What the books had in common was the prediction of an impending social and economic collapse and the need to secure hard assets, preferably in precious metals, and make plans for the safety of oneself and family. Survivalism was both an investment strategy and a business opportunity. As one person involved wrote, “the mid-1970s witnessed a tremendous increase in ‘hard money’ books, newsletters, seminars, coin companies, survival retreats, food storage, and related businesses.” The mixture of topics is captured in an issue of Libertarian Review from 1976. It included selections from German neoliberal economist Wilhelm Röpke alongside advertisements for a cassette program on “basic relaxation and ego-strengthening” by Ayn Rand’s designated heir Nathaniel Branden and fine print offerings of “survival information” from Inflation Survival Letter. Pamphlets for sale ranged from the innocuous “how to minimize your taxes” to the more alarming “layman’s guide to survival firearms” and “how to hide your valuables.” It included a piece by Rothbard advertised as “the dean of libertarian economists” as well as pieces by Gary North on “How to Buy Rural Property—Part I and Part II” and future MPS member and standard-bearing goldbug Mark Skousen on investment advice.
The idols of the catastrophe libertarians were the investors who knew how to profit from apocalypse and the books were guides to how to join their ranks. Browne’s book, like the others, portrayed the modern period as a fall from metallic-monetary grace. At the end of the nineteenth century, all major national (and imperial) economies had subscribed to a gold standard that limited the amount of currency in circulation and was believed to place built-in constraints on state expenditure. The gold standard collapsed with the First World War only to be resurrected with difficulty in the peace. The Wall Street crash of 1929 and the Great Depression created a liquidity crunch with accompanying spikes in unemployment and plummet in prices. The decline was only reversed when Great Britain abandoned gold convertibility in 1931 and the United States followed two years later, removing the limit on money creation and the expansion of credit and liberating governments to spend freely. After the Second World War, a novel compromise arrangement was devised whereby the U.S. dollar was returned to convertibility to gold while the rest of the world’s major currencies had fixed but adjustable rates in relation to the dollar.