Economics of the Post-Apocalypse

Comments · 562

• TA

  @tahaawawda2275 · 2 months ago · pinned

  Here in the west bank, Palestinians under Israeli occupation are prevented from sending their cash back to Israel, this lead to huge amounts of cash being stored in banks without the ability to circulate in the market, trust in shekel has deteriorated, which lead people to use alternatives in trades like cheques and other currencies, this in itself caused the shekel to soar in Israel since they practically deleted huge amounts from circulation.

  439

• AC

  @acg3934 · 2 months ago

  My favourite post-apocalyptic economy is Brexit Britain

  901

• DY

  @dyingember8661 · 2 months ago

  The question "What do they eat" is a very good start for world building.

  462

• ES

  @EShiv42 · 2 months ago

  &quot;the dao, the dao now, the dao is over fifty thousand!&quot; <br><br>LETS GO BABY ANOTHER MASSIVE L FOR LEGALISM AND CONFUCIANISM

  484

• KI

  @KimKhan · 2 months ago

  I am very glad that you went over the Bottlecap Economy established in Fallout 1, because that thing has been severely misunderstood. My example of my favourite post-apocalyptic economy is going to be very niche because I will take from the Swedish TTRPG Mutant: Inheritors of Doom (or Undergångens Arvtagare), which is a post post-apocalyptic society. Roughly 600 years after a complete societal and biological collapse of Earth, it was re-seeded with a mix of preserved genetic databanks, genetically engineered creatures that would tolerate the new Earth, and the mutants and pure humans that survived in large underground cities.<br><br>But the economy is industrial with a large rural economy but also with industrialized city centers where the reinvention of steampower and blackpowder has propelled the competing nations into financial and actual wars in asserting their power in the Baltic Sea. It is mostly &quot;new&quot; technology but old ancient technology still exists. One newspaper has a working printing press, but you might have the new fancy breech loaded naval guns be the latest thing that can be made and it is all domestic technology. Then you have the rural side of it which is mostly agrarian, but also large lumber companies are around, and some &quot;cottage industries&quot; that try to discover and reclaim old technology exist but it is very unreliable (and the governments make sure to take the real good stuff from the hands of the civilians that discovers it).

  421

• NO

  @Norrsky · 2 months ago

  The trader&apos;s guild in Kenshi isn&apos;t the only trading guild in the game. They&apos;re just the biggest, something like the East India Trading Company. You still have the hivers, tech hunters, shinobi, and various other independent traders

  199

• AP

  @Apu_the_Frog · 2 months ago (edited)

  A historical mistake in the video. The gold standard was ended by FDR in 1933 to implement a system of controlled inflation as part of an expansionary monetary policy in an attempt to stimulate the economy. <br><br>Nixon in 1970 did not end the gold standard, that was already over. Nixon ended only the Bretton-Woods system in which the US would act as a reserve bank for the nations that were still using a gold standard. We get into a place where gold is still used in some cases, but the US dollar was no longer based gold reserves. At best it is like the petro-dollar as a reserve currency under the system. International exchanges of gold were simply performed using the dollar and nations with the gold standard would use dollars to designate rights to claims for quantities of gold. Gold holding nations just used dollars to buy and sell gold. The financial problems as a results of the Vietnam war and some of LBJ&apos;s programs made the system no longer viable for the US. Other nations demanded the gold and everyone knew that the US would face a worse collapse because of it. There was a pay out crisis as a result of the government&apos;s financial problems. To prevent further economic collapse, Nixon ended the system. <br><br>A second historical note about the US dollar: the gold standard only existed after about 1873. Prior to that, at least since 1792, the US was on a bimetallic standard with both gold and silver. There were still some silver certificates in use as silver dollars were still in circulation until they were altogether phased out around 1964 for a purely fiat note based system. Silver itself was still technically demonetized and silver coins were not regularly issued in spite of being commonly used. My great grandparents for instance still collected 300 silver coins to buy a refrigerator in the 1920&apos;s as an example of people still using coins in spite of the US no longer being on a bimetallic standard. <br><br>The push by Kennedy in 1963 away from the silver certificate was due to the increased silver prices due to industrial use. The instability of silver prices it caused made it unfeasible for the US government to continue producing and honoring silver certificates. Moreover legally silver certificates were only allowed for use in debts under $5. It makes no sense to pay out $10 or $25 worth of silver for five silver certificates which were denoted as $1 certificates.<br><br>A similar price instability with gold exists now as gold is ubiquitous in electronics. Gold is not as stable as it was in the past. Even worse, if you paid attention to some of the speculation bubbles earlier this year you would see why it wouldn&apos;t make sense to use either. Just a more extreme example of why Kennedy was pushing for the end of silver certificate.

  227

• GR

  @groggod666 · 2 months ago

  Oswald Spengler jump scare warning <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83aQa7SLlyQ&amp;t=76">1:16</a>

  108

• DA

  @Davekepler-j4g · 2 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83aQa7SLlyQ&amp;t=22">0:22</a> to go off on a bit of a tangent/rant, I think it’s ironic G.R.R Martin said that when ASOIAF economy, while a bit more fleshed out than LOTR is mostly nonsensical. While Westeros itself is mostly fine, being a fairly standard feudal economy (honestly a step above most real world feudal economies given how relatively clear the laws are, without much in the way of complex customary arrangements). But Essos, particularly the free cities have entirely unworkable economies. Aside from Braavos and I believe Lorath, all the free cities have free to slave population ratios most reminiscent to Caribbean sugar islands (Lys is like one free to 3 slaves, while Volantis is a ridiculous 1 free to five slaves), but without the Caribbean sugar island’s advantage of being both Islands and being tied into a wider empire to subsidize their defense and enforcement costs (Slavery’s Achilles heel since unlike most other forms of property, a slave generally actively and intelligently works to rid themselves of their situation, most commonly by running away). Given an island the size of Jamaica had a sufficient interior to host large communities of runaways, the even larger hinterlands of the Free cities should be positively overrun with runaways, unless free city slaveowners are very generous with Manumission, at which point there shouldn’t be such insane free to slave ratios, unless the Lhazareen and whoever else gets raided for slaves are reproducing at insane rates to replace them. Tbh I could rant on this for hours, so I’ll end it here

  184

• NE

  @NexusWulf · 2 weeks ago (edited)

  What an interesting essay on the economics of a post-apocalypse society. I&apos;ve learned quite a few things here and want to thank you for taking the time to summarize it all. It really gave me some interesting insights on WHAT makes an apocalyptic society &quot;functional&quot; and more specifically that an economy can be narrowed down to a common societal &quot;make belief&quot;. Currencies work because they are not just backed by wares, but also because a lot of people believe in a better future.

  2

• TH

  @TheAleosha · 2 months ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83aQa7SLlyQ&amp;t=240">4:00</a> bottle of vodka was a very stable currency in the 90s. It would literally get you a day of service 😂

  103

• WE

  @weall1208 · 2 months ago

  Since so much time in the video is devoted to the NCR and it&apos;s currency;<br>I find it incredibly interesting that the NCR was arguably far stronger when it&apos;s territory was far smaller, ruling over only southern California.<br>People as far north as the Chosen One&apos;s village of Arroyo were trading in NCR dollars. Godforsaken dumps like the Den used the NCR&apos;s currency for everyday exchange. People hundreds of miles away from the Republic&apos;s borders who would never see an NCR flag in their entire lives were reliant on this currency.

  80