If you live in a semi-rural area, and any rational thinking stills exists after a collapse, then the best thing for folks to do would be to go immediately (under a white flag), and visit the larger farmers (100 acres or more), and rationally convince them that going it alone, the farmers will have no chance whatsoever to defend and hang onto all of their land, livestock and crops. They would be much better off marking their land off into 5 to 10 acre tracts, and renting them out to single families, who could engage in subsistence farming upon them. Since money would be worthless, the rent to be paid to the owner would not be cash, but would instead be a set of duties and obligations. These would include (i) an annual percentage of the food and livestock raised on the rented land, (ii) working one day per month for free on the farmer's personal land, and (iii) mustering out on demand all males in the family over age 17 to provide for the common defense of the whole farm.
Once 20 or 30 of these small subsistence tracts got going, side by side, it would naturally follow very quickly that someone with rudimentary blacksmith skills will open a small shop on the site, as will a "doctor", a butcher, a tanner, and a woodcutter. And, in a small open area, a common market and barter center will spring into existence for weekly trading. And, of course, there would be a large pasture set aside for common grazing of everyone's livestock, in other words a "Common."
Sound silly? Its not. This system worked quite well throughout Europe and England for a thousand years, from the time of the Fall of the Roman Empire until the late Renaissance.
And yes, sooner or later, some bigshot warlord, through hook or crook, would probably conquer 4 or five of these large farms, call them a Barony, and appoint himself as a Baron. Then, everyone on all of the tracts, including the original farmers, would all owe him a percentage of food, and duties, as well. But, this would create a large economic unit, and a substantial military force. And, he could then lay down some laws, for the common good, and hear disputes, and soon we would have a Western Civilization again.
Historically, this form of feudalsim has worked a whole lot better than a Commune system. Communes always fail because nobody really owns anything, and everything that is produced is turned in and then divided up according to people's "needs" and not their production. No thanks.
The trick would be to visit big farmers and organize this at the very outset of the problem, instead of waiting until everyone is starving and murdering.
Just my thoughts.
Mannyrock
