CHILDREN OF BABASAHEB FORGET THEIR FATHER
All-round crisis in Dalit movement
V.T RAJSHEKAR
Today is the death anniversary of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar who is called the “Father of India”. This position is much higher than that of the “Father of the nation”. Since India is a country of several “nations”, when you say “father of the nation”, you have to also say the father of which nation.
M.K. Gandhi, who is called the “Father of the nation” is the father of just one nation of Hindus who in India are a micro-minority of 15%.
But Babasaheb being the father of SC/ST/BCs and Christian/Sikh/Muslims plus Hindus, he naturally becomes the father of all the seven principal “nations” living in India -automatically becoming the “Father of India”.
THREE DAYS TO REMEMBER
The children of Babasaheb have chosen three days to remember their father. Today (Dec.6) is one such, death anniversary. On this day a record number of 6 lakhs pour into Bombay from all over India. On the day he embraced Budhism about 10 lakhs come to Nagpur. His birthday (April 14), is a countrywide celebration that goes on for months together.
No leader in India evokes so much of admiration, respect and reverence. Gandhi, the “Father of the nation” is just forgotten. People deceived by his false promises have thrown him into waster-paper basket. But Babasaheb remains in our heart. (cheers).
FORGOTTEN FATHER
But what happened since about 10-15 years is Babasaheb is remembered only on these three days when as a ritual we sing his song and then coolly forget him.
As the Editor of Dalit Voice with full knowledge of the whole country, I am telling you with a heavy heart that we the children of Babasaheb have forgotten our own father.
That is why when the Director of this Centre asked him the subject of my talk, I suggested “The crisis in Dalit movement”.
This subject is most important, relevant and at the same time controversial. Because some here may not agree with my analysis.
3 JATIS CONTROLLING KARNATAKA
Some of my observations may even hurt the Brahmins and upper castes. But I have nothing against any individual person. My criticism is directed only against the system.
Take the current political crisis in Karnataka leading to Assembly dissolution and consequent election. The chief players in this prolonged crisis are just three-the Vokkaligas and Lingayats and Brahmins led by BJP.
Speech delivered at the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Research Centre, Mysore University, Mysore, on Dec.6, 2007.
Subject: “Crisis in Dalit Movement”
Lingayats form about 15%, Vokkaligas 12% and Brahmins 3% -together they make up just 30% of the state population. What about the rest of the 70%? Particularly the Dalits who (18%) are more than Lingayats? Why none bothered about Dalits? Because (1) we are divided between ourselves into Holeyas and Madigas. (2) But more than that our people have not culturally and socially strengthened themselves. It is the social and cultural strength that brings political strength. Not vice-versa.
Brahmins are just 3% – all over India. And yet they are controlling everything because they have strengthened themselves socially and culturally.
But we have failed because we have forgotten Babasaheb, except ritually remembering him just three days in the year and the rest of the days following the Hindus, our oppressors. (cheers).
This is the most serious crisis facing the Dalits all over India. That is why Dalits are simply taken for granted.
DALITS CHEATED DR. AMBEDKAR
Babasaheb said “Untouchables are not Hindu and were never Hindu”. Did he not say that? How many sitting here can touch your heart and confess that you are not Hindu? You have Hindu names, you worship Hindu gods, you go to Hindu temple, you observe Hindu festivals. Yes, you are Hindu.
Babasaheb asked us to quit Hinduism and embrace Budhism. Did we do it? I embraced Budhism at Patna 20 years ago. When I was born I was a Hindu but later I kicked this gutter stuff.
STINKING HINDU HOUSE
It is now 61 years since India became “independent”. I have been in the thick of the Dalit movement right from 1975 even from the days Dalit Panthers movement began in Bombay.
In Mysore city, under the leadership of Brother S.M. Siddaiah (who is seated beside me here), then MP we had a meeting of top leaders to discuss religious conversion. Brother Siddaiah is even today a member of the Dalit Voice family. He at least kicked out Hinduism and embraced Christianity. He and his family no longer live in the stinking Hindu house. What did you do?
At that time we had many revolutionary movements in the country.
DALIT MOVEMENT DEAD
But now all this is forgotten. Dalit Sangharsha Samiti (DSS) in Karnataka split into many factions. Republican Party got divided into six. Dalit movement itself is dead in Maharashtra, the very home of Babasaheb.
What about the reservations? Have we have been able to fight and force the govt. to implement the constitutional reservations?
Statistics gathered about the Scheduled Castes govt. servants in Karnataka revealed that in the course of the last 61 years, the total number of SCs who have availed. the benefit of reservation is only about 5% as against 15%.
And this 5% is all at the lowest level.
HINDUISM KILLED OUR ANGER
But our people are not getting angry. They are not perturbed. They are not agitated because Hinduism has killed our anger.
In fact, our long experience with the Dalit movement has revealed that reservation is used by the Brahminical rulers to kill our spirit of revolt.
Rather, reservation is used by the Hindus as a tool to keep our people under Hinduism.
We no longer demand equal share. We no longer demand equal power and fight for it. We are satisfied if jobs are given to our people at the lower level.
Now there is a clamour for reservation in private sector. Will the Hindu rulers who cheated us in constitutional reservation give us reservation in private sector, which is a family enterprise of some upper caste businessmen?
Quite a number of the senior officers do not disclose they are Dalit. They put on nama, kumkum, go to Tirupati. Do all sorts of pujas to please Brahmins. But no amount of eating Brahmin shit will please the rulers. In fact such cowardly fellows will be the first to be slaughtered.
Do you know that in Yajnas and Yagas it is only the tame animals like cow, sheep, lamb that are slaughtered and eaten? They don’t touch lion and tiger. Babasaheb was a lion. But we his children have become like pig, sheep, lamb. (laughter).
BUDHISM IS DEAD
How can we go on living this life of a slave?
Our people will become revolutionaries and take to armed struggle when their reservation goes. But the Brahmins will not scrap the reservations. Because they know the SC/ST will become tigers and eat them if the reservations are scrapped.
I will briefly touch Budhism. I don’t know how many of you have read Babasaheb’s book, The Buddha & His Dhamma. The Budhism he propounded in it is different from the Budhism our people are following.
MEDITATION IS A BRAHMINICAL TRAP
I am often invited to Budhist functions. The Bhikkus at the conversion ceremony insist upon vegetarian food.
Babasaheb was a meat-eater. Budha died out of eating pork. But our Budhists propagate vegetarianism. (laughter).
This is Brahminical Budhism. The Mahabodhi Society Budhism is not Babasaheb’s Budhism. It is Brahmin Budhism.
There is a powerful movement led by Brahmins and a Marwari Goenka to propagate Vipassana (meditation). But this again is not Babasaheb’s Budhism. Nobody has seen Babasaheb doing meditation or writing or speaking about meditation. All nonsense.
Meditation is a Brahminical humbug.
But many of our highly placed Dalit officials have fallen a prey to Vipassana
Do you know that Budha was holding kadga (sword) and openly waging war against Brahmins?
That is why the Brahmins killed Budhism and reduced it a non-violent, vegetarian stuff and our people have fallen a victim to this totally false Brahminical Budhism.
In other words our people have failed in taking the right path even in Budhism. And those couple of people who became Budhists are under the grip of Brahminism.
OUR YOUTH & WOMEN NOT WITH US
I go round the whole country and address meetings. But in all such meetings I hardly find our youth and women.
Women make half the world. The Dalit movement and the Ambedkar thoughts are confined only to men. Even in houses where Dalit Voice goes, only the men read it and then sleep. Their women visit Brahmin temples and influence their children in Hindu superstitions (cheers).
Our Dalit women worship Hindu gods in their houses.
When a person calls himself an Ambedkarite and if he cannot Influence his own wife, how can he influence the society? How can he transform his people?
Look at the Hindu terrorist party, RSS. They catch hold of only youth and women. That is how they grow and we become weak and weaker.
WE LACK STRATEGIES & TACTICS
It is true that Truth is with us, justice is with us, history is with us, number is also with us. Yes.
Brahmins have nothing and yet they win because they have the right strategies and tactics. Ideology alone is not enough to win a battle. You need right strategies and tactics.
Babasaheb had given us the strategies and tactics – “Educate, Agitate, Organise”. But we by-heart and sing Thri Sarana blindly without understanding its meaning.
Dalit movement failed because of male domination. Keeping the youth and women out, we have cheated our Father and killed the Dalit movement. (loud cheers).
The subject I have chosen is too vast but the time is too short. I will conclude by referring to one very important point which all of you are familiar with.
RUSH FOR POLITICAL POWER
Today, there is no Dalit movement anywhere in India. The only movement we have is the “political movement if it can be called a movement. There is a tremendous. rush to join a political party and “gain political power”
I never sought “political power”. I have successfully fought several attempts to take me into party politics.
One favourite argument with today’s Dalit youth is that “political power is the master-key to open all locks”. But Babasaheb said political power can come only if it is preceded by a thorough-going socio-cultural revolution.
HINDUS HOLD ALL THE POWER
When the upper castes (15%) are controlling the media, judiciary, bureaucracy, banking, finance, education plus the gods, will they allow us to capture the political power? And even if we capture power, will they allow us to implement the constitutional mandate?
Please note Babasaheb finally opted for religious conversion because he wanted to use Budhism as a socio-cultural revolution. In other words, Babasaheb gave priority to socio-cultural revolution and not to capture political power. That doesn’t mean political power is not important. Along with political movement we must also have simultaneous social and cultural revolution.
KANSHI RAM MOVEMENT
Kanshi Ram spent several decades preparing the Chamars and other oppressed people of UP in socio-cultural movement which finally led him to capture political power.
Our people are mostly in govt. service. Our people are also in political power. There are about 120 MPs in the Lok Sabha, But what have they been able achieve with “political power” and “govt. power”?
MONEY & CASTE
Did they make any dent on the problem of our people? Our people are still living as slaves of Hindus.
Reservations have helped not even 5% of our people most of them in lower positions. Those in IAS/IPS are always afraid of the Brahmins Our political leaders are not elected exclusively by the Dalits. No reserved constituency in India has a majority Dalit population. That means our MPs are elected by non-Dalits. Even if we give priority to capture “political power” even then there will be another problem.
Political power can be acquired only if you have enough money for election and the right caste to get the vote. When our people are having neither the money nor the caste strength how can they get political power?
All this confusion and crisis have come about only because we have forgotten the thoughts of Babasaheb.
URBAN MIGRATION
Yet another serious problem, which virtually our entire community has completely missed its attention caught in the fierce current of the money-driven society operated by the Brahminical rulers. Thousands and thousands of starving Dalits and Tribals and even Backward Castes in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, UP, Orissa etc, are rushing to big metro cities like Bombay, Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad etc. In these cities they do get two immediate relief. They get enough to eat, their hunger problem solved, and they are saved from the daily caste atrocities, abuses which are essential part of their village life.
CASTE CONSCIOUSNESS KILLED
But in their natural abode of their villages they were conscious of their caste as they lived in the midst of their caste people and formed part of their caste struggle. Once they moved to the urban jungle they forget their caste and join the millions of struggling “poor”. It is a long jump from “caste” to “class”, leading to total transformation in their mental make up. This is exactly what the Brahminical rulers want. And they succeeded in killing their caste anger and pushed them to the urban jungle of “class struggle. From caste oppression to class exploitation. Brahmins love this because it is easier to dupe those singing the song of class struggle. We have the famous example of W. Bengal and Kerala where the Manuwadi marxists have killed the Dalit movement.
N.G.O. MENACE
Then we have the menace of NGOs which is the total monopoly of the upper castes. As they get foreign funds, the Home Ministry packed with Brahmins are very careful that these funds do not fall into the hands of revolutionary sections. We have hardly any Dalit NGO in India. Most of the NGOs being upper caste, they make a song and dance of the Dalit movement and dupe the Dalits.
Today these NGOs have become a real menace to the Dalit movement as they are deeply involved in spotting the best Dalit male or female youth and recruiting them. Once our youth join the NGO, the fire in them is dead. They will no longer use the word “Dalit”. They are called “marginalised people”. Their entire vocabulary changes.
NGOs are a real menace, seriously engaged by the Brahminical rulers to destroy the last remaining Dalit movement. I found the menace very serious in Andhra Pradesh -diverting our people’s anger from issue to non-issue.
But in today’s money-driven society who is interested in Babasaheb’s thoughts? Will it bring money? Will it bring power? No.
In the absence of both money and power – twin craze that is driving today’s society – I find a bleak future for our people. Babasaheb taught us about the value-driven society. But today that society is dead.
V.T. Rajshekar, The Second Partition of India? Sunset on Dalit World, DSA-2000.
V.T. Rajshekar, Brahminism Swallowing Ambedkarite Movement?, DSA-1999.
Illuminati & their secret world
BRIG (RETD.), USMAN KHALID, OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT
The Freemasons are a secret organisation that pedals influence to get their members into high and sensitive appointments in selected countries.
The Illuminati are the core of this organisation and they are all Jews. Their base is now the USA, which they virtually control.
They fund politicians willing to support their agenda. Evangelical Christians and Zionist Christians are their allies with whose help they can swing the result of elections in the USA.
They supported George W Bush in the elections in 2004; now they are supporting Hillary Clinton and she is likely to win. They have decisive influence in Europe as well. Their most recent success was the rise of (mostly Jewish) oligarchs in Russia; the speed with which they secured control over energy and media in that country surprised every one. Their methods rely on the facility that ‘globalisation’ provides. The US-led efforts towards globalisation of finance are exploited fully by the Illuminati and they provide support by their worldwide links with the rightwing or even the totalitarian left wing.
MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD
Dr. Makow is well known researcher of Illuminati but on this occasion he starts with a ‘lie’ that the HQ of ‘Islamic Terrorism’ is in London. This discredits him and his arguments, which are generally sound and supported by logic and history. I also suspect there might have been a link between the Illuminati and the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan al Muslimeen) of Egypt. My suspicion is founded on two facts: 1) the ‘globalist’ vision of Ikhwan (khliafa) and their opposition to the nationalists who have been the main opposition to foreign hegemony. However, they are now a spent force; they have fulfilled their role in Pakistan and in Egypt to overthrow nationalist popular leaders President Nasser and Prime Minister Bhutto.
Ikhwan have re-surfaced in Egypt and their allies in South Asia under the name of Jamaat-i-Islami continue to operate but there is no evidence of an Illuminati link. In any case, the Illuminati and the Freemasons have since become the adjunct of the CIA, Mossad and now the Indian secret service RAW.
Much of the world is Illuminati-free today. China, Japan and much of the Far East never came under Illuminati influence. Whenever they did infiltrate via Hong Kong and Macao, they were resisted by the Chinese underworld, which, if anything, is even more secretive and violent. The Middle East and North Africa became Illuminati-free with the creation of Israel as all the Jews living in Muslim countries (except in Morocco and Turkey) migrated to Israel. South Asia also remained Illuminati-free because there were hardly any Jews there and India did not have diplomatic relations with Israel for decade and supported the PLO instead.
INDIA AS BASE OF JEWS
With the expulsion of the White population from Africa, it was not possible to re-establish roots in the Black continent. The only Illuminati outpost in Asin is in Singapore. They are free to operate only among the White and the Christians.
Now China and India are making rapid advance in the economic league but China is virtually closed to their Influence; their target is India. With India as their base they want to be able to subvert and control all of Asia and possibly even some segments of Africa.
ISLAM & CHINA
The forces that are resisting the Illuminati are China and Islam. Since India is a competitor of the former and enemy of the latter, they have high hopes in India. In the world of Islam, Ikhwan is a spent force but their cousins in India, and to some extent in Bangladesh are still loyal to the ‘globalist’ agenda.
The ‘Jamaat-i-Islami’ in India is used by the ruling class of that country to demonise and discredit the rulers of Muslim states as not doing enough for the Muslims worldwide. Muslims in India may be as many as 150 million, some say even 200 million, but they are divided and polarised. The secularists among them seek political space from the platform of the national parties like the Congress and the Communist Party but the vast majority of Muslims are victims of isolation, ghettoisation and repression imposed through the caste system.
The Muslim leaders have found no solution to their dilemma. By not embracing the Untouchables they become Untouchables. themselves thus facilitating the operation of the caste apartheid.
The fear of Illuminati reinforces conspiracy theory thus increasing that fear further. The Muslim World is neither driven by hate as all the conspiracy theorists including Dr. Makow suggest, nor by envy or fear as much of the Western media suggests. What has happened is that the Islamic concept of Jihad has become fused with the universal concept known throughout history as ‘resistance’. As has been aptly said: “A terrorist is someone with a bomb but no air force”. In this world of great disparity in power of nations, the phenomenon of ‘asymmetrical war’ has developed and flourished. Socio-economic ‘globalisation’ started by the West to rob nations without setting foot on their soil, has since been reinforced by the “war on terror” to rob nations of their sovereignty even precluding the weak ones coming together to resist the high and mighty.
MUSLIMS OPEN NEW CHAPTER
The UN and its Charter; International Law or International Courts; even national armies; are not efficacious any more to defend nations and their sovereignty.
The Muslims can be proud to have led the way to open a new chapter in the history of ‘resistance’ that is global in its reach and universal in its validity.
Monetary globalisation is a project of the US; there was no incentive to resist it from within and no way to resist it from without. It has given birth to its nemesis “individual resistance” which is not organised by any state; it is the project of millions of individual persons acting in their own way. That is true of economic enterprise as well as war.
There is a serious problem with Dalits. They take hardly any interest in anything other than social and political problems. To them economic subjects are of no interest. Foreign affairs are unknown. Only three Brahminical parties (Congress, BJP, CPI-CPM) have their own foreign policies. Bahujan parties are totally ignorant. But whether we like it or not the “Jews of India in conjunction with the Jews have decided to keep Dalits as their slaves. For this the Jews have assured full support. That is why we are trying to make our readers take interest in such life-and-death issues. What is published above must come as a shocking revelation as It directly concerns the enslavement of the Dalits and entire Bahujans – EDITOR.
Coming collapse of US will be much more disastrous than fall of USSR
DMITRY ORLOV, (HTTP://WWW.ENERGYBULLETIN.NET/23259.HTML)
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am not an expert or a scholar or an activist. I am more of an eye-witness. I watched the Soviet Union collapse, and I have tried to put my observations into a concise message. I will leave it up to you to decide just how urgent a message it is.
My talk tonight is about the lack of collapse-preparedness here in the United States. I will compare it with the situation in the Soviet Union, prior to its collapse. The rhetorical device I am going to use is the “Collapse Gap” to go along with the Nuclear Gap, and the Space Gap, and various other superpower gaps that were fashionable during the Cold War.
SAD SUBJECT
The subject of economic collapse is generally a sad one. But I am an optimistic, cheerful sort of person, and I believe that, with a bit of preparation, such events can be taken in stride. I am actually rather keen on observing economic collapses. Perhaps when I am really old, all collapses will start looking the same to me, but I am not at that point yet.
It seems that there is a fair chance that the US economy will collapse sometime within the foreseeable future.
It also would seem that we won’t be particularly well-prepared for it. As things stand, the US economy is poised to perform something like a disappearing act. And so I am eager to put my observations of the Soviet collapse to good use.
I anticipate that some people will react rather badly to having their country compared to the USSR. I would like to assure you that the Soviet people would have reacted similarly, had the USA collapsed first. Feelings aside, here are two 20th century superpowers, who wanted more or less the same things – things like technological progress, economic growth, full employment, and world domination but they disagreed about the methods. And they obtained similar results each had a good run, intimidated the whole planet, and kept the other scared. Each eventually went bankrupt.
PACKED U.S. JAILS
The USA and the USSR were evenly matched in many categories, but let me just mention four.
The Soviet manned space program is alive and well under Russian management, and now offers first-ever space charters. The Americans have been hitching rides on the Soyuz while their remaining spaceships sit in the shop.
The arms race has not produced a clear winner, and that is excellent news, because Mutual Assured Destruction remains in effect. Russia still has more nuclear warheads than the US, and has supersonic cruise missile technology that can penetrate any missile shield, especially a nonexistent one.
The Jails Race once showed the Soviets with a decisive lead, thanks to their innovative Gulag program. But they gradually fell behind, and in the end the Jails Race has been won by the Americans, with the highest percentage of people in jail ever.
The Hated Evil Empire Race is also finally being won by the Americans. It’s easy now that they don’t have anyone to compete against.
Continuing with our list of superpower similarities, many of the problems that sunk the Soviet Union are now endangering the US as well. Such as a huge, well-equipped, very expensive military, with no clear mission, bogged down in fighting Muslim insurgents. Such as energy shortfalls linked to peaking oil production. Such as a persistently unfavorable trade balance, resulting in runaway foreign debt. Add to that a delusional self-image, an inflexible ideology, and an unresponsive political system.
An economic collapse is amazing to observe, and very interesting if described accurately and in detail. A general description tends to fall short of the mark, but let me try. An economic arrangement can continue for quite some time after it becomes untenable, through sheer inertia. But at some point a tide of broken promises and invalidated assumptions sweeps it all out to sea.
ECONOMIC SHUT-DOWN
One such untenable arrangement rests on the notion that it is possible to perpetually borrow more and more money from abroad, to pay for more and more energy imports, while the price of these imports continues to double every few years. Free money with which to buy energy equals free energy, and free energy does not occur in nature. This must therefore be a transient condition. When the flow of energy snaps back toward equilibrium, much of the US economy will be forced to shut down. I don’t see why what happens to the US should be entirely dissimilar, at least in general terms. The specifics will be different, and we will get to them in a moment. We should certainly expect shortages of fuel, food, medicine, and countless consumer items, outages of electricity, gas, and water, breakdowns in transportation systems and other infrastructure, hyperinflation, widespread shutdowns and mass layoffs, along with a lot of despair, confusion, violence, and lawlessness. We definitely should not expect any grand rescue plans, innovative technology programs, or miracles of social cohesion.
OWNERSHIP OF HOUSE IN U.S.
When faced with such developments, some people are quick to realize what it is they have to do to survive, and start doing. these things, generally without anyone’s permission. A sort of economy emerges, completely informal, and often semi-criminal. It revolves around liquidating, and recycling, the remains of the old economy. It is based on direct access to resources, and the threat of force, rather than ownership or legal authority. People who have a problem with this way of doing things, quickly find themselves out of the game.
These are the generalities. Now let’s look at some specifics.
One important element of collapse-preparedness is making sure that you don’t need a functioning economy to keep a roof over your head. In the Soviet Union, all housing belonged to the government, which made it available directly to the people. Since all housing was also built by the government, it was only built in places that the government could service using public transportation. After the collapse, almost everyone managed to keep their place.
In the US, very few people own their place of residence free and clear, and even they need an income to pay real estate taxes. People without an income face homelessness. When the economy collapses, very few people will continue to have an income, so homelessness will become rampant. Add to that the car-dependent nature of most suburbs, and what you will get is mass migrations of homeless people toward city centers.
Soviet public transportation was more or less all there was, but there was plenty of it. There were also a few private cars, but so few that gasoline rationing and shortages were mostly inconsequential. All of this public infrastructure was designed to be almost infinitely maintainable, and continued to run even as the rest of the economy collapsed.
CAR-DEPENDENT PEOPLE
The US population is almost entirely car-dependent, and relies on markets that control oil import, refining, and distribution. They also rely on continuous public investment in road construction and repair. The cars themselves require a steady stream of imported parts, and are not designed to last very long. When these intricately interconnected systems stop functioning, much of the population will find itself stranded.
Economic collapse affects public sector employment almost as much as private sector employment, eventually. Because govt. bureaucracies tend to be slow to act, they collapse more slowly. Also, because state-owned enterprises tend to be inefficient, and stockpile inventory, there is plenty of it left over, for the employees to take home, and use in barter. Most Soviet employment was in the public sector, and this gave people some time to think of what to do next.
Private enterprises tend to be much more efficient at many things. Such laying off their people, shutting their doors, and liquidating their assets. Since most employment in the US is in the private sector, we should expect the transition to permanent unemployment to be quite abrupt for most people.
When confronting hardship, people usually fall back on their families for support. The Soviet Union experienced chronic housing shortages, which often resulted in three generations living together under one roof. This didn’t make them happy, but at least they were used to each other. The usual expectation was that they would stick it out together, come what may.
LONELINESS
In the US, families tend to be atomized, spread out over several states. They sometimes have trouble tolerating each other when they come together for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, even during the best of times. They might find it difficult to get along, in bad times. There is already too much loneliness in this country, and I doubt that economic collapse will cure it.
To keep evil at bay, Americans require money. In an economic collapse, there is usually hyperinflation, which wipes out savings. There is also rampant unemployment, which wipes out incomes. The result is a population that is largely penniless.
In the Soviet Union, very little could be obtained for money. It was treated as tokens rather than as wealth, and was shared among friends. Many things-housing and transportation among them were either free or almost free.
Soviet consumer products were always an object of derision refrigerators that kept the house warm and the food, and so on. You’d be lucky if you got one at all, and it would be up to you to make it work once you got it home. But once you got it to work, it would become a priceless family heirloom, handed down from generation to generation, sturdy, and almost infinitely maintainable.
In the US, you often hear that something “is not worth fixing.” This is enough to make a Russian see red. I once heard of an elderly Russian who became irate when a hardware store in Boston wouldn’t sell him replacement bedsprings: “People are throwing away perfectly good mattresses, how am I supposed to fix them?”
Economic collapse tends to shut down both local production and imports, and so it is vitally important that anything you own wears out slowly, and that you can fix it yourself if it breaks. Soviet-made stuff generally wore incredibly hard. The Chinese-made stuff you can get around here much less SO.
FAST FOOD
The Soviet agricultural sector was notoriously inefficient. Many people grew and gathered their own food even in relatively prosperous times. There were food warehouses in every city, stocked according to a government allocation scheme. There were very few restaurants, and most families cooked and ate at home. Shopping was rather labor-intensive, and involved carrying heavy loads. Sometimes it resembled hunting – stalking that elusive piece of meat lurking behind some store counter. So the people were well-prepared for what came next.
In the US, most people get their food from a supermarket, which is supplied from far away using refrigerated diesel trucks. Many people don’t even bother to shop and just eat fast food. When people do cook, they rarely cook from scratch. This is all very unhealthy, and the effect on the nation’s girth, is visible, clear across the parking lot. A lot of the people, who just waddle to and from their cars, seem unprepared for what comes next. If they suddenly had to start living like the Russians, they would blow out their knees.
ILLITERACY
The Soviet Govt. threw resources at immunization programs, infectious disease control, and basic care. It directly operated a system of state-owned clinics, hospitals, and sanatoriums. People with fatal ailments or chronic conditions often had reason to complain, and had to pay for private care – if they had the money.
In the US, medicine is for profit. People seems to think nothing of this fact. There are really very few fields of endeavor to which Americans would deny the profit motive. The problem is, once the economy is removed, so is the profit, along with the services it once helped to motivate.
The Soviet education system was generally quite excellent. It produced an overwhelmingly literate population and many great specialists. The education was free at all levels, but higher education sometimes paid a stipend, and often provided room and board. The educational system held together quite well after the economy collapsed. The problem was that the graduates had no jobs to look forward to upon graduation. Many of them lost their way.
The higher education system in the United States is good at many things government and industrial research, team sports, vocational training… Primary and secondary education fails to achieve in 12 years what Soviet schools generally achieved in 8. The massive scale and expense of maintaining these institutions is likely to prove too much for the post-collapse environment. Illiteracy is already a problem in the United States, and we should expect it to get a lot worse.
The Soviet Union did not need to import energy. The production and distribution system faltered, but never collapsed. Price controls kept the lights on even as hyperinflation raged.
The term “market failure” seems to fit the energy situation in the US. Free markets develop some pernicious characteristics when there are shortages of key commodities. During World War II, the US Govt understood this, and successfully rationed many things, from gasoline to bicycle parts. But that was a long time ago. Since then, the inviolability of free markets has become an article of faith.
CONCLUSION
My conclusion is that the Soviet Union was much better-prepared for economic collapse than the United States is.
I have left out two important superpower asymmetries, because they don’t have anything to do with collapse-preparedness. Some countries are simply luckier than others. But I will mention them, for the sake of completeness.
In terms of racial and ethnic composition, the US resembles Yugoslavia more than it resembles Russia, so we shouldn’t expect it to be as peaceful as Russia was, following the collapse.
Ethnically mixed societies are fragile and have a tendency to explode. In terms of religion, the Soviet Union was relatively free of apocalyptic doomsday cults. Very few people there wished for a planet-sized atomic fireball to herald the second coming of their savior. This was indeed a blessing.
One area in which I cannot discern any Collapse Gap is national politics. The ideologies may be different, but the blind adherence to them couldn’t be more similar.
It is certainly more fun to watch two capitalist parties go at each other than just having the one communist party to vote for. The things they fight over in public are generally symbolic little tokens of social policy, chosen for ease of public posturing. The communist party offered just one bitter pill. The two capitalist parties offer a choice of two placebos. The latest innovation is the photo finish election, where each party buys 50% of the vote, and the result is pulled out of statistical noise, like a rabbit out of a hat.
The American way of dealing with dissent and with protest is certainly more advanced: why imprison dissidents when you can just let them shout into the wind to their heart’s content?
SOLVING PROBLEM
The American approach to bookkeeping is more subtle and nuanced than the Soviet. Why make a state secret of some statistic, when you can just distort it, in obscure ways? Here’s a simple example: inflation is “controlled” by substituting hamburger for steak, in order to minimize increases to Social Security payments.
Many people expend a lot of energy protesting against their irresponsible, unresponsive government. It seems like a terrible waste of time, considering how ineffectual their protests are. Is it enough of a consolation for them to be able to read about their efforts in the foreign press? I think that they would feel better if they tuned out the politicians, the way the politicians tune them out. It’s as easy as turning off the television set. If they try it, they will probably observe that nothing about their lives has changed, nothing at all, except maybe their mood has improved. They might also find that they have more time and energy to devote to more important things.
DISMANTLE FOREIGN BASES
Many people rail against the unresponsiveness and irresponsibility of the government. They often say things like “What is needed is…” plus the name of some big, successful government project from the glorious past-the Marshall Plan, the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program. But there is nothing in the history books about a government preparing for collapse. Gorbachev’s “Perestroika” is an example of a government trying to avert or delay collapse. It probably helped speed it along.
There are some things that I would like the government to take care of in preparation for collapse. I am particularly concerned about all the radioactive and toxic installations, stockpiles, and dumps. Future generations are unlikely to able to control them, especially if global warming puts them underwater. There is enough of this muck sitting around to kill off most of us. I am also worried about soldiers getting stranded overseas abandoning one’s soldiers is among the most shameful things a country can do. Overseas military bases should be dismantled, and the troops repatriated. I’d like to see the huge prison population whittled away in a controlled manner, ahead of time, instead of in a chaotic general amnesty. Lastly, I think that this farce with debts that will never be repaid, has gone on long enough. Wiping the slate clean will give society time to readjust. So, you see, I am not asking for any miracles. Although, if any of these things do get done, I would consider it a miracle.
A private sector solution is not impossible, just very, very unlikely. Certain Soviet state enterprises were basically states within states. They controlled what amounted to an entire economic system, and could go on even without the larger economy. They kept to this arrangement even after they were privatized. They drove Western management consultants mad, with their endless kindergartens, retirement homes, laundries, and free clinics. These weren’t part of their core competency, you see. They needed to divest and to streamline their operations. The Western management gurus overlooked the most important thing: the core competency of these enterprises lay in their ability to survive economic collapse. Maybe the young geniuses at Google can wrap their heads around this one, but I doubt that their stockholders will.
BOONDOGGLES
It’s important to understand that the Soviet Union achieved collapse-preparedness inadvertently, and not because of the success of some crash program. Economic collapse has a way of turning economic negatives into positives. The last thing we want is a perfectly functioning, growing, prosperous economy that suddenly collapses one day, and leaves everybody in the lurch. It is not necessary for us to embrace the tenets of command economy and central planning to match the Soviet lackluster performance in this area. We have our own methods, that are working almost as well. I call them “boondoggles.” They are solutions to problems that cause more problems than they solve.
Just look around you, and you will see boondoggles sprouting up everywhere, in every field of endeavor: we have military boondoggles like Iraq, financial boondoggles like the doomed retirement system, medical boondoggles like private health insurance, legal boondoggles like the intellectual property system. The combined weight of all these boondoggles is slowly but surely pushing us all down. If it pushes us down far enough, then economic collapse, when it arrives, will be like falling out of a ground floor window. We just have to help this process along, or at least not interfere with it. So if somebody comes to you and says “I want to make a boondoggle that runs on hydrogen” by all means encourage him! It’s not as good as a boondoggle that burns money directly, but it’s a step in the right direction.
NERVOUS BREAKDOWN
Certain types of mainstream economic behavior are not prudent on a personal level, and are also counterproductive to bridging the Collapse Gap. Any behavior that might result in continued economic growth and prosperity is counterproductive: the higher you jump, the harder you land. It is traumatic to go from having a big retirement fund to having no retirement fund because of a market crash. It is also traumatic to go from a high income to little or no income. If, on top of that, you have kept yourself incredibly busy. and suddenly have nothing to do, then you will really be in rough shape.
Economic collapse is about the worst possible time for someone to suffer a nervous breakdown, yet this is what often happens. The people who are most at risk psychologically are successful middle-aged men. When their career is suddenly over, their savings are gone, and their property worthless, much of their sense of self-worth is gone as well.
SOVIET COLLAPSE
They tend to drink themselves to death and commit suicide in disproportionate numbers. Since they tend to be the most experienced and capable people, this is a staggering loss to society.
If the economy, and your place within it, is really important to you, you will be really hurt when it goes away. You can cultivate an attitude of studied indifference, but it has to be more than just a conceit. You have to develop the lifestyle and the habits and the physical stamina to back it up. It takes a lot of creativity and effort to put together a fulfilling existence on the margins of society. After the collapse, these margins may turn out to be some of the best places to live.
I hope that I didn’t make it sound as if the Soviet collapse was a walk in the park, because it was really quite awful in many ways.
The point that I do want to stress is that when this economy collapses, it is bound to be much worse. Another point I would like to stress is that collapse here is likely to be permanent.
The factors that allowed Russia and the other former Soviet republics to recover are not present here.
In spite of all this, I believe that in every age and circumstance. people can sometimes find not just a means and a reason to survive. but enlightenment, fulfillment, and freedom. If we can find them even after the economy collapses, then why not start looking for them now?
Editorial Notes
Energy Bulletin published an excerpt from this talk yesterday (Dec 3), and Dmitry reported that his small webserver was overwhelmed with requests.
Orlov has many penetrating insights, couched in his dark humor. Particularly striking is the strong case he makes that the peoples of the USSR were actually better prepared for a collapse because they had learned to be more self-reliant.
PERESTROIKA AND GLASNOST
UPDATE: Dmitri Orlov writes on March 4, 2007:
You wrote that “The Soviets had little chance to make democratic institutions work.” That’s not entirely true. Perestroika and Glasnost were all about democracy, and in my opinion it had the same chance of success as the hopelessly gerrymandered system that passes for democracy in the US, (although much less than any proper, modern democracy, in which the Bush regime would have been put out of power quite a while ago, after a simple parliamentary vote of no confidence and early elections). The problem is that, in a collapse scenario, democracy is the least effective system of government one can possibly think of (think Weimar, or the Russian Interim Government) a topic I cover in Post-Soviet Lessons.
Lastly, I don’t think calling me a cynic is exactly accurate: I’ve been in the US a long time, watching the system become progressively more dysfunctional with each passing political season. It seems to me that it is not necessarily cynical to be able to spot a solid trend, but that it could be simply observant.
