Reinventing Collapse by Dmitry Orlov (2008, New Society)

If there’s one thing about the inevitable decline of the United States that gives me some bit of deeper comfort, its that people like Dmitry Orlov have been writing about it for a long time. His article, Post-Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century was first released in 2005 and clearly Orlov had been thinking about superpower collapse for quite a while before then. Orlov strikes me as an unlikely yet inevitable product of our modern world, a lucky person cursed to find himself at the improbable intersection of circumstances where growing up in the Soviet Union (SU) allows him the context to truly observe the predicament faced by the United States (US). Dmitry’s background in the SU allowed him understand and interact with his homeland as it collapsed in a far more valuable way than any casual tourists would have been able to. His experience allows him to recognize and provide a deeper context on the similar process currently underway in the US.

Reinventing Collapse is the modern day Democracy in America, as valuable as de Tocqueville’s thoughts on life in America for our modern time, and what a different America this is. While de Tocqueville described an underorganized loosely affiliated and dynamic nation, Orlov describes a system barely able to sustain itself encapsulated by a populace bent on a particular definition of the American Dream mythos. A mythos that is out of touch with the fact that rapidly depleting cheap energy made car ownership, suburban life and basically everything we think of as “American”.

I was disappointed that Orlov does not offer specific suggestions for people who are “reinventing collapse” in Reinventing Collapse, especially since his 2005 essay, Thriving in the Age of Collapse was full of brilliant hypothetical scenarios which could serve as a jumping-off point for those acknowledging the United States as they knew it was rapidly approaching its dissolution. What is presented in Reinventing Collapse turns out to be some of the most accurate cultural commentary I’ve read on modern America. And I know it is accurate because it stung a little, while making me laugh. Broad generalizations made of the American peoples and psyche might be offensive to some but its hard to argue with their general accuracy. While Soviet schools had far fewer resources, they resulted in kids that knew much more general information and had better conceptual understand rather than a focus on exams. In my own schooling experience, even at my university, every student was filled with angst when a professor wouldn’t outline specifically what to study. When I had Russian professors, students complained that exams didn’t follow homework problems, testing concepts instead. Orlov concludes this is because schools in the US aren’t about learning, they are about institutionalization. Merely biding the time while kids enter the institution of prison, a corporation, the government or the workforce.

This book methodically makes the case that the SU was prepared for successful collapse far more than the US. And on this point, I have to agree with Dmitry. Most everyone in the US is deeply dependent on having a regular income. It would take a 9/11-sized event every month to compete with the national homicide rate. Our can-do spirit and career oriented mindset will be particularly vulnerable to extreme pain in the transition to a post-growth economy, where-as Russians thought that being someone who “works hard and plays hard” was a bit of a fool. Our pattern of migration uproots people from communities, although it makes us more open to strangers than the Russians. The private housing system and its surrounding sprawl make squatting and a nomadic lifestyle the likely viable options in the future. The conditioning of expecting a monetary exchange to obtain needs will be difficult to transition from but the good news is that a favor and barter economy will be more efficient than consumerism, we’ll get products and services customized to our personal needs.

Reading Orlov is like sitting down with a Russian to have a conversation about what life was like in the the collapsing Soviet Union. I’ve yet to find a more vivid and comprehensive description of what to expect when living through the decline of a superpower. Even if you aren’t sold on the idea that the US is going down, at the least, you’ll find the presented insights on the USSR entertaining and interesting.

Dmitry gave a talk at the Long Now Foundation last year on Collapse Best Practices , it was highly entertaining and summarizes most of the key points in the book. Thanks to @rjboyle for reminding me of the talk and suggesting that I should link to it in this post.