The Economic Zombie Apocalypse

The end of civilization is already here. Most of humanity has been turned into an unthinking mass of economic zombies that are looking to feast on the still living flesh of the few survivors. This may explain the increasing popularity or obsession with all things zombie. From fiction to pub crawls, the zombie apocalypse seems to be on a lot of minds, probably as an unconcious manifestation of economic reality.

According to Clemson University professor Sarah Lauro in a recent AP article:

We are more interested in the zombie at times when as a culture we feel disempowered. And the facts are there that, when we are experiencing economic crises, the vast population is feeling disempowered. … Either playing dead themselves … or watching a show like “Walking Dead” provides a great variety of outlets for people.

If you were to ask the participants, I don’t think that all of them are very cognizant of what they’re saying when they put on the zombie makeup and participate. To me, it’s such an obvious allegory. We feel like, in one way, we’re dead.

The growing popularity of the genre, along with the popularity of these zombie crawls, may reflect something deeper about people in general. Sure, the average brainwashed Westerner doesn’t understand liberty or economics. But they sense something is amiss. They may not know enough to blame the state and its violent interference for their economic condition. But many people probably sense that they are economically the walking dead.

It started with just a few welfare queens in the form of lobbying corporations and the poor who live on the poisonous drug of the dole.

Americans on food stamps: One way to measure zombie population growth.

Not only has the number of dole zombies drastically increased, but now the zombie infection has spread and taken hold of just about everyone in the Western world. There are zombies everywhere you look. On average the individual American has:

• $15,266 in credit card debt
• $149,667 in mortgage debt
• $32,559 in student debt

But it’s not just debt weighing these people down. What’s possibly worse is that they also have no clue how to generate wealth on their own. They may be able to take orders, but starting new ventures, figuring out market demand and profiting from filling it? Fat chance. They have varying degrees of dependence on either the government or on an employer the government is trying to snuff out under mountains of new regulations and taxes. Or they’re employed by bigger corporate zombie beasts.

The state with its fascistic, socialistic, communisitic nature will always end up with a moribund economy filled with a bunch of debt-wracked, dependency-minded drones, individuals and corporate monsters who can’t adapt and can’t produce: the mothers on the dole, the laid off worker with obsolete skills on unemployment, the debt-laden budding communist with a degree in medieval art or gender studies, the “too big to fail” manufacturers who can’t produce anything the market really wants…

Zombie apocalyptic fiction reflects our fear that our neighbors will en masse turn into hordes of mindless collectivist devourers capable only of tearing civilization apart. Zombies just aren’t scary as individuals or in a small group. Sure they are sad and depressing, wandering around as murderous, dim-witted shadows of their former selves. But they just aren’t that dangerous unless they vastly outnumber the local population of living humans. Thus the most effective zombie fiction always takes the apocayptic route in which for every still-living human, there are at least a hundred times as many ravenous undead.

And that’s precisely where we are today. If you are productive and forward-thinking, you are being surrounded by growing numbers of those who want to eat you. Take steps to innoculate yourself against the infection and the infected here.