Gov. Fails Crisis Preparedness 101

While the US government has a strong incentive to have its people prepared for war and crisis, it has effectively decreased their preparedness for anytime the world does not go “business as usual.” The state has many peace time initiatives that have actually greatly inhibited the ability of people to sustain themselves when traditional supply chains break down, or when they have to evacuate due to some natural disaster. Of course, the next national crisis may be one that we have never seen before, and none of these things could be affected, but in almost every type of historical crisis these critiques of the government’s action would hold true. Subsidization of farmers and regulation that led to the industrialization of food will make local food supplementation almost impossible and provide a great risk if traditional supply chains are damaged. Government subsidization of healthcare has created a populace that are too unhealthy to relocate on foot or survive many situations that would be survivable for a person in normal health. In any long term crisis such as a war, the government increase in licensing requirements and nudging towards specialization of careers will make it difficult for the nation’s labor supply to transition.

During World War I and II home gardens allowed people to bolster their tiny rationing of food with whatever they could grow. In the same way, local farms provide a sort of food insurance for their town. Even if national agricultural production is diverted to some other use, the town would be able to have some food. While these are not the most effective means of producing food in terms of profit per acre, they have not been able to compete with huge specialized farmers in the Great Plains with access to extremely favorable government subsidies. The near nonexistence of local farms is not a result of the market, but rather a result of the fact that a great percentage of industrial farmers profit’s come from subsidies. If any sort of long-term crisis occurred, a local farm would create far more than just the food it created, as they could help fill unused space with more agriculture. Whether a war or a famine or even a civil war, local farms fill a role that allows individuals to provide for themselves rather than relying on the nanny state. If the western world learned anything from World War II, it’s that the government will trample individual rights relentlessly if it has a war that it cares deeply about. Additionally, the subsidization of certain crops has led to far more complex food production processes, which are not repeatable at the local scale. Vast overproduction of corn and soy have slanted many foods into being producible only in a factory with many derivatives of junk crops. While huge single-crop farms are the most efficient way to produce food given the conditions created by the government, it is certainly not the most efficient method when optimizing for edible food per acre.

Government supported healthcare has incentivized poor personal behavior to an extent that it has altered behaviour resulting in far more Americans with chronic diseases than in the past. While good health is a reward in itself, the constant promise of free or reduced price healthcare helped many people go over the edge in how poorly they treat their bodies. The American health system could save billions of dollars a year if a great many people made the simple choice to eat less and move more. This has primarily economic consequences now, but it could have far more damaging consequences in the future, when any sort of crisis must be reckoned with. Whether a natural disaster or an enemy advance, people with limited mobility will have far more difficulty protecting their lives. Additionally, when they need certain medications to survive, it would be a nightmare to track down the right medication during some sort of refugee crisis. There will always be people who need mobility assistance and special medications, but the unhealthy percentage of the population we have now is unsustainable and a direct result of government interference in both food and healthcare. Even from a strictly industrial perspective, when the government has less healthy workers to pull the country out of a crisis, they will have only themselves to thank.

From earliest childhood to the end of one’s career, the government aggressively pushes career specialization. This homogeneity of experience and skills will make transitioning between careers or even surviving during a crisis much more difficult. In World War II, there were numerous factory jobs that could be quickly taught, but today the professions required by the government would be far more specialized. Crisis requires people to be ingenious, but life spent doing a very specialized career makes that ingenuity more difficult. There is a constant stream of new tasks and challenges that people must meet to thrive in a crisis and the fact that most people have been doing indoor specialized learning for the entirety of their life will be no great asset. A crisis is a situation that puts a radical emphasis on the physical world rather than the immaterial world we have all come to love. The idea of education as career training, the increase in licensing for ever more specialized careers, and the push towards college means that a smaller proportion of the population would be prepared to grapple with the reality of a physical world in crisis.