I live in the 'burbs, and do some vegetable gardening, but it wouldn't be nearly enough for survival mode, especially without water utilities.
IIRC, it was T. Jefferson that thought we'd be better off remaining an agrarian society, and George Patton who thought farmers make the best warriors. These were greats who knew their history.
In the event of an economic meltdown, I'd bet they look prophetic.
My mother's parents, who survived the Great Depression on a shoestring, worked incredibly hard on their gardening and canning, even late into their 80's. I think they knew history, too.
If we do suffer a great collapse, it will be a separation of the chaff from the wheat. Those with strong survival instinct, both good and evil, will survive.
Rural people, farmers, those who are tough and independent, who know how to defend themselves, and have prepared.
Just imagine how a Great Depression will play out now, with such a monstrous dependent class. Cities would be looted and burned to the ground.
” and George Patton who thought farmers make the best warriors.”
So did Oliver Cromwell...
Agreed. At a time of a not so united country basking in all it's multiculturalism. Very unlike the 1930's.
Just before the great depression hit, my great grandmother’s dad who was a contractor told her to take all of her money out of the bank. I remember telling me that she did and was so glad because the money they kept in jars helped the survive. They had to sell off most of their land of grape vineyards which was over 2000 acres at the time. Also, at the time, they grew all of their own food, raised chickens and cows and my great grandmother made all of their clothes, shoes from leather, soap.......you name it by hand. Still, they barely survived the depression.
Other than the fact that I know how to use a gun, I don’t have the skills that my great grandparents had as a result of the suburban environment I was raised in. Our country is a macrocosm of the average person who could not survive on their own. I have a skill that allows me to make money so that I can buy food, shelter, etc.....but that is not the same as being able to build myself a cabin in the woods, hunt for food, etc.
I’m not saying I know enough about economics to think we are headed in a worldwide depression, but if it does happen, how does the U.S. go back to being self sufficient when we’ve now outsourced so much? I’ve always thought that it doesn’t really matter that I couldn’t survive out in the wilderness as long as I have a skill that is in demand in the job market because the scenario of having to survive on my own is not the world we live in. In the same way, what does it matter that the U.S is no longer a country where we make all of our own things? That’s not the world we live in. If it should all go to hell tomorrow though, how does the U.S. go back to making all of its own things when we’ve lost the skills and know how to do a lot of things. Just like I don’t have the skills my great parents had. What has been lost over time might not be a good replacement in another world depression. Luckily, I do have a husband that could build us shelter in the woods, hunt, fish, etc......but I still don’t think it would all work out too well in a nation of over 300 million all trying to do the same.