Americans Dropping Out in Record Numbers
"Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 7.3%, but the decline came for the wrong reasons, as 312,000 people dropped out of the labor force. Only 63.2% of Americans now participate in the labor force -- meaning they have a job or are looking for one. That's the lowest rate since August 1978."
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/eco...
http://money.cnn.com/2013/09/06/news/eco...
The trouble lies in the fact that those in an urban environment cannot long survive without a rural infrastructure to support them. Working off the books will have no meaning if the foodstuffs needed for survival are not available to buy or barter.
I agree with your other points, mostly, except for trade. If your location is more remote self sufficiency is more important, but there are going to be things you need. also, through nature or man made instigation, you can be isolated quickly.
back to the other. You did not address my weakest link argument. Your trade is potentially inhibited by
supply lines. Think Wyatt when Taggart Lines screwed up. Your ability to transport, communicate can be wiped away in a moment due to Man against nature, Man against Man. You have a dead car battery. Flat tire, cell tower out. I'm really just playing devil's advocate. A TV show that did a good job at illustrating some of these concerns is Jericho. It is apocalyptic, but instructive. sell pretty things here.
http://www.google.com.mx/imgres?imgurl=h...
_California's Utopian Colonies_ by Robert V. Hine is a classic. Just about all of them failed because of their communist ideas, but even that aside, the only marginal successes were those that were able export their surpluses in trade for what they could not produce.
I am not sure if I can support myself financially if I live too far away from the city.
What are your thoughts?
"Turn on, tune in, and drop out" goes back to the 1960s. I know a man who, when Nixon announced the Wage and Price Freeze of 1971, walked off the job as an accountant at a bank. He has worked these past 40 years as a consultant for alternative businesses such as food cooperatives. It was the Reagan Revolution and the Me Generation that brought others back into the economy. At the time, the Contract with America and all that, shutting off the National Debt Clock, it looked pretty good. But, with the 9/11 wars, the Homeland and TSA stuff, the bailouts, I mean, really, Ayn Rand's message has been selling books all along since 1957. Lots of people know about VONU and alternative markets, and all that. How do you think that Bernard von Nothaus was able to mint tens of millions of dollars in silver coins, many of them touting Ron Paul? Stop in to a coin store and ask to see their silver art bars. You will find patriotics from the 1970s, 80s, 90s,... up to today. I know people who consistently buy gasoline with silver coins when they see the right bumper sticker parked at the station.
And working off the books has ALWAYS been an urban thing. The inner city could not survive without plumbers, electricians, automobile mechanics, beauticians, barbers, and everything else, whether or not anyone held a state license or union card. Not only do I know of libertarian books about this, but working on my bachelor's in criminology, I had classes in "sociology of the workplace" and one of the professors (before my time) wrote a book on that very topic: off the books, the underground economy.
Consider the general economy itself. The government abandoned gold in 1933. Then, they abandoned silver in 1964. In between, they fought a major war and a couple of minor ones, all the while plowing money into military-industrial, and war-on-poverty programs. And then in 2009, suddenly, it looks like a "crisis" a "mortgage bubble" or something... General Motors NEVER in 100 years had three straight years in the black... Keynes's "long run" has been running all along.