Lame Hypothetical

This week, I came across a hypothetical situation used in an argument involving "socialism". The particulars aren't important. Neither is the violence often done in coffee shops when the specter of "socialism" or "Marxism" is invoked.

It goes something like this:

During the depression (it doesn't really matter which), men used to line up outside of factory buildings hoping to get a wage as a day-laborer. Then, one by one, the factories had to close altogether. They thought that (socialistic or capitalistic) restructuring of the economy would save them, but in the end when nobody has any income, there is nobody to buy goods. Factories are forced to close, and those lines of willing and desperate workmen are turned away to go back home penniless and hungry. The state is in total economic collapse. This is a state of affairs that must be avoided at all cost and regarded as social suicide.

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Now, I am bringing this up simply to address one glaring problem with this story. Why in the world would anyone believe that in such a situation, the only work to be had is that in the factory? The industrial economy is not the basis of life. Actually, it could plausibly be argued that the opposite is the case. There is an agricultural economy which always subsists any other economy, whether of ideas, art, or technology. Thus, in my reimagining of these events, things would be rather different.

In my mind, the men, finally convinced that the factory was closed for good, would naturally return to their cultural centers to strategize a new work plan. Some would go to their church and hold meetings amongst likeminded congregants. Others would head to the home of their patriarch to plan with family. Others would go to their favorite pub to discuss with their drinking buddies the events and possibilities in the future. (It's true. The pubs and bars will outlast the factories.)

The discussions would not exactly be jubilant, but neither would they necessarily be despairing. Only those who were investors in the industrial economy really had much to lose after all, and these laborers were not thusly concerned. Their main concerns were with providing heat in the winter and food to see them through the immediate seasons until a full-spectrum food system could be put in place. Also, for many, plans would start to formulate about relocation. Letters would be sent to relatives in upstate New York and Pennsylvania. Some would leave, while others would plan to stay. There would be honest discussions about how many people could stay in those homes and on that land.

Homes would be tightened up against the coming winter. Food would be gathered, rationed, and meticulously stored and preserved. People would remember that meat tasted the best when eaten once a week. Women would arrange for the employment of children. Men would arrange for the apprenticeship of the older boys. Two things would be ubiquitous: work and group work. All of this work would be focused around reviving old links to local agriculture. There would be urban gardens. There would be seed conservatories. There would be tool libraries. There would be roving bands of men who worked, not for wages, but for the integrity of the economic life of the neighborhood in which they live. Belts would be tightened, but many would discover sleep.

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Now, perhaps this seems idealistic. Perhaps you think that these men would be more likely to go home without a word, drink up all their liquor and then sleep themselves to death. Perhaps that is what some men would do. But, isn't there some truth in the fact that these men, through the collapse of the industrial system, were actually liberated? I'm of course assuming that the mortgages on their homes would become a moot point. I'm assuming that in such a large scale economic collapse, it would be pointless to send bank agents and policemen to evict everyone with a delinquent loan. There would be some at first, but then, the structure would stop feeding itself. This is what happens in a collapse. Those policemen, after all, have their own families to secure and they can't exactly profit by squeezing water from a stone. The structure is not and never was able to control everybody at once. If nobody could pay their mortgage, I don't guess that there's a thing that could be done about it.

My assumptions say nothing about the painful transition to total collapse. I'm also not really thinking much of what types of gangs would emerge to live off theft (these laborers were already living in such a situation, and I don't see how trading bankers for gang bangers really changes much). I'm only concerned with the problem of work after collapse. Could it even possibly be true that the only forms of work available in industrial societies is industrial work? Are our very lives threatened by the prospect of economic collapse? What's really in danger, our lives or our money?

PS.

Now, if you've made it this far, I hope that a few things have emerged in your own mind. First, I hope that you can at least admit that there will be many and more meaningful forms of work available to able bodied persons if/when the factories close. People do not have to trade their time for greenbacks, in fact most of the time this is not the case. Most only work in factories because they don't own their land, and in effect this is gained through collapse. Second, I hope that the real dangers have emerged. The real problems of industrial society are problems of scale and proximity. We have too many people piled into too little space with too little knowledge/skill doing essential work. What happens when our hydrocarbon slaves stop getting trucked to our town? There's a legitimate problem. What happens when we have no access to the food supply system and yet will have to make it at least a growing season before there are enough seeds to really supply all the gardens needed? What happens if you're stupid enough to live in southern California, Arizona, or Nevada? There are many legitimate problems which could be listed, but notice that "What will the laborers do with their time?" is not among them.

If industrial civilization died, man and his bodily ability to work would become more meaningful, not less. The image of the despondent immigrant laborer trudging home after being rejected at the factory is not a moral tale about the importance of factories for human flourishing. That image, if anything more than bald propaganda, is a tale of the danger of living so distant to what sustains us: water, sun, and soil.