Every now and again, I come across someone making the rather obvious claim that we can't eat gold. The statement is usually made by someone with a survivalist vision of the future where everyone hunkers down in their bunkers for the apocalypse, whereupon they come out of their shelters to scavenge the world for food in a hunter gatherer modus. However, never in recorded history has there been such an apocalypse, and if there was to be one, the chances of anyone surviving in the way envisioned by the survivalists is pretty much null.
The only way to survive an apocalypse is to form communities in its aftermath. There has to be cooperation. There has to be division of labor, and there has to be trade. Anything less will be misery and early death. Hence, there will be a need for a medium of exchange even in the most extreme of situations, and precious metals are ideal for this. The alternatives would be some sort of credit based system, or a gift economy.
An economy based on barter will quickly discover that gold and silver are ideal, and we'll be back to gold and silver as money, so barter isn't an alternative to precious metals, they are complementary. Trade with gold and silver as money is barter. The only difference in trading a chicken for a given amount of silver as opposed to a big sack of potatoes is that silver is more versatile. Silver can be kept for longer, and since everyone accepts silver as money, it becomes a unit of account, making it easier to write contracts and perform economic calculations.
This is no new insight. Precious metals have been used as money for millennia. The subject of money is discussed in religious texts. There are passages in the Bible where Jesus gives investment advice, and money in the form of gold and silver coins is specifically mentioned as the medium of exchange. This should not come as news to survivalists, because they tend to be religiously inclined. Hence, they should know that even a society as primitive as the one Jesus was part of took money seriously.
But we're not going back to such a primitive society. The collapse of the current world order will not herald the dawn of a new primitive age, and the collapse of a society isn't something that happens over night. Rome's collapse took 200 years to complete, and it's not entirely clear whether Rome fell. Many historians see the Latin world as the continuation of Rome.
The dark ages that followed Rome's administrative handover to the Ostrogoths, were turbulent times. But it was also a time of opportunity. There were small kingdoms everywhere. There was trade and competition. Those with ambition and a good head on their shoulders could make it big.
As things unravel anew, I intend to take advantage of opportunities that come my way. The way to do this is to have a foot both in the old and the new order, and to be on friendly terms with people in our community. There also has to be a vision of a better future, and a plan to get there.
Owning a bunker in the woods is neither a plan nor a vision. However, an economy based on sound money is a vision, and converting savings into gold and silver is a plan. The current system is heavily dependent on banks and registry offices. Anything that diverts resources away from this and towards things more directly under our control is therefore an attack on the system. But this transition from the old to the new system cannot be made over night without major pain.
We need to be sensible and patient, and do things in the correct order. Only then can we reap the fruits of our efforts as we go. Step by step, we chip away on the old order while we build something new and better. We can reduce the number of bank accounts we have. We can close our savings accounts and save in precious metals instead. We can own land. We can express preference for gold and silver over fiat money.
We don't have to stupidly accept the system as it is, nor do we have to reject it completely over night. Done correctly, the migration is both painless and profitable. I know, because I've started the process for myself and my family, and the rewards have been plenty both socially and economically.
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