Can modern economies collapse? And if so, what does collapse it look like on the ground? Well, Sri Lanka was but heart beats ago, so to speak, booming, but now has an economy which the prime minister describes in collapseology terms, with a nada of foreign exchange reserves to get essential items, and massive shortages of everything, leading to large scale rioting. “We are now facing a far more serious situation beyond the mere shortages of fuel, gas, electricity, and food. Our economy has faced a complete collapse,” Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament on June 22. “It is no easy task to revive a country with a completely collapsed economy, especially one that is dangerously low on foreign reserves.”
Hollywood has given us an over-dramatised view of collapse, that it involves total state breakdown, and a Mad Max scenario of roaming gangs in hot cars. Good for entertainment purposes, but in reality the hot cars are the first things to go, as fuel shortages grind them to a halt.
