If like many people suggest would happen, and we revert to a barter system, what will they do with gold? Are they expecting to run into a camp of dentists or electrical engineers that they can trade supplies with?
Economies that operate on barter systems still tend to identify commodities which they employ as a store of value and measure for quantifying the value of other things. Presumably some survivalists expect gold to serve this function.
Well, I suppose the question is, is that a realistic expectation, given the relative practical uselessness of gold?
Perhaps the myth of gold’s valuableness would sustain it even past the apocalypse, but perhaps not.
trade it to people for goods and services
Well, it served that function in the past, in more than one society, despite being even more useless than it is today.
As to whether it’s realistic for the future, I can’t say. I’m not convinced that survivalism has a lot to do with realism.
I think that depends on what kind of “end of the world” you are talking about. If it’s the collapse of central governments and local areas left to fend for themselves, then gold will probably still be a valued commodity. If on the other hand people end up back in the stone age, not as much.
But any economy where anyone has any surplus, even a small one, will be an economy where they will want to be able to store that surplus in a way that does not degrade over time.
If all the people that are able to survive in the aftermath of whatever are survivalists, they’ll obviously be of the opinion gold is of value. If they all have a lot of gold each, it won’t be very valuable, but it will have value.
I asked one once if he’d seen that episode of Gilligan’s Island where they find a gold mine. I then asked what good all that gold was while being stuck on an island with a total population of seven. That kinda killed the discussion.
This sums it up. It largely depends on what catastrophe survivalists are surviving. Surviving a currency/government collapse is different to surviving a nuclear apocalypse.
Well, in a true collapse to a barter economy gold will be useless.
Pretty much anyplace where gold has attained value has used it as some form of money. Other than its use as decoration, it attains its value through the recognition of value by some form of civilization. In a true collapse that wouldn’t happen. So a collapse that leaves smallish groups of survivalists scattered around North America - as an example - will find gold functioning at its decorative value instead of a store of monetary value.
I think this is mostly true, but for a time, at least if the people around remember civilization, they might still see gold as a good store in preparation for some kind of future rebirth of civilization. If enough people think good times are right around the corner, then they might put a value on gold beyond decoration.
Gold is just one aspect of a survivalist portfolio. Other things include heirloom seeds, bullets, off grid cabin you get the picture. it’s just one of many things they acquire for the purposes of survival in unforseen circumstances. Your question seems to imply that they hoard gold disproportionally.
As silly as I think gold maniacs are, yeah, of course it’s realistic. Gold has been the de facto fallback currency for millennia in more cultures than one cares to list. It is ideally suited for that task, for various reasons related to physics and chemistry.
There is no “myth” of gold’s value. It actually is immensely valuable. I can prove it; people place a lot of value on it. It is incredible expensive, and has always been expensive. That’s how you know something’s valuable.
It does kinda depend on what kind of event you’re being asked to survive, of course. But if there are still people around trying to get by after government has collapsed, gold would likely be seen as a good way to exchange value. IT would likely not be AS valuable per ounce as it is now, but it would probably be a safer bet to retain SOME value than paper currency.
One huge poxy clips that collapses the social order everywhere is likely to be such a huge, destructive catastrophe that surviving it at all will be strictly luck of the draw. I’m thinking of things like asteroid impact here,
Historically, the End of the World has always been a localized thing. No matter how bad things got in one place, there were always other places where life carried on more-or-less as normal. We still see that today. Survivalist, the more savvy ones anyway, are preparing for the poxy clips that ends their regional world. The lights will still be on somewhere. Eventually, contact will be resumed with the unfucked parts of the world, probably sooner rather than later. Gold will have value whether you are a refugee trying to get into where the lights are still on and they have ice in their drinks, or you are dealing with their humanitarian aid/occupation troops that are gradually pacifying your area.
Well, when there’s no clean water left, you could swim in your gold like Scrooge McDuck.
Cows, corn, bullets, and butter would be more valuable but gold could still be consider a valuable commodity, if the receiving parties are willing to accept gold as a monetary equivalent. If I can’t find someone who is willing to accept gold in exchange for commodities, supplies, and labor that I need, then I won’t accept gold in exchange for commodities, supplies, and labor that I can provide.
A monetary system based on hard currency, parchment script, or door hinges will, eventually, be developed because it’s easier for a carpenter, farmer, soldier, mechanic, farrier, rancher, teacher, etc. to do business. A cow may be consider X amount of SDMB bucks. A calf may be worth half that amount. A days labor may be worth Y amount of SDMB bucks while a trained/guild member/qualified carpenter’s labor would be worth three or four times that amount.
Deals will be made. You could trade your horses for lumber, which could then be exchanged for tanned leather, which can then be traded for potatoes and a days labor to be decided later, or you could use your SDMB bucks and buy the potatoes directly.
Survivalists with gold could trade gold with other survivalists who recognize gold as a part of their monetary system. Non-survivalists could trade their labor for guns or butter or beg for help.
So… I have a dozen eggs to sell. You have a 1 oz gold coin. Am I expected to make change?
The more savvy survivalists also have some quantity of silver, quite often in the form of old coins that are too worn to have collector value. These are not terribly expensive now and are potentially quite useful in post-clipsy economy for something like purchasing a few eggs without having to break a Gold Eagle. One might also do as some Asian ethnic groups are wont to do and hoard the gold in the form of pure gold jewelry rather than coins. A link, or a few links, of a 24k chain might be used to make smaller purchases.
And maybe lesser precious metals and gems thrown in the mix for good measure. I can see where copper would be a commodity.
Why would gold be valuable? Because it pretty much always has been, and it would take worldwide amnesia to remove that idea from the collective psyche.
Avast ye lubber. Have ye not heard of pieces of eight? What do ye think cutlasses be for if not making change or changing your mind? 