Self-sustainability is obviously the key issue. You didn't mention credit or a credit crisis though.
In that case Steve and Bob would have mortgages on their houses, a loan on their truck.
The closest gas station in their rural area may go out of business and the company running the tank trucks.
Steve and Bob's faithful customers may be unable to buy due to their maxed out credit cards.
With local grocers long out of business it might take half an hour's ride to the next shopping mall, with gas already running low...
Credit may be a scam but it's not an illusion.
Good points. I do think all of these problems could easily be solved with people coming together to work things out - there is a lot of wealth when you combine the resources of thousands of people who are not individually wealthy. If someone in my town needs a house, we all come together and lend our talents/money/time to build it. If a gas station is needed and runs out of business, we all come together and implement one. This is the "idea" behind taxes to some degree, but unfortunately it's forced on us and the money is spent on things like war and enriching a few private government contractors rather than for the needs of the people.
The prices of things like houses or education have been skyrocketing despite stagnant wages, simply because loans are freely available to anyone and the banks take advantage. Banks have all the wealth from all the interest, even on money they invent out of thin air because of "promises to repay", which they loan out again at interest, and so on. It's definitely a scam. And it's definitely our reality.
However, even in the scenario of a credit crisis, I think the basic point still stands - the amount of people remains, the amount of labor and talent remains, the amount of material needs remains. We have all the things necessary to keep things running - the people, the tools, the skills, the time, etc. For a whole community to collapse because a gas station couldn't pay its bill or loans, or because of the "mortgage crisis" or whatever, is a result of people depending on the "system" rather than taking matters into their own hands. How did people survive before banks and debt were ubiquitous and a bank loan / credit card was needed for everything? Prices of things had to be adjusted to be reasonable within that framework. People trusted each other with payment plans when needed without having to get their full money NOW, which is what the bank allows, while it creates a payment plan with interest for the buyer, etc.
Banks / loans / credit allows prices to skyrocket on one hand, and enrich someone not even involved in a transaction on the other. Most of the money goes to the bank. If I buy a house, the seller gets $500,000 (price of the house) from the bank, but I pay the bank like $1,500,000 over 30 years. Here's the REAL fun part - if I pay them like $500,000 over the first 10 years with 1 million to go and then lose my job and fail to pay, the bank keeps the $500,000, takes the house back, and puts it back on the market for the entire price from scratch (which probably went up anyway in 10 years). So the bank wants me to fail because then they can sell the house for its entire price all over again while keeping all the money I already gave them! So if everyone who buys that house always fails to pay before they pay it off, it's a bottomless well for the bank because it becomes a permanent "lender" property - making money indefinitely WAY beyond its actual value!
So it is absolutely an incredible scam, but I do think it is unnecessary and any collapse of the system can be mitigated by people just saying "hey we're all still here right, standing around twiddling our thumbs right? We have skills, and we all need to live and eat right? Let's do it then". Suddenly all the credit becomes meaningless.
