#us-specific

I'd say basically all forms to some degree over the next 20-30 years.

I apologize that most of this is US-centric. It is happening many places throughout the globe, but most of the data I have is US-specific. But rest assured it could be happening to you too, if you live outside the US, though possibly at a different pace than we're seeing here.

We are currently in a situation where there are a number of factors coming together that support a societal collapse. In some places, we've already seen significant collapse, including a lack of available hospital beds, safety net programs, charities, and basic human rights.

Factor 1 is the fierce political division. It could have been anything, but it just happened to be Trump and Trump supporters (including the "thin blue line" and "three percent" crowds) on one side and everyone else on the other. The more divided a society is, the more energy goes into protecting oneself from our opponents and less that goes into actually solving existing and growing problems, and the higher risk of civil conflict.

Factor 2 is a loss of resources. The US grew in power due to a weird confluence of political climate and physical resources that we'll never see again. These included available and cheap access to fossil fuels (which made things like cars, synthetic fertilizers, and plastics affordable for the masses), WWII and lack of worker protections (terrible for people but great for industry) that lead to an extremely well-funded and well-staffed "patriotic" growth in industry during and after the war. This lead to a shift in consumer culture (fueled by ad campaigns in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s) that pushed everyone from a great depression "fix it, use it up, wear it out" into a materialistic "keeping up with the joneses" mentality that caused people to buy, buy, buy, even if they didn't need or want something.

We are now at a point where the culture that all those created is no longer sustainable because of the current loss of the fossil fuels, wages, training, staffing, and political resources (like unions) that supported it.

Factor 2.5 is that one of those resources, money, is being hoarded in places where it completely fails to benefit most of society. Since the 1970s, worker productivity in the US (fueled by a concept called "taylorism" and later "techno taylorism", essentially creating technologies that track and punish workers automatically if they fall below stated levels of productivity, especially in low-wage work) has far, far outstripped hourly pay.

We also have a problem with the distribution of wealth, where the top 1% in terms of "net worth" (assets - debts = net worth) own about 40% of the wealth available, while the bottom 90% own a mere 20%. Basically, the owners and investors of the most massive corporations fail to allow the revenue from their enterprise to "trickle down" to their workers in the form of wage increases and greater social resources like libraries, schools, parks, and safety net programs, so the "tide" that was supposed to raise all ships never rises at all, while low-wage earners are continually exploited for more productivity for less pay.

People who are struggling to afford basics like food, housing, utilities, and medical care (like those who are earning anything below "cost of living" in their area) aren't contributing to taxes, but neither are the highest earners or corporations because of tax loopholes or laws specifically designed to carve out their contributions (which would otherwise fund those libraries, etc.. mentioned above). Struggling people are also less able to donate to charity, meaning even social backup programs like charities have to be more selective of their clientele, further exacerbating the problem- especially for those who aren't "ideal" candidates for help (look up salvation army or Christian-run free clinics and their stances on LGBTQ individuals seeking help, for example). This in turn further widens political disputes.

Factor 3 is that we keep seeing shocks to the system. There has been a 5x increase in natural and man-made disasters world-wide in the last 50 years, the majority of which have occurred in the last 10. Many of these are due at least in part to a changing climate. As we used up the fossil fuels, we also dumped much of that sequestered carbon into the atmosphere, which leads to climate change, which leads to increasing rates of disasters. As disasters increase, there is not only less money/help available for those impacted, but the locations where people can safely live or grow food shrinks. Not only does this cause difficulties in food but it also exacerbates problems where people need to relocate, but where both wages and government aid is no longer sufficient to facilitate the move. In return, people either starve, die, or are killed in disasters because they are unable to restart somewhere else.

The lack of resources has also seen a decrease in the ability to maintain public utilities systems. Water, sewer, transportation, and electricity infrastructure 50 years beyond its official replacement date still in use leads to water main breaks, increasing outages, and poor quality drinking water containing lead and other serious contaminates. If the resources don't exist (or aren't being used because they're needed elsewhere) to fix these things, eventually the power will go out, or the sewer will break and not be fixed, or...

We also start seeing pandemics. Look at the difference between how we handled H1N1 (quickly, effectively, limiting the number of deaths in the US) and COVID-19 (disinformation and lack of resources, leading to an inability to contain it effectively in the US). Pandemics strain healthcare systems.

Over a third of all patients at my hospital system are there for COVID right now, most of them unvaccinated (December 2021, over a year after the availability of a free, safe, and effective vaccine), which means fewer people can be admitted for other things, meaning the acuity of who gets admitted goes up, the staff are increasingly strained and quit to preserve their mental health, and more people are sent home who should have been admitted, causing increase in death and suffering because of lack of resources to care for them.

Conclusion: All of these together play into each other. We are starting to see a process called "catabolic collapse" where the system begins to burn resources for immediate needs/threats that are already earmarked for something else. If government aide no longer exists (for you specifically or in general), you turn to private aid. If that no longer exists (for you specifically or just in general) you turn to neighbors. But if they have nothing because they're in the same situation, or they won't give it to you because of political division, you all starve. Or freeze, or dehydrate, or die of illness or injury, or whatever your situation happens to be.

Similarly, if a water main or sewer breaks, you have to get water and dispose of waste somehow, so you get it from a river, bury it, or burn it, all of which can cause disease, which further stresses healthcare systems, which....