It's problematic.

There are a lot of assumptions that are perhaps not valid. For example, what's China doing? They've shown a willingness for use forced labor to support their system (less so today than 50 years ago), but if world production is failing, I can't see any reason they wouldn't go that direction again. If that's the case, given the weakened condition of the U.S. - an invasion seems like a logical progression. Given the "elites" self serving tendencies, one would expect them to allow said invasion in return for an easy life. This has the potential to destroy the gains made. - using the "figure it out or starve, figure it out or get shot" approach to getting production, while not idea, has been, historically marginally effective. Perhaps enough to allow conditions outside the gulch to continue for a long time - decades or even centuries.

It also assumes no organization outside the government - the rise of warlords - I wouldn't count on that either.
I'm also think the book portrays a slower decline than we're likely to see, although at the time the book was written, maybe slower was a more reasonable guess.
Since foreign policy never really enters the picture (or book), aside from foreign aid - We get a more simplified version of things...

Using todays population, you might estimate as many as say 10 million people who fall under the category of non-mooch (might be more but I'm not feeling particularly optimistic at the moment - that's 1 out of 30). Given that the gulch is located in the mountains, it seems unlikely you'd be able to support (food wise) that many people - just not enough acreage to grow the food. Which means you're leaving a significant portion of your producer base outside the walls as it were. If you want to save them, you'll have to take action sooner rather than later.

The quick solution* will require coercion (the use of force) to enable those in the gulch to "save" as many potential producers as possible - assuming they don't have room for them all. I suppose you could justify this as self defense, since the inevitable outcome of the path the "elites" is on, is the starvation of the entire population, even if they decide to stop being hypocrites and just go down the slave labor path openly. Enough force for example to push the mooches across the Mississippi. Once that's accomplished, given that the other side has essentially no means of production, you can just wait for them to starve out. Or you can be somewhat more proactive and institute a policy of sabotage (which they were already using - Ragnar's attacks on shipping). If that's the case, I'd not wait much longer than a year, and your going to lose a lot of your future population waiting even that long. Starvation becomes a dominant force pretty quickly with things the way they are - It may already be a moot point by the middle of the book.


An approach which is more consistent with the philosophy (keep in mind, I'm not now, nor have I ever played a philosopher) would be to scout out places isolated enough to avoid attention, and set up small villages of producers where they can be self sustaining. They should avoid growth, as that attracts attention. They will of necessity need to use coercion to remove the inevitable migration of mooches to food. I suppose you could let the mooches make a mess of your street and surroundings but I'd be more include to help them out of town with a pitchfork (but that's just me). The smart thing might be to just shoot them, least they comeback with friends. I don't view this as a violation of the philosophy since you are simply protecting your property rights. Despite what anyone may want to think, the maintenance of Rights always involves the use of force. This approach, if you can keep to opposition from taking notice of the outlying populations, would I think result in a more productive and faster growing starting position.

I wouldn't count on time and starvation solving the problem completely - so rapid growth of a new republic would be important, once the world knows your being productive again, they'll be at the doors. This time, maybe we'll keep them out.

* Assumes you have access to the means of projecting force in sufficient quantity to accomplish the task. If this requires setting up production for arms, it may not be fast enough to do any good.

Thanks.

At least until some of the Mad Maxes did each other in!

Personally... I would stay in the gulch for a while.