You’ve watched every zombie apocalypse movie, read every Stephan king novel, and created a useless zombie survival kit. For your twisted luck, a zombie apocalypse broke out and brain squirming crawlers are roaming the street. Welcome to the post-apocalyptic world, where your only concern is surviving this freak show and maybe have fun killing those sloth-like creatures. Your hard-earned paper money is as useful as toilet paper now, and your long-term investments in government bonds are rendered obsolete. To survive this fiasco, you need to understand that the economy in this infested earth works differently than your conventional inflation prone world.
You’ll need to comprehend several new concepts to succeed in reaching the safety shore. Scarcity is the main highlight, as you’ll have to scavenge and barter (more on that later) to gather limited, non-reproducible resources for you and your fellow survivors. Post-apocalyptic markets will most probably emerge to provide the survivors with the necessary commodities needed to pull through the apocalypse.
Scarcity
Picture this, you’re almost out of food and water, yet the only thing you possess is some gas in your car. The limited resource in this post-apocalyptic world is your largest enemy, and people are ready to gut each other to have a sip from a muddy water bottle. Most of the commodities available are non-reproducible, and even if they are, the people with the skill to reproduce those commodities have most probably turned into drooling, brain eating creatures. Now you have two options, either scavenge for the goods, or put the good’ol barter system to use. In movies scavenging always starts at the mall or a convenience store at a gas-station, and while they’re just movies, it makes perfect sense. Malls and convenience stores should include everything you need to hold the hunger off for at least a few weeks. Logically, you could expect to stumble upon a zombie or two dressed in channel attire or even face not-so-friendly not-so fellow scavengers.
Other scavengers will most probably hinder your effort in acquiring the needed supplies, and this takes us to bartering, the system adopted in every post-apocalyptic movie. Bartering is basically exchanging goods for other goods, and you will find yourself using adopting this technique all the time. In this post-apocalyptic mess, bartering will most likely depend on the personal demand for the exchanged goods. This means that you and the other party must have a similar benefit in the exchanged goods. So, the key here is to acquire as much diversified goods as possible, in order to have a more successful chance at bartering. In the end, you can’t really exchange lentils with someone who has a legume allergy.
A trip to the supermarket
The post-apocalyptic environment is perfect for the emergence of a flea market. In the normal world, flea markets offer old antiques, used electronics, and used garments. In the post-apocalyptic metropolis, those types of markets will most likely be set in slums, with several self-proclaimed merchants selling tools, appliances, and maybe even canned food. Again, the medium of exchange in such a market will probably be bartering. bartering in such markets make sense, as nothing can be valued with money anymore, and the demand for goods there depends solely on the survival needs of the buyer and the seller. This makes bartering a currency of necessity, and in the face of adversity, survivors will improvise.
Another phenomenon to be observed in this stomach-turning agglomeration is hack smiths. Hack smiths are scumbag, lowlife, locksmith wannabes that would charge you double the value of the job for half-assed outcomes. To put it into picture, hack smiths will fix your car for a full pack of toilet-paper, and by fixing your car I mean the car breaking down a few miles ahead. Unfortunately, their existence is essential as hack smiths are the only option out there. So yeah, unless you want to do the job yourself, you just pray that the hack smith fixing your homemade rifle will not make it shoot backwards.
Post-apocalyptic investments
Unfortunately, all the years of stock speculation and portfolio diversification have gone down the drain, and a new form of investment has become apparent, and its investment in your long-term safety. In the real world, gold, government bonds, and mutual funds are the staple of investment. This has changed in our zombie infested world, as the most important commodity now is security. By investing in safety, I don’t mean that you must call some shady-ass bodyguard from an extinct security agency, I mean real-estate.
A safe house is your best friend during the sore times of the smelly apocalypse, and it would make a great stash for keeping your food, weapons, gas, and even your dirty shades of grey movie collection. Whether you built, occupied, or even broke into your future safe house, it won’t matter. There are no cops, or even central governments, to accuse you of wrongdoing. Constant investment and maintenance of this safe house will extend the likelihood of your long-term survival.
Conclusion
Even though the blog post is for shits and giggles, the notions challenged and discussed show a glimpse of the human behavior in times of distress. The apocalypse has changed several economic concepts, and forced it to backslide into a primitive, prehistoric world. The chaos and anarchy hitting this post-apocalyptic world has led the way to the adapt and survive, and even become necessarily creative. Priorities of consumers, or survivors, have changed dramatically from wanting to save up to purchase the latest new Lexus to securing their long-term survival (which is very reminiscent of the world’s poorest countries).
The ability of the people to alter and create new ways of exchange and new services reflects the resilience needed to bypass this catastrophe. Fortunately, we are light years away from a zombie apocalypse, let alone its existence. Finally, as Stephan king said “No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side, or you don’t.”