10 Steps to Prepare for America’s Economic Collapse

Find out why the “American way of life” will collapse and what to do about it.

Our urge to get “everything, now, and forever” has built a culture of instant gratification of disordered passions that rejects sacrifice and throws off all legitimate restraints. Ours is an entitlement mindset.

Consequently, our economy is coming apart under crushing debt obligations: personal; corporate; local and state government; out-of-control federal spending and accumulated federal debt; runaway trade deficits; a manufacturing base that has largely moved off-shore; and a wobbly dollar whose currency reserve status is increasingly challenged around the world. Crippling socialist regulations, laws, and taxes stifle businesses and individuals alike, squashing initiative and removing incentives to work and invest.

No one expects a house without a foundation to survive a hurricane. Likewise, it is unreasonable to expect that, as the winds resulting from decades of profligate, irresponsible behavior reach gale strength, our society will withstand their destructive power.

So Is America Over?

The crumbling of the “American way of life” does not necessarily mean the end of America. We must pray, work and trust in God that from the debris of our crumbling society, a new America will arise—an America of faith and family, service and honor.

It all hinges on how we confront the coming economic collapse.

This collapse may come suddenly, or in stages, like walking down stairs. In either case, we need to get ready. Here are 10 Steps that will help you and your family prepare.

1. Stand Our Ground

In face of the crisis, some suggest we flee to America’s remote recesses or move abroad. This is wrong, for the world is so interconnected today that the crisis will reach us, one way or another. More importantly, now is the time to fight for America, not abandon it. Wherever we live and whatever our occupation, we must stand our ground, fighting for the common good of the nation—legally and peacefully. This includes remaining engaged on the multiple battlegrounds of the Cultural War. Absenteeism from these moral clashes is not an option.

2. Reject False Solutions

False solutions abound. Know them and reject them. False solutions from the Left include: the push for more socialism; the surrender of our sovereignty to international courts and global government; and sub-consumerist/miserabilist, neo-tribal, and ecological ideologies. False solutions from the Right include a quasi-anarchical aversion to government; the nullification movement; secessionism; and off-the-grid survivalism.

3. Prepare with Prudence

Prudence is the virtue whereby we choose the adequate means to achieve our goal.

In confronting a crisis, we often find it easier to focus on the practical measures to be taken. Certainly these are not to be neglected, but assembling the spiritual means that will help us tackle troubles ahead is the more important. For this, we must strengthen our faith; fortify our principles; and reinforce our convictions.

This prudent preparation starts with prayer and calm, reasoned reflection that helps us solidify in our spirit the reasons for our principles, our institutions and rights, and the reasons undergirding our fight. Only profound and solid reasons motivate men to hard, long struggle.

4. Examining Lifestyles and Personal Habits

The movement to turn America around starts within each of us, on the individual plane. Since frenetic intemperance and selfish individualism are at the root of our socio-economic troubles, then we must resolutely oppose them in our personal lives. This means eliminating certain habits and lifestyles, for example: spending beyond our means or on fads and fashions; making unwise, even reckless investments; showing reluctance to cut back on expenses and save for the future; worshipping at the altar of speed with rushed schedules and stress-filled lives; allowing the frenzy of technological gadgetry to dominate our lives and thought processes; judging the rule of money more important than family, community or religion; preferring quantity to quality; and having an aversion to leisured, pondered reflection.

5. Pondering A Lifestyle’s Moral Dimension

Frenetic intemperance is rooted in selfish unrestraint. It fosters individualism, whereby God and neighbor are shut out from the imagined universe we create for ourselves. But Saint John teaches: “[H]e that loveth not his brother, whom he seeth, how can he love God, whom he seeth not?” (1 John 4:20). How very different is the guiding principle preached and lived by Our Divine Savior: “Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). It is through this generous giving of self that we eradicate frenetic intemperance and selfish individualism from our lives.

Whatever America’s economic collapse entails for us and our families, developing the habit of self-sacrifice is excellent spiritual preparation. Indeed, this dedication to others and to the common good, this true charity, is what has informed every Christian society for 2,000 years.

6. It Takes a Family…

Our family’s loving ambience is the easiest place for us to practice Christian charity. Parents correctly see the children as extensions of themselves and sacrifice for them. In their turn, children feel compelled by the ties of nature to love, honor, and sacrifice for their parents who collaborated with God to give them their existence. These bonds of affection and service tend naturally to expand, moving beyond the immediate, nuclear family to the extended family: grandparents, cousins, uncles, and so on.

Former U.S. Senator Rick Santorum correctly noted that, “It takes a family.” The family serves as a powerful and affectionate social safety net, and can provide many of the services that were usurped by the cold detached modern State. As an economic entity, it tends to create patterns of production and consumption different from the individualist patterns of today.

7. …and It Takes a Village

From her perch on the Left, Hillary Clinton wrote that, “It takes a village.” This is perhaps the one thing we agree with her on, albeit not as to the informing spirit. Hers is socialist, ours must be Christian.

When all are brothers in varying degrees by blood, and spiritual brothers in Baptism, the temperate structures of family tradition protect men from cut-throat competition. The predatory influence of usury is lessened since many have recourse to the family in times of need.

We see the spirit of the family mirrored in associations and communities, towns and cities. These intermediate bodies between the family and the State are not actual families, but are receptive to the temperate spirit of the family, which radiates its benevolent influence outwards.

We might say that this same family spirit has such a capacity to absorb and integrate that everyone in a region, even outside elements, eventually share a common family-like mentality, temperament and affection. We can say that a person from the South, for example, participates in the great “Southern family” or, to extend the analogy further, in our great American family.

8. …and it Takes a Christian State

This sentiment of affection is actually the most important element of union for the State. Constitutions, laws, and institutions may be indispensable unifying elements, but the most vital of all is family-like affection, without which the State is doomed to be divided against itself. So many modern states glory in their divisions! They are divided by political parties, factions, or intense economic competition. They should rather seek glory in uniting social groups, factions, and parties. Marriages should unite families, industries, regions, and nations. True patriotism is nothing but this family sentiment and common love of native land writ large and applied to all those in the same country.

The Christian State gives unity, direction, and purpose to society—embracing but never absorbing, delegating but never concentrating, encouraging but never stifling.

9. …and it Takes Fidelity to our Baptism

Without fidelity to our Christian Baptism, competition and power struggles will inevitably occur, with the result that the family ends up being devoured by society, and the latter by the State.

A Christian family spirit must permeate society and State. “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports,” writes George Washington in his Farewell Address. And, though given some 1,600 years ago, Saint Augustine’s teaching is still true today: “Let those who say that the teachings of Christ are harmful to the State find armies with soldiers who live up to the standards of the teachings of Jesus. Let them provide governors, husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, kings, judges, taxpayers and tax collectors who can compare to those who take Christian teachings to heart. Then let them dare to say that such teaching is contrary to the welfare of the State! Indeed, under no circumstances can they fail to realize that this teaching is the greatest safeguard of the State when faithfully observed.” (“Epis. 138 ad Marcellinum,” in Opera Omnia, vol. 2, in J.P. Migne, Patrologia Latina, col. 532).

10. …and it Takes Leadership from Representative Characters

In face of the present crisis, there are plenty of people who have leadership qualities and succeed fabulously in what they do. There are also plenty of people who need help and direction in dealing with the huge problems we face. What is missing is a way to unite the two groups.

We need to regenerate a culture that encourages reciprocal bonds and representative figures to unify the nation and confront the crisis.

We must encourage any manner of leadership that expresses ties of mutual trust. We should think of concrete ways—by how we dress, speak, and lead—whereby we can truly be representative figures to those who look up to us (be this in our family, our business, parish, community, region or state). This would lead us to discover ways to embrace duty, responsibility, and sacrifice and reject a misguided and selfish individualism.

With many of such dedicated leaders—at all levels of society—laboring for the common good, we can reweave a strong and trusting social fabric and restore America.

What is a representative character?

A representative character is a person who perceives the ideals, principles, and qualities that are desired and admired by a family, community or nation, and translates them into concrete programs of life and culture.

We might point to famous figures like General George Patton or those lesser known people such as self-sacrificing clergy, devoted teachers, or selfless community leaders who draw and fuse society together and set the tone for their communities. Modern culture discourages the idea of representative characters and proposes false and unrepresentative characters that correspond to our mass society.

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These 10 Steps to Prepare for America’s Economic Collapse give a quick insight into John Horvat’s 400-page Return to Order: From a Frenzied Economy to an Organic Christian Society—Where We’ve Been, How We Got Here, and Where We Need to Go (York, Penn.: York Press, 2013), ISBN: 978-0-9882148-0-4. Hardbound. Illustrated.

You can order your copy here:

https://www.returntoorder.org/landing/?task=add-to-cart-anchor&cart66ItemId=02