[zelon88]

> Plus the US has one advantage that previous stable empires didn't have- federalism, a decentralized system. Even in an emergency, we'd just see power shift to local state leaders.

The fed gets it's money from GDP producing states. There are far more GDP draining states the further inland you go. If those states don't get federal funds, they will not be able to have a functioning judicial branch which is the only one that really matters during such conditions.

[neffy]

If one was to be brutally fair about this, those so called "GDP" draining states, otherwise known as the Farmers who not only feed the USA but also sell half of their crop abroad, would be far better off as separate countries, with their own currencies and local banks to provide lending, rather than being the source of financial flows that prop up places like New York city.

And in this putative local warlord future that you're imagining for the US, I rather suspect ownership of food production will matter quite a lot.

[zelon88]

I'll be honest I never thought of it that way but it's a good point. Food production is the main export of the states I had in mind in my original post. However, food production shouldn't be counted as a "value added" (arguably, since they don't export enough outside US borders to turn a standalone profit) to the American economy. In the same way that Quality Control is not considered "value added" to a factory, but it is still very much a required part of manufacturing.

However, Japan has very few arable farming areas and get something like 70% (I made that up) of their food from the ocean. In the absence of American farmlands, I'd wager that fisheries would be able to sustain urban coastal areas almost indefinitely.

In all the Mad Maxx/Book of Eli style movies, the characters are almost always inland, trying to get to a populated coastal area where survival is more practical.

[frank2]

>If those states don't get federal funds, they will not be able to have a functioning judicial branch

Your phrase "GDP draining" probably refers to the fact that some states receive more in federal services than their population pays in federal taxes, which has nothing to do with whether such a state will be able to continue to fund and administer its own "state" court.

Most matters, e.g., most murder trials, are adjudicated in the 50 state courts, not in the US federal court. When OJ Simpson was put on trial for the murders of Ron Goldman and Nichole Brown Simpson, for example, he was put on trial in a state court.

[hash872]

Eh, I don't really agree with that. All the states really need are a paramilitary branch- the state police, local police, and maybe the local National Guard. You need rough men with guns to stop looting, bandits, etc.- and they'd probably do some bad stuff as well, but I mean that's the most fundamental level of civilization: the guys with guns. Judicial branch is quite a bit further up there on a Maslow-like hierarchy.

Plus the red states mostly grow their own food, which would be pretty huge

[SamReidHughes]

This is total nonsense. It gets more of its money from states with more profitable companies and high paid employees. Those are individuals, not states, and it’s a measure of how much surplus value they can capture, not production.

[rmrfstar]

Care to name these "GDP draining states"?

[zelon88]

Kentucky [1]

[1] https://www.wkyufm.org/post/kentucky-second-most-dependent-s...