The Collapse CLII: Reasons

 02 August 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

I fear that there is not much to write of a novel nature over the last few days – even as the week before, my activities and efforts focus completely around this plot of land I call home. The heat during the mid part of the day here can make working outside an exhausting and sweaty effort, so rising as soon as the sun is up and working until early-afternoon has become the standard practice. After that, it is a short lunch break and then whatever work can be done out of the sun – one particularly useful activity has become sitting in the shade of the trees behind The Cabin in the afternoon, working away at tasks that can be done sitting and chatting.

Today, as we were sorting Black-eyed peas, Pompeia Paulina asked “Do you think this whole thing could have been avoided?”

I looked up at her. “This? No, you have to remove the husk or the whole thing cooks and you get mush in the soup…”

She looked at me crossly. “That’s not what I meant and you know it. This, all of this – the failure of money, the shutting down of everything, the deaths...could it have been avoided?”

It is a fair question Lucilius, and one that I have given thought to myself as well.

The odd thing about this entire thing – The Collapse, that is – is that I still do not really know what happened. I can theorize of course, but I was never one for much following the media in the last few years and certainly once things accelerated I had absolutely no idea what was happening. The contact with the Armed Forces almost a year ago now was the last time I heard or spoke to any representative of any official branch of government. And no-one I have interacted with since has said provided any information – in fact, no-one has really mentioned it at all. It is as if the event happened and no-one speaks of it at all.

Is there a national government? I assume so, somewhere. Is there a state government? Possibly – although given the population of this state, likely it functions no more than on a very local level if at all. And if our area is any indication, local government has essentially become the same as “everyone that lives in an area”.

But could the whole thing have been avoided?

I am no economist to understand or predict such things, and therefore felt completely unqualified to comment on the matter (and said the same to Pompeia Paulina). But it did strike me, I said, that throughout my lifetime I had only ever lived in a world where debt at every level had gone from something that was to be avoided to something that was to be actively pursued as a policy or practice. Current deficits, it was said, would be paid for by future returns.

Until, of course, they are not. Even I as a historian realize that 7,000 years of recorded history say otherwise.

What will the future look like? I have no idea. I have tried to think of examples in history of civilizations doing an economic cold start. It is tough to come up with examples. It is not just the fact that the money needs to be there, of course. You need infrastructure and energy and trained personnel to make all of that happen. And then, of course, you need the will to make all of that happen.

I am not sure where people’s will is right now, Lucilius. Mine is currently in the simple life of harvesting Black-eyed Peas with my wife on a fine Summer’s day.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca