Trade Goods for the Long Descent

[claire_58]

 On the most recent Frugal Friday (June 21, 2024) there was a post by  mistyfriday titled Durable Replacements For Limited Use Items

https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/284778.html?thread=49359210#cmt49359210

 

Her intro was “As we are quickly leaving the era of easy abundance, I think it’s time to acknowledge specific durable goods that will make that transition easier.” and as that conversation unfolded I was reminded of a thought experiment we did a few years ago and have revisited from time to time since; an exploration of trade goods for the long descent.

 

The parameters for suitable goods we established are: 

1. Products of industrialization;
2. readily available and useful now (or in the near future); and 
3. likely to still be in demand as things unravel.
4. Not easy to recreate by hand using low tech tools and resources;  
5. nor easily substituted with something that could be easily made by hand with low tech tools and resources.
6. Non-perishable/durable enough to last into the time where industrial supply has either run out or become prohibitively expensive.
7. small/compact/easily stored (some exceptions could be made here.)

 

We spent some time brain storming items that might fit the criteria. Laser cut steel tea strainers didn’t make it because even though they are nice to have they aren’t really necessary and low tech substitutions (#5) are pretty easy. If you have to have one, a bit of cloth or a basket style bamboo strainers could be used.

 

Number 6, non perishable/durable is a stumbling block for some things that might otherwise fit. The question to ask are: How durable does it have to be? When is it likely to be needed? Is it possible to extend the useful life with low tech storage methods? 

 

I’m thinking about sewing machine thread here. It’s the weak link for maintaining the useful life of treadle sewing machines. Spinning thread for hand sewing is hard enough; getting a thread fine enough and smooth enough to run through a sewing machine without getting fouled up takes some serious skill. 

 

Any natural fibre thread deteriorates. I still have some cotton thread I bought in the early eighties that still seems strong enough to run through the machine but lately I have noticed seams in stress points giving away. I wouldn’t expect any natural fibre thread bought now to last long enough to still be useful once there is a shortage. Synthetic thread lasts longer so there is a slightly different equation there. The point being that there’s a balance between how durable something has to be and when it might be needed.

 

As for sewing/mending/textile repairs, needles for both machine and hand sewing; pins; all-metal (the plastic handles just break) scissors (snips and shears) are good choices. I’m not sure about rotary cutters. Although the blades certainly match most of the criteria and they may be in demand for a while after they are no longer being manufactured, I don’t see them lasting. As far as I know they are disposable once they are dull. How durable are the mats? They aren’t easy to reproduce or substitute (#4 and 5) but I suspect that whole technology will fade away as industrialism falters and fails. 

 

That doesn’t mean they aren’t good trade goods. Any investment of this kind is a gamble. Some are riskier than others. In this case you are betting that people will still want to use rotary cutters and mats for some time after they are no longer readily available or affordable. If you can get your stash to the people who want it at the right time you win.

 

Hand tools for gardening, in contrast, are readily available and useful now (#2) and likely to still be in demand as things unravel (#3) and for a long time to come. High quality garden tools are expensive but keeping tabs on what turns up in thrift stores and yard sales is well worth it even if you are just after back ups for your own use. As is the case with all tools, knowing what is worth having is key to making good investments in anything you are considering as trade goods.

 

Hand tools for carpentry are another example. Right now they are a niche market. They only marginally fit #2 but they are certainly likely to be in demand as things unravel (#3). Certain items, like hand saws, are not easy to make (#4, not impossible just highly skilled work) and they will certainly last until the power to run the alternatives is gone. Is it worth keeping them until they are needed? Your call.

 

Tools for working metal, especially files and stones for sharpening and maintaining other tools, are definitely in on almost all counts. Foraging a whetting stone is easy enough if you have the skills to use them; finding a nice flat one that is easy to use if your skills are marginal might be more of  a challenge (#5). Grindstones are useful now as are the skills needed to use these kinds of tools. Grindstones can be easily converted to any source of rotary power. They will continue to be useful with minor modifications but are they good trade goods? It might be better to hone your skills and offer a tool maintenance service. 

 

Other possibilities abound. These are just some examples to get your brain cells clicking. I’d love to hear your comments and feedback.

Comments

Re: Shopping list...?

[(Anonymous)]

...fish hooks, 20-lb fishing line, writing chalk, small blackboards / writing slates, pencil sharpeners, pencils, pens, writing ink, fine paper, art paper, card stock, clear sheet glass in small panes, bins of sorted stained glass broken bits; broken tiles for mosaics, plaster of paris, mortar powder, quicklime, baking soda, salt, biscuit tins, metal-outside-but-glass-lined canisters for flour, sugar, spices, etc., metal rulers and yardsticks, tape measures, bubble levels, non-slip gripping ‘cloth’, canning jars and equipment, grommets, tarps (lightweight woven plastic until they disappear, then oiled, waxed canvas), matches and more matches, curtain rods and hardware, spring-loaded shower curtain rods, U-joints and pipe fittings, duct tape, masking tape, clipboards, folding chairs, tray tables, hammocks, fishing nets, Panama hats, Gore-Tex rain gear, thinsulate lined boots and gloves, candy molds, muffin tins, butter molds, wool carding wire brushes, paraffin wax candles and blocks of paraffin for sealing canned goods like jam and jellies, also to dip wooden matches in for long term storage, tent pegs and stakes, umbrellas, bike parts, piano wire, guitar and violin strings, good horsehair bows, brass hinges for trunk and doors, thermos bottles and igloo coolers, all right, I’m stopping now.

Re: Shopping list...?

[claire_58]

Ha ha! That's pretty darn comprehensive.
I've got a good collection of wax (paraffin and beeswax), candles, and candle making supplies. Lots of canning jars and canning equipment. Sewing stuff: pins needles, buttons, snaps and hook fasteners, zippers, ribbons, and thread. I've been looking for scissors; good ones don't show up often. And I have way too many biscuit tins.
There's a place in Washington or Oregon that sells a product called "otterwax" for waterproofing fabric. I've thought about that, but it has a self life and I think it's something people could figure out pretty easily.
There are lots of things on your list I wouldn't choose since I don't have storage space for them but there's lots here that is compact and portable there too. Guitar strings, hmmm.

Do you have a comprehensive list of skills to share?

Re: Shopping list...?

[(Anonymous)]

No, I did not have one but I started one off the cuff like I did with the Spade & Trade Items list. There are lots and lots of possibilities, these are just the ones that pop into mind when one idly spins the old brain wheels.
I began with a newish model of education that I called circuit riding teachers – instead of preachers. Or, maybe they can double as preachers and public speakers.

What they are, is specialists in one or two subjects. History, for example. Maybe Ancient History of Assyria or Renaissance Europe, or Chinese dynasties. Whatever floats their scholarly boat. They know their stuff really well and are capable of presenting their knowledge in at least threes ways: 1) Lecture; 2) Kinetic/dramatic like chemistry demonstrations, or hands-on engine repairs, or puppet shows; 3) Written material presented with old fashioned light box & lens projectors.

They put on three shows a week in one neighborhood, then travel to the next and do their act for the next group of learners. Anyone willing to pay for admission or provide then with meals or fodder for their horse, or whatever the learner community has to trade for knowledge.

Circuit teachers travel during Spring and Fall. In Summer they pitch in with canning chores and harvest work. In winter they return to their home place of training to study and learn more either in their own field or learn something new. Or a different seasonal pattern. Maybe winter travel is easier in warm climates and hot summers are used to study. Whatever works best locally.. In the Study Quarter of the year, maybe they pay a subscription to belong to a live-in library or board with friends, family, or farmers

They can make extra money by sitting in as proctors or administrators of formal examinations. For this purpose, they need letters of recommendation that attest to their integrity from several communities on their accustomed circuit, or from their own teachers.

Other occupations I came up with have a similar communal foundation and structure. For instance, bamboo farming. A network of aunts, uncles, cousins and in-laws can cover a wide market if each household specializes to some extent. Large bore bamboo for high volume water pipes. small diameter pipes for field and garden irrigation; extra strong species for scaffolding, ladders, stock fencing, ultralight planes, etc. One group that collects leaky old water pipes and repurposes them as bean poles and hoop house struts. Young tender bamboo shoots are edible. Tents and yurts and stuffed poles for booms, cranes, sailyards or junkboat sail stays. You get the idea.

Coppicing and using wood shoots for tool handles, baskets, hurdles, wattle-and-daub barn and shed walls, etc. Regional area where a cash crop or fine-made furniture or silk weaving, etc. create quality trade goods as a hedge against a bad year or three in a row if spells of unpredictable weather adversely affect the subsistence crops people rely on to feed themselves and their animals.

Scientific ditch digging and water drainage surveyance of the bumps and hollows in a given field is a very useful skill to have. Dairies are another collective endeavour, as are livestock dung digestion that can produce nearly 24-7 hrs of burn: methane gas valuable for cooking, drying laundry indoors on cold wet days, barley oasts, water purification, salt distillation, ethanol distillery, barn or greenhouse heating, humanure roasting for quicker than 2-3 year processing time, pottery kiln, pizza or bread oven, and generating electricity by heating one side of a bi-metallic electric current inducer.. thus having night time light and refrigeration, or charging batteries when the sun and wind are taking a rest. Solar water heating, and steam laundries can be small group endeavours as well..

Flax, jute, hemp, and kudzu are other versatile crop options. They can provide fiber, oil-rich seed, pig food from mash left over after oil pressing, Linseed oil has many uses, and hemp oil has medicinal properties.

If one family grows a field for fiber, another for seed, and another has a kudzu team that uses goats to clear overgrown hills and hollows, digs up roots to eat or feed pigs, makes vine baskets, cans the young tender leaves like spinach for winter stews, and so forth, again, group work can develop a wole range of skills, not forgetting twining and rope making, paper making, or tar-pitched oakum to stuff down in the cracks between ship planks with plant fiber discards not good for any other purpose. Maybe even fiberboard to pave the farmyard in Mud Season, or mulch and windbreaks to protect spring seedling crops from surprise frosts.

Cobbler for shoes and inkle weaver or spool weaver to make shoelaces is a good combo for a small family.

Charcoal making will be another joint effort that pays off well in many directions, from activated charcoal to treat brown recluse bites to water filtration, to smithing carbon steel knives and more.

Horse breeding, horse-bread baking for long distance travel, mule training, center-wheel cart making and maintenance (more uses for bamboo!) Alcohol-cooled refrigeration, biodiesel fractioning, gunsmithing, gunpowder, glycerin, search and rescue teams, perimeter defense patrols, well-digging and testing, carpet weaving, bookkeeping, farm log keeping for weather and crop rotations, fish farming and fertilizer operations, pottery, gourd growing and turning; small-scale spinning jenny upkeep, felt and flannel making, pump repair...the list goes on and on.

Re: Shopping list...?

[claire_58]

That's an impressive brainstorm of occupations for the future. I like your teachers; they remind me of the travelling teachers in Terry Pratchet's "Wee Free Men." Seems like a good model for education as the population drops.

I was actually thinking of skills/trades that could be used now. Either DIY skills that make us more resilient or trade skills a young person might consider as a career. I did another post Skills for the Long Descent that got some other good comments here:
https://claire-58.dreamwidth.org/4578.html

Cobblers. Did you see the discussion of shoes on the current Fugal Friday? We'll need cobblers and durable repairable shoes in the future but we need durable shoes now and the skills to repair our own. The last shoe repair shop here closed during covid.

Charcoal making is an interesting one. There are some Youtubers showing how to make biochar in ordinary household wood stoves. We tried it in our masonry stove and it works great. Charcoal making in the future might look very different than it did in the past. It maybe more of a sideline for people on the outskirts of towns and cities than a separate trade.

Re: Shopping list...?

[(Anonymous)]

Recently, there has been some discussion on jmg’s main blog about how inevitable it is that people will live with their children in old age. I find this idea naive and self-limiting. Given the dangers of childbirth, war, work accident, and novel distributions of pollution and disease, there is the distinct possibility for a level playing field as to which members of a single household survive. Whether a younger or older generation gets lucky could be 50-50 odds. Just as there can be orphaned children, so there can be orphaned elders. Just as there have been foster parents so there have been foster care options for elders.

But such enterprises do need to be routinely monoitored and inspected. If anyone is naive as I used to be about the quality of pre-fossil fuel foster care, allow me to refer them to the story by Sarah Orne Jewett about an old lady who is fostered out with a stingy and cruel couple who basically starve and freeze her almost to an early death. Or the similar situation in Jane Eyre where the boarding school is run by a cheapskate who routinely serves burnt oatmeal, rancid milk, etc. and provides inadequate care for a tubercular young girl. Or the other Sarah Orne Jewtt story about a household of domestic abuse called “A Jury of Her Peers.” Likewise, if anyone thinks child foster care is going to be soley for the benefit of the child, please read the Anne of Green Gables series where Anne talks matter of factly about the labor of household menial work, child-minding and sick nursing she was obliged to do in her past fostering placements.

Economic reality makes it more likely that people of lesser competence or greater laziness will gladly take money from village, lodge, or parish funds to “care” for an orphaned child or granny in the cheapest ways possible.

Greed will not vanish just because times get hard; in fact, it shows up at its cruelest among the poor and poorest members of a society.

Thus, someone who can provide honest, decent and reliable care for orphaned children and elders could do better than merely getting by. Payment or outright charity in the form of CSA boxes of veggies, bushels of windfall apples, fruit too bruised for market, soup bones and offal meat, etc., could go a long way in feeding dependent members of a society.

In a more urban area, running an inn or hotel for semi-permanent residents could make pretty good money. What can be profitably provided for travellers should also be cost-effective for dependent care.

People who proved public showers or hot baths or steam baths, or caravanserai that give minimal shelter to travellers and their mounts could also make decent money in a crossroads of land and river traffic.

In short, running a large household is a skill that can be learned and cultivated here and now to be ready for any otherwhen.

Re: Shopping list...?

[claire_58]

Wow, some great thoughts here. That discussion caught my eye and I was considering posting something about it to try to keep the conversation going. I still could I suppose but I have a few other things on the go right now.

Have you considered setting up a profile and posting some of these ideas yourself? I would certain subscribe.

Re: Shopping list...?

[(Anonymous)]

Well, o, I hadn't thought of that but I appreciate the opportunity to expound a bit. I will mull over the idea of a regular column after the fall when my own life may be more settled. Until then, thanks for opening your doors to extended conversation.

Re: Shopping list...?

[claire_58]

I'm good with that too. I just thought this last one would get more attention as an independent post.

I wouldn't worry about doing a regular thing; just post something when you're inspired. If you left a note on the open post that you were going to have a go at the multigenerational living thing I'm sure others would want to come and have a look and even chime in. It seemed like it was getting traction there and Dreamwidth is a better forum for conversations because you can actually respond to comments directly.

Anyway like I said it's fine to post here but it's usually just me paying attention.
Cheers

Re: Shopping list...?

[chaosadventurer]

Stephen B Pearl's Tinker series focuses on such a travelling skilled doer and educator as a profession, with dealing with the various issues found in a post collapse world.
Tinker's Plague, which I digested quickly and loved it and some follow-on conversations with the Author.
Tinker's Sea, that I've managed to pickup two copies, but life has gotten in the way of reading as I try to claw it back to the top of my list.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7428837
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30176007-tinker-s-sea
https://www.stephenpearl.com/

Re: Shopping list...?

[claire_58]

Wow, looks good. I always appreciate recommendations for good fiction. Thanks.