I disagree, Bill. There just isn’t that much excess inventory or capacity to keep things going for any length of time if things fall apart.
I think the barbarians would appear at the gate a lot sooner than anyone cares to imagine.
However, I much prefer barbarians at the gate over serfdom imposed by government trying to stave off the inevitable.
Oh, I'd agree that things would fall apart, the only real question is: how long do we have? There are certain infrastructure components that are designed for long life that might go quit awhile - say, hydroelectric generators attached to dams, such as the ones in Venezuela. In the purely hypothetical situation that a stupid and malicious socialist despot took control of such a country and nationalized industry, handing control of these components to cronies who failed to do any maintenance or repair, those still could last awhile. Say, just about a decade. Say, until just about now.
So yeah, you're right, it does all go down in the end. Venezuela isn't necessarily our future...but it isn't necessarily not our future either.