Total Societal Collapse: Fringe Idea or Legitimate Concern?

Earlier this week, I met with a new client who wanted my help with financial planning. When I asked him specifically what he wanted to plan for he answered that his top priority was planning for the total collapse of our society.

He’s not the first to bring up this conversation with either …

Surprisingly, or perhaps not surprisingly, it’s relatively difficult to find this possibility acknowledged via an internet search. Mostly you’ll just get results about the potential for a recession but not even a depression.

So are the people thinking about a total societal collapse crazy? Is this simply a fringe point of view? Do most people think everything is fine?

No. Not at all. Societal collapse is actually a very mainstream concern and is shared by people across the political spectrum.

A 2022 poll by the Economist and YouGov found a plurality of 44 percent of Americans think a civil war is “likely” in the next ten years. Only 35 percent said this was “not likely” and the remaining 22 percent said they didn’t know. While strong Republicans were the most likely to be concerned, the results were similar across political demographics.

There are other signs of growing unease in America as well. A worldwide Happiness Index released annually recently found the US has dropped precipitously in the ranking, falling eight spots to 23rd this year. Meanwhile, even more worryingly, a recent Pew Survey found only 16 percent of Americans trust the Federal government and only 4 percent believe the US political system is working very or extremely well.

Obviously discussing possibilities of total societal collapse or civil war is potentially dangerous in and of itself, so this may be why it isn’t discussed more. However, it seems clear the possibility is a real one, and any disaster preparedness expert would say that one should have a plan for a range of events.

Given that 44 percent of Americans believe a civil war is likely to occur in the next ten years, isn’t societal collapse every bit as much an appropriate event to prepare for as an earthquake, fire, or flood — disasters we’re told to prepare for all the time?

What would you do if a US societal collapse were to actually occur?

This is not an unanswerable question or necessarily that difficult. There are common sense things you can do to protect yourself. Some things you should think about are an exit strategy, how to preserve your assets, what essentials you would need to have on hand to survive and to barter, how to handle your security, and how you could trade.

As a free service to help you make a plan, we’ve prepared a guide that answers these questions in more detail called Navigating Total Societal Collapse: A Comprehensive Financial Guide and I’m happy to send it to you. Reach out to me at [email protected] or text me at 916 833 9276 and let me know you’d like a copy, and I’ll get one to you right away.

Hopefully we never have to deal with a total societal collapse. As Jack Webb stated in the iconic police show “Dragnet,” when talking to a group of revolutionaries: “Don’t try to build a new country. Make the old one work. It has for over 400 years. And by the world’s standards that’s hardly more than yesterday.”