The differences between the U.S. and the Soviet Union far out weigh the similarities. I believe that though we have the beginnings of a collapse here, our ability to respond will be much faster and better than that of the Soviet Union.
Several things make a significant difference:
First, the U.S. has no culture, other than consumerism and greed, so there's no such thing really as a cultural collapse. We'll adopt a new culture very quickly. Even one of personal integrity if we really, really have to.
Second, we 'snap' just as stated in the article. In fact, we 'snap' so quickly that we can become an entirely different country almost instantaneously.
Thirdly, we've already had our 'Political' collapse. We call it an election.
Fourth, if you're as old as me, you know that we are a nation of ideological cameleons. This gives us and our government the ability to respond to changes rapidly.
Fifth, we are not a pain tolerant nation. We have no stoicism whatsoever. This means that we will react very early to any percieved problems. We're scaredy-cats.
Sixth, the ability of the government and people to analyze is far beyond the ability of any other culture.
Seventh, our women are a bunch of disloyal, sexual cameleons that in a single mass will abandon any fallen male stereotypes and idealize whatever they percieve as the new male ideal. Thus reinforcing and providing support for whatever the new idiom may be. (Hey, I know this one is weird...but it's true!)
Finally, there is one aspect of American culture that is uniquely American and has seen us through many a crisis and that is: INNOVATIVE THINKING.
I sincerely hope you are right.
I defintiely agree that our society is somewhat more nimble than the Soviet.
But sadly the nimbleness is mostly granted to the ruling class (few workers are very nimble because we don't hav ethe resources to radically change our long term debt structure).
When I went down economically, it took me and my family years to reinvent out lives to accomodate our economic circumstances.
When ten or twnety or fifty or two hundred million people go down it's going to be hard as hell for them to make the changes since they'll all be ALSO dealing with the fact that stuff stopped working.
I hope you're right, but I think you're wrong.
Here is the trouble and the triumph... you're both right and you're both wrong.
Americans, public and private, are not all anything.
Certainly there will be violence and chaos, but not everyone will be shot.
Certainly there will be economic turmoil and tragedy, especially on individual levels, and certainly neighbor will turn on neighbor, but people will also feed strangers.
The best thing about the coming hard times is the shift in priorities that they will foment.
Wal-Mart may not sell quite as much rubber dog shit from China as their stockholders would like, but Christmas is going to come and children will smile.
-Joe