The Reinvention Of Collapse
By Peter Goodchild
11 October, 2010
Countercurrents.org
Extreme pessimism can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, but an excess of optimism can be equally dangerous. In Reinventing Collapse, Dmitry Orlov understates some of the essential figures. Regarding family food-production, for example, he says on p. 140, “Tens of acres are a waste when all you need is a few thousand square feet. Many Russian families managed to survive with the help of a standard garden plot of one sotka, which is 100 square meters or . . . 1076.391 square feet.” Anyone who has read the work of people such as David Pimentel can see that what Orlov is saying is just not the case. My own seven years of experience in small-scale farming confirm Pimentel’s findings. Perhaps Orlov means that those “few thousand square feet” will serve for supplementary food only, but there is a misleading vagueness in his statement.
Grains in particular take a good deal of land, and it is unfortunate that so many writers omit the fact that grains are a very large part of the human diet. Without irrigation or mechanized agriculture, even the yield of field corn (maize), a highly productive crop, is only about 2,000 kilograms per hectare, which means an entire hectare (107,635 square feet) would be required to support a family of four.
In terms of the dangers that lurk ahead, Orlov contradicts himself. He scoffs at those who believe in “a vast wilderness called the Collapse of Western Civilization, roamed by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” (p. 6). Yet on p. 141 he tells us, “It’s risky to stay put. . . . Successfully defending one’s turf against bandits requires weapons. . . .” Quite true; farming is sedentary, therefore subject to robbery. (That’s why, in certain areas of very low population, nomadic foraging might have advantages over farming.) And among “career opportunities” he lists that of “security consultant,” a.k.a. extortioner (pp. 148-49). Much of the future mentality will resemble that of Hells Angels.
I have always admired Orlov’s quick mind and ready wit, but sometimes his predilection for charming the audience gets him off track, and he downplays what will be happening. His 2005 essay, “Post-Soviet Lessons Soviet Lessons for a Post-American Century,” was quite good, but since then he has tended simply to rehash that first piece of writing. In fact, large parts of Reinventing Collapse repeat the exact words of that early essay. Both the essay and the book describe the fall of the Soviet Union, and suggest parallels with later events in the US and elsewhere. However, the collapse of the Soviet Union was an event quite limited in space and time. The fall of the entire world will be quite different.
Peter Goodchild is the author of Survival Skills of the North American Indians, published by Chicago Review Press. His email address is odonatus {at} live.com.
