As the world enters a period of political upheaval and impending environmental disaster, some one-percenters are preparing for doomsday, using their millions to outfit themselves and their homes with the best equipment available.
Nancy Koehn of the Harvard Business School joined Boston Public Radio today to talk about the New Yorker articlehighlighting this trend.
"Wealthy survivalists," said Koehn, are “planning for massive unrest, massive convulsion” by purchasing food stores, ammunition, solar panels and helicopters, among other expensive items.
According to Koehn, this phenomenon isn’t necessarily new.
“Some of these people were gearing up for this in 2007 and 2008 when they thought there was going to be a financial meltdown,” she said. “Some of them have already got their training wheels on the survival bike.”
Despite the recent uptick in survivalists from Silicon Valley, New York City and other wealthy parts of the U.S., there are people from all over the country stocking up for the apocalypse.
“Housewives and househusbands, and all kinds of folks of much lower income levels than we’re talking about in this [article are] gathering supplies, learning to grow their own food, arming themselves," Koehn added.
She spoke of one thing people from all financial backgrounds have in common: they’re embracing their second amendment rights.
“One consistent theme is everyone wants weapons,” Koehn said. “You can at some level understand the logic there, but it’s also quite frightening.”
Nancy Koehn is an historian at the Harvard Business School, where she holds the James E. Robison Chair of Business Administration. Her forthcoming book is titled Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times.
