Societal Breakdown, What have you experienced or seen?

[Savonarola]

I was in Portland, Oregon during the Great Vanilla Soy Latte Rebellion of 2016 following Trump's election.  Times were hard.  I heard that, due to hoarding, some people had to make do with non-organic, non-conflict free tortillas for their vegan tacos.   

[crazy canuck]

Where you injured in the chaos that descended on the city?

[Savonarola]

The city of Detroit experienced a long period of societal breakdown during my lifetime.  The city had an enormous bureaucracy which was good for little more than producing red tape and a healthy amount of public corruption.  This caused businesses to leave, which caused the tax base to shrink, which caused city services and infrastructure to decline, which caused businesses to leave and so on.  The riots, white flight, the periodic shocks to the automotive industry, the decline of need for blue collar workers and later the flight of the black middle class further exacerbated the problem.

That system limped along for about fifty years; it wouldn't be until the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the automotive crisis of 2008 that there was no other way forward than a municipal bankruptcy (and even then it took five more years.)  After that, and after a number of city officials (including the mayor) went to prison the city finally started to revive.

It wasn't all bad, of course, we got our own holiday and:

[Monoriu]

It is only a matter of time before there is another recession and/or financial crisis.  With the current political climate, there is a real possibility of societal unrest when that happens, I think. 

[Razgovory]

I was too young to truly know what was going on during the first few years after the breakup of USSR, but the general feeling was one of unchecked lawlessness.  There was no effective governance to speak of. 

Taxes were not paid, and it's not like it was practical to pay them without going bankrupt even if you wanted to.  Business profits were made by looting whatever government property you could get your hands on.  Contracts were enforced by "racketeers"; if someone owed you money, and you wanted to collect on it, you hired a group of thugs to do it, and you split your collection 50/50.  Alternatively, the debtor would take a hit out on you for a fraction of the amount owed.

It goes without saying that murders were committed often and with impunity.  Businessmen or racketeers had a particularly short life expectancy, but often the victims were killed just because.  Being in the process of immigrating was a particularly dangerous and stressful time, because everyone can figure that if you're getting ready to move, you have a lot of cash on you from liquidating your assets and are an easy mark.  There were cases of entire families in such situations being robbed and murdered.  My grandmother was sleeping with a knife under her pillow in the weeks before her move.

Order was restored not by the government regaining power, but rather by the most powerful surviving racketeers infiltrating the government and transitioning to being oligarchs.

A world without government.  A libertarian paradise. 

[mongers]

I was too young to truly know what was going on during the first few years after the breakup of USSR, but the general feeling was one of unchecked lawlessness.  There was no effective governance to speak of. 

Taxes were not paid, and it's not like it was practical to pay them without going bankrupt even if you wanted to.  Business profits were made by looting whatever government property you could get your hands on.  Contracts were enforced by "racketeers"; if someone owed you money, and you wanted to collect on it, you hired a group of thugs to do it, and you split your collection 50/50.  Alternatively, the debtor would take a hit out on you for a fraction of the amount owed.

It goes without saying that murders were committed often and with impunity.  Businessmen or racketeers had a particularly short life expectancy, but often the victims were killed just because.  Being in the process of immigrating was a particularly dangerous and stressful time, because everyone can figure that if you're getting ready to move, you have a lot of cash on you from liquidating your assets and are an easy mark.  There were cases of entire families in such situations being robbed and murdered.  My grandmother was sleeping with a knife under her pillow in the weeks before her move.

Order was restored not by the government regaining power, but rather by the most powerful surviving racketeers infiltrating the government and transitioning to being oligarchs.

A world without government.  A libertarian paradise.

Well it was possibly the most interesting contribution to the thread so far.

I'm sure Deirspiss would disagree with your comment.

[Zoupa]

I was in Lebanon in 96 during Grapes of Wrath visiting a mate.

Being 17 and fearless/dumb helps in those situations I think. There wasn't any kind of "breakdown" though but it's the closest I've been to danger I guess. Just a general, heightened sense of unease permeating Beyrouth. I remember everything being really visually sharp, it's hard to explain. Like when you have 3d glasses on and everything's out of focus, and you take them off.

Adrenalin I guess.

[mongers]

I was in Lebanon in 96 during Grapes of Wrath visiting a mate.

Being 17 and fearless/dumb helps in those situations I think. There wasn't any kind of "breakdown" though but it's the closest I've been to danger I guess. Just a general, heightened sense of unease permeating Beyrouth. I remember everything being really visually sharp, it's hard to explain. Like when you have 3d glasses on and everything's out of focus, and you take them off.

Adrenalin I guess.

Thanks Zoupa, very interesting story.