[History] Why do complex societies collapse?

[Grummgug]

Maybe you should watch the movie "Animal Farm"?




Complex societies collapse for the same reason smaller systems collapse: corruption.

Instead of something huge like an entire nation or culture, let's think about something smaller. What stages of development does it go through? Perhaps a small club or guild. Let's even look at an example where it starts under the best conditions possible and given a great set of honest, hardworking, trustworthy leadership to start.

1. At first nothing exists.
2. Then someone with a genuine passion for an idea plus a willingness to work hard creates a small club.
3. They recruit like-minded people and it grows and succeeds.
4. With this growth might come some wealth and power.
5. Then others come along who are greedy and corrupt and just want to take power and wealth without working for it.
5a. Some may try to say the wealth and power is not distributed fairly and thus discredit the original creators.
5b. Some may use personal attacks to try to paint the leaders as evil.
6. They stir up anger within the ranks and get the original creators overthrown.
7. This new leadership now takes control of the reins merely to promote themselves and take advantage of everyone else.
8. The club changes to a "lower level" of intelligence where its all about the leader discrediting their political opponents to maintain power instead of trying to achieve any goals, usually via personal attacks or cries of unfairness.
9. The passion drains out of the club, it may limp along for a time.
10. Finally it collapses under its own greed and hate.


Great societies are born from honest, hardworking, trustworthy leadership pursuing ideas. They die when those leaders get replaced by other leaders who use personal attacks and cry about unfairness to maintain power and control.

[Daerio]

I think he is right with some of his general points, such as society becomes big, complex, slow to change, and inefficient in certain areas. However I think he is dead wrong when he starts veering into technology and innovation as being a good example of this. Particularly from a national and federal standpoint, where literally the majority of resources goes to SS, unemployment, medicare & health. Only around 2% of the resources go to the science and energy departments that drive innovation and technological advancement.

Since as you say the majority of resources to go SS, unemployment, medicare "& health", - where do you think the majority of this money COMES FROM?

Could it be in the form of social security tax, medicaid tax, employment insurance tax?

This isn't wealth re-distribution at its core. It's money being handed to the government so they can pal around with it until they hand out a fraction of it back to us.

[PC2]

Since as you say the majority of resources to go SS, unemployment, medicare "& health", - where do you think the majority of this money COMES FROM?

Could it be in the form of social security tax, medicaid tax, employment insurance tax?

This isn't wealth re-distribution at its core. It's money being handed to the government so they can pal around with it until they hand out a fraction of it back to us.

But what is your point? I wasn't talking about redistribution, my point was that the cost of innovation is not bloated and inefficient like other aspects of society.

[Daerio]

But what is your point? I wasn't talking about redistribution, my point was that the cost of innovation is not bloated and inefficient like other aspects of society.

So you weren't talking about redistribution, but it would be more efficient if the government redistributed more towards "science and innovation."

O. K.

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The majority of resources does not go there though. Maybe the majority of taxes does. GDP is not just government spending, in fact it is much more than government spending in any healthy economy.

And who was talking about GDP?

In fact, why would you ever talk about GDP in comparison to anything, unless you're talking about massive government overspending? For example, when they can no longer compare their expenditures to their income, and they have to compare it to their POSSIBLE FUTURE INCOME instead.

[PC2]

So you weren't talking about redistribution, but it would be more efficient if the government redistributed more towards "science and innovation."

O. K.

I wasn't saying what the government ought to do, but the reality of the statistics.

Other countries spend similar percentages, I don't think we need to change anything drastically.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Personally I think the biggest problem is the ability to transfer extravagant amounts of wealth between generations. It slow starts to create a massive pool of useless resources, at least to the society, that grows over time that serves very few. As time goes on more of these pools exsist. The already exsisting pools get bigger. Time continues to march forward until you have so many pools that are so big that they actually have more wealth and power than the society itself. Then all the rules and customs fall into these peoples hand and they only make rules that are designed to give them more and to protect their interests. Eventually the masses flip out and have to reset the system. Usually with blood and of course the help of a few of these ultra powerful and rich folk that become generation one of the big poolers in the next society. Cycle continues.

[Grummgug]

Personally I think the biggest problem is the ability to transfer extravagant amounts of wealth between generations. It slow starts to create a massive pool of useless resources, at least to the society, that grows over time that serves very few. As time goes on more of these pools exsist. The already exsisting pools get bigger. Time continues to march forward until you have so many pools that are so big that they actually have more wealth and power than the society itself. Then all the rules and customs fall into these peoples hand and they only make rules that are designed to give them more and to protect their interests. Eventually the masses flip out and have to reset the system. Usually with blood and of course the help of a few of these ultra powerful and rich folk that become generation one of the big poolers in the next society. Cycle continues.

What the elites learned to do centuries ago is to prevent this by using the media to turn the poor against the middle class. If the poor and middle class ever banded together, they would both turn against the elites. So everything is crafted to drive a wedge between the two. This is why our culture is absolutely FILLED with symbolism to remind us of racism. It is extremely important to the elites to stoke the flames of hatred between the middle class and poor on the grounds of racism. We are constantly reminded that blacks were once slaves, and unfairness is highlighted.

You aren't supposed to notice that the elites have all the money, but the urban poor get misdirected by the media into hating middle class whites. Meanwhile, the media impresses on middle class whites that the urban poor will threaten to change their culture in order to try to make middle class whites hate the urban poor.

Currently, the elites in Europe are trying to borrow this idea from America by importing non-whites. The goal is to restoke the fires of hate between middle class whites and urban poor nonwhite immigrants in Europe, which is VASTLY preferable to the focus of hatred being direct at the european elites.

[haxartus]

Societies are extremely slow to change and not adaptable. Even if changes occur, they tend to stick to their old ways, because they dislike change and try to avoid it at all cost. And it's true in reverse too, if a bad change is implemented, it may take a 100 years for the change to be reversed.
Most of the successful changes Europe has been through usually did take at least one or two generations, because the people with the old beliefs had to grow old and die, for the new generation with the new beliefs to be successful. However, very often you don't have a 50 or a 100 years for a change to be implemented. Often something has to change within a 5-10 year period, and that simply never happens, or if it happens then it is followed by a complete collapse of all systems, because the society is simply not ready for it.
This slowness could also be a good thing, since some changes are dangerous and might cause quite a lot of problems if they are implemented without any testing period.

[Nynax]

At first people have to scratch and claw to survive, they're brutes but they are tough sons of bitiches. These brutes carve out a land and develop it while fighting off all manner of threats cause they're tough. Over the years these same people defeat all things threatening them, they no longer have challenges. Without challenges, nothing to strive against the people grow weak, children are less tough than their elders.

This can go on for quite some time until the nation is a paper tiger, it's very weak. And then they are conquered by a people who are tough, who are used to scratching and clawing to survive.

This is why it is important for the nation to maintain a strong Military Tradition in its training, discipline, and organization of itself. Not saying the nation itself needs to maintain a military industrial complex, but a nation should maintain a strong professional military. Of course there are more diplomatic ways to defend a nation, which is pretty much what China has done through business connections.

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for me, they lose their identity - become more permissive of the influence of other cultures and it destroys the bond people in the nation may have had.

I think a major difference to today from history...is that the internet and globalisation is making this "loss of bond" happen to almost all nations at the same time.

[Shadowferal]

Hmf...It depends on which society is being talked about and in what context.

Egypt went on for millennia having periods of adjustment and resettlement before doing a fade.
India holds to traditions and even religious belief (the oldest organized system today) that continues even now.

[BuckSparkles]

for me, they lose their identity - become more permissive of the influence of other cultures and it destroys the bond people in the nation may have had.

I would agree this contributes. You need a national identity.

Washing that identity for the name of Diversity™ is how you send a nation into a path of inter fighting and resentment.

[Theodarzna]

I think he is right with some of his general points, such as society becomes big, complex, slow to change, and inefficient in certain areas. However I think he is dead wrong when he starts veering into technology and innovation as being a good example of this. Particularly from a national and federal standpoint, where literally the majority of resources goes to SS, unemployment, medicare & health. Only around 2% of the resources go to the science and energy departments that drive innovation and technological advancement.

The point he makes is that to sustain Innovation we would need to cut into other vital services of the society which would in itself collapse the society. Also i am talking about the whole of society, not just the State.

[Independent voter]

The point he makes is that to sustain Innovation we would need to cut into other vital services of the society which would in itself collapse the society. Also i am talking about the whole of society, not just the State.

Maybe he was thinking about corporations.

[Theodarzna]

There’s quite a few fair points in the OP, but I think one of the core reasons is the same reason animal societies fail, simple demographics

All great civilisations have undergone periods of expansion and growth, stability and stagnation, and then eventual regression and collapse/renewal

Rome is obviously a great example of this, but so is the Ottoman empire or the constantly shifting kingdoms era of China

In the past the onus has always been military of course, invasions and conquerings serving as the most obvious ends of civilisations; but there is always a cultural and especially demographic element preceding the military denouement

Societies needed in the past to be birthing new soldiers to keep their expansion and stability running; these days the same might be said to keep our economies ticking and our welfare/pension programs funded

The problem of the Romans is their initial expansion and prominence was financed by looting and pillaging, after awhile that becomes impractical and you are forced to sustain yourself on the yearly output of your possessions. Rome grew mighty from pillage and looting but eventually when it ran out of stuff to easily steal they were forced to survive on their own imperial output, which proved to be not enough to sustain their Empire.