out of our bunker, and now conditions will allow us to plant crops. Aside from obvious staples, such as potatoes, what should we plant? Does it make sense for our group to plant 100 different kinds of seeds to take care of every need we could possibly have, including the ability to carve a pumpkin for Halloween and drink mulled wine during Advent? What if one of our neighbors, with whom we are on good terms, grew lots of soybeans before the collapse and still knows how to do it a lot better than we do? Does it make sense to grow more soybeans or are we better off growing some broccoli to trade for soybeans?
I would submit that specialization, which drove the development of civilization over the centuries, will reestablish itself fairly swiftly after a collapse. It will be a long time before we will need tax accountants or database programmers, but that doesn’t mean that every family or survival group needs to be an island unto itself, completely self-sufficient and producing everything they could ever possibly want or need themselves. Soon after the collapse, after taking care of the basics, I will move to establish a comparative advantage (an economics term–I recommend doing a web search on it) in a couple of things, whether it’s growing strawberries or fixing plumbing, and I will do those things better than my neighbors. Once established, I will be much better off, and will have a greater abundance of everything, if I trade my strawberries for your blueberries and fix your leaky pipe if you’ll get my rusty rifle back into working condition. The neighbor down at the end of the road who doesn’t talk to us and relies only on himself will get by okay, but his strawberries won’t be very tasty and his pipes will leak a lot more than he’d like. – Dale from Vermont