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Hi,
One of the things I love about Organic Prepper is it’s looking not just at what an individual or family needs for survival but the rebuilding of society as well. I loved the articles on what knowledge to preserve, and I was already doing my own version of a survival library starting with math, physics, technology, and engineering and have since included other topics that I think the recovering world may need. I would like to start a discussion on small society government. If we recover enough to have several states and a nation, I think our constitution as written could be slightly modified and work well, but for smaller communities on the rebuild after SHTF, I was wondering if anyone had ideas or had thought about what is important and what powers a local government should and should not have. I can not find a forum that this would be appropriate in and would like to discuss it, so if you can tell me where it would be good or create somewhere it would be appropriate, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks,
Dan
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That is a very interesting idea and topic.
I think a number of issues would be influenced by the make up of the local populace. A number of hot button issues of today may carry over. Then again, after going through a SHTF situation, people’s attitudes toward some of those issues may have changed (e.g. the 2And).
The pro-life/pro-choice might be moot as there may not be the facilities or the personnel capable.
Like to think those in the new community would take lessons learned from the past/pre-SHTF and apply them, like term limits.
Have to mull this one over a bit.
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My thoughts on the first post-SHTF communities are similar to what Selco wrote, in that the first groups to emerge will be family based. Then I think you will see several family-based groups start to work together and at that point, a village or town will emerge from the ruins.
My belief for this kind of situation to be successful is that some kind of agreed-upon decision-making institution will be needed. I would guess that would look like some kind of council of elders with a senior representative from each of the major families in the village/town. This would probably work on small situations very well, like with a dozen family groups, but what happens when the town grows beyond that?
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We saw that in Afghanistan: A local council of elders, generally the more powerful families in the area, who if they fought with each other, might end up destroying each other. Better to work together and form a mutual understanding to assist, help each other to defend their area from other outside forces. Generally it worked well, but there were reports of the classic Shakespeare-ian like in-fighting amongst the families.
Other cases were a tribe with a single patriarch who lead the tribe. Really they were warlords in control of a given area. They had their turf, other tribes had theirs. Weapons, security, walled compounds.
Commerce is what kept them from fighting between them most of the time.Out here in the sticks, we have a large Amish community. We know we are going to need them if we are to make it post-SHTF.
How would that aspect of the community dynamics come into play is anyone guess. -
Here in rural New England, we still have annual town meetings, and local govt is quite transparent. I suspect we would quickly shift our select board to take on more authority, and likely add a few positions such as “town militia commander”, “community garden supervisor” (after we created more community food gardens), and create a neighborhood watch system under auspices of our local constable or sheriff’s dept members.
Of course post SHTF, we may want to have a rapid shift in who runs things. Those unprepared may want the person running the community food shelf to now run the town and take care of them… Others may want less of a localized Big Brother.Great/very thought provoking post!
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@John Park,
We too have regular town meetings, open to all. Not that there is a lot to hide in a community of less than 1k people.
I have had similar ideas as for setting up a gardening/seed exchange program (for those who do not or lack the skill, turn them into new gardeners, make them as self-sufficient as possible), a breeding program, water management program (so we dont end up like some of those in Puerto Rico with idiots bathing/doing businees in the river and getting those downstream sick), game management program, etc.
Not expecting myself to feed everyone, but I think if we were to organize early on, we could stave off a lot of hardship.
There will be losses, no doubt. The elderly are some of my biggest concerns. -
If a community has a resource like your or my library then I think that community must be built around preserving and using that library at all costs. That includes the paper books and maps, articles and books on computer, and people with the knowledge and skills to use the resources in the library. For example, think how much better off your community would be if you had one or more steam engines powering electrical generators and your own community grid. Power for radios, video surveillance, computers, machine tools, medical uses, charging batteries, lights and much more. Sure, you’ve got to survive, eat, etc. but the library must be core. It’s one thing to fall back 100-150 years, it’s entirely different to fall back 1,000 years, or more. BTW, thanks for the links, wow. https://www.theorganicprepper.com/category/preppers/the-information-specialist-series/
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Hey anon411,
I have actually thought about getting an old fashioned printing press. I think making paper and ink and glue for book bindings would be too challenging for what I can commit to right now, but it is something I am thinking about. Being the first to put out real hardcover books after TEOTWAWKI seems like it would be a useful thing. Maybe I will hit that Megamillions this week :).
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@Dan,
That is actually not a bad idea.
I mean really, if it all goes badly, books maybe come the foundations of newly form society.
For a pop-cluture reference, see The Book of Eli.
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