Economic sophisticates are no strangers to the notion that money, which all would like to think of as a conceptual reality, is actually an abstraction. Even, perhaps especially, the learned sages who convene now and again to consider and debate this arcane subject cannot satisfactorily define money. At a recent conference one member, in desperation, declaimed, “If the dog eats it, it’s dog food!” Thus, if you can buy stuff with it, it’s money. O.K. But this leaves us totally dependent upon the whim of the seller, does it not? He will accept what you offer him as money only as long as he has reason to believe that other people will accept it at the same value when he offers it to them—unless he can put whatever it is to his own personal use. The latter option is barter—chickens for legal advice, manual labor for food, et cetera.

As long as money is minted gold or silver, even though we cannot eat it, we have something other than good faith on which to base our prospects. Gold, particularly, is dependable in value under almost all conditions. A trustworthy entity (king, nation, company, bank) which promises to redeem its paper in gold, on demand, can issue pretty good money. Obviously when an untrustworthy entity does not so promise, what it issues as “money” has no value at all apart from a sort of social momentum.

As long as the United States held to the gold standard, and before expediency was placed above truth by Roosevelt II, U.S. paper money was a great thing to own— and spend. Now look at it. Would that more people would stop whimpering “Prices are going up,” when what they mean is “The dollar is going down!” Why shouldn’t it? It has no value other than what the fiscal libertines of the left say it has, and they have a license to print it without promising to redeem it for anything—not even peanuts. (I try to keep my sanity by thinking of dollars as dimes—earned, spent, or taxed. Whether that expedient has worked is moot.)

For the moment we try to get along by working feverishly for the dwindling paper dollar, because we have no choice. We don’t know what the future holds, but we do know that we had better turn our cash into things while we still can. As matters are progressing now, that green stuff is heading toward the time when it will be useful mainly for starting fires.

(Fritz Hayek, one of the few significant modern economists, has now reached the conclusion that the only hope remaining is the termination of the government money monopoly and the institution of private minting. A stimulating theory, but don’t hold your breath.)

All the foregoing is common knowledge, and those few who are both wise and fortunate—or wise and able—have been doing what they could to strengthen their economic dikes. However, as I scan what might be called “The Doomsday Press” I note that one obvious commodity is conspicuously lacking from the lists of what the wise should stock against disaster. This is ammunition. I do not mean ammunition as fodder for defensive and alimentary purposes, but ammunition as economic tender. In times of monetary collapse, ammunition (in a free, or recently free, country) is not only more valuable than any piece of paper, it is even more valuable than minted coin— because you can use it. You can’t drink paper, and you can’t eat gold (as the Araucanians forcibly demonstrated to the conquistador), but ammunition you can shoot, and by shooting you can both stock your larder and keep the ill-disposed off your back, Additionally and importantly, ammunition is nearly negotiable, being compact, accurately divisible, almost non-degenerative, and not as specialized as one might at first assume. One round of 22 long rifles is now worth about 31/2¢. The moment you can’t find it on the store shelf it is worth a nickel. After it has been unobtainable for three months it will get you a cup of ersatz coffee. And the minute The Revolutionary Committee for Public Order takes over and bans it, it will buy you a good breakfast.

Now, therefore, whenever I buy ammunition I buy two portions-“one for me and one for my friend,” My friend, in this case, is a storage locker—tough, portable, and containing, in addition to its primary load, a package of “silica gel” or calcium carbonate as a dehumidifier.

Clearly the 22 long rifle is the big item. Everybody has a 22. The high-speed hollow-point is the best variety—it sounds better in a deal. I don’t think you can have too much, but don’t run out and buy a vast quantity. Big Brother is watching you.

For pistols, stock 38 Special, 357, and 45 ACP. Some Parabellum if you live in the East. And a couple of boxes of 380 and 32 ACP. These last may be essentially worthless but there are a good many pieces around to take them. In the West we want a bit of 45 Colt and 44 Magnum as well.

For rifles, the basic caliber is 308, closely followed by 30-06, 270, and 30-30. While 223 is increasingly popular with serious shooting types, such people probably have an adequate supply on hand and will not be beating the bushes in your direction. We have such a plethora of rifle calibers that no one could possibly stock them all, but you might look in on your local friendly gunstore (small type) and see what is on the shelf. He caters to the one-box-a-year man, and if that man owns an old 30-40 or 348 Winchester he will be hurting when the shelf goes bare.

For shotguns 12 and 20 will do, better standard length than magnum, loaded with number six birdshot. A few 410’s may not be wasted. Here again you may have reason to stock specialties if you deduce the demand.

When (as we devoutly hope it won’t) push comes to shove, you can start pistol rounds at 50¢ each (as of 10 February 1978) and rifle at $1,00. If history is any guide, when that time comes everything will immediately be declared illegal. Everything, from gasoline engines to criticizing ‘The Committee’. Guns of any kind, of course. But The Committee, or whatever it calls itself, will be even more illegal in the eyes of us moss-backs, and we will either come to some sort of modus vivendi or we will not. If we don’t survive, we will have no worries about money, or anything else. If we do, our ammunition stocks will be our staff of life.