[History] Why do complex societies collapse?

[Theodarzna]

So one such theory of complex societies collapsing is proposed by Joseph A. Tainter which serves to explain the development of Complex Societies and how they tend to fall.

Complexity is defined as both, Diversification in function, specialization in structure and behavioral roles, and increasing integration and control of behavior. So in effect societies develop more parts and more different types of parts within themselves. More over you develop mechanisms of power which bind those parts as a whole functional unit. Societies grow in complexity both by adding complexity but managing that complexity into a functional machine, otherwise you just have a box of useless parts so to speak.

Complexity has a drawback however, mainly as societies grow more complex they run into various key problems. Tainter’s theory, to simplify things is that as societies grow they become more complex, slapping on layer after layer of institutions, regulations and customs to deal with challenges (and, I suspect, to facilitate the ruling classes’ extracting resources from the ruled).

Over time, these layers grow more and more rigid and take more and more of the society’s resources. It’s hard to change them because every layer of complexity represents some group’s livelihood or claim on power. Eventually, the society is devoting almost all its resources to maintaining these institutions and has very little reserve left to deal with the unexpected. The result is that challenges that it would have weathered easily in the past are now sufficient to bring it to an end.

Political solutions are not always capable of solving such crisis'. Political leaders’ chief concern is their own power and position, they’re willing to do almost anything to stave off a collapse, except reduce their own power and position. Kicking the can down the road usually just makes the problem worse in the end, but politicians would rather do that than make any sacrifice up front.

In a sense Tainter presents a Malthusian style crisis as a kind of inevitability. Complexity consumes more resources, sustaining complexity costs more resources than the initial expansion. Powers that formed around institutional structures resist change or reform, the system bleeds and dies. One might argue that Innovation and technological progress will avert all future social complexity issues, that is central to the Futurist narrative of things. That soon we will have Woo-Gee-Amazing new innovations and they will effectively prevent the Malthusian crisis. Nicholas Rescher presents a bit more grim response to that, his studies point more towards the understanding that innovation becomes increasingly more expensive to carry out and that R&D costs go up exponentially and the returns decline relatively thus making it prohibitively expensive. For Nicholas Rescher every new breakthrough in the technological arms race against nature leads to an all new level of difficulty and intractability. Science has a habit of exhausting easy answers, so for example early scientists like Charles Darwin and Mendel could be these lone wolf geniuses because effectively they were trying to answer relatively easy questions. Now it takes interdisciplinary teams, vast budgets and resource marshaling to answer questions. Or in simple terms look at the number of advanced air war vehicles, compare bombers from the 50's to today and just how many of them we are able to effectively produce.

In fact for the Military alone there is a book called Augustines Laws, which covers this problem in action in Military tech, "in the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and the Navy 3-1/2 days each per week except for leap year, when it will be made available to the marines for the extra day." In general innovation does not always come at greater returns. One thing is that resources needed to maintain substantial productive innovation will be so costly as to wipe out the society. But Innovation in general will continue to decline in innovation productivity.

Video talk by Tainter
https://youtu.be/G0R09YzyuCI

So, Complex Societies? Doomed to the Malthusian Apocalypse or will Technology really save us all?

[Independent voter]

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.

[Theodarzna]

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.

That is the explanation the Romans gave for their own doom.

[Wells]

That is the explanation the Romans gave for their own doom.

Its also basically the fascist's defense of fascism, not to say he's a fascist. Anyway, I don't see any reason to think there's some unifying answer for the question given.

[PC2]

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.

[Deleted]

1 – From bondage to spiritual faith;
2 – from spiritual faith to great courage;
3 – from courage to liberty;
4 – from liberty to abundance;
5 – from abundance to selfishness;
6 – from selfishness to complacency;
7 – from complacence to apathy;
8 – from apathy to dependence;
9 – from dependency back again into bondage.

Always ends pretty much like this with a few exceptions brought about by conquest or natural disasters.

[Oktoberfest]

Because they keep growing the govt to fucking stupid sizes by do-gooders and the corrupt

[Deleted]

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

[Deleted]

That is the explanation the Romans gave for their own doom.

Not quite correct, but it is somewhat true. It is important to note that Romans living in the period of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire did not think that the Empire was destroyed. Actually, for a short period of time they believed that they were prospering once again. This justification was constructed later.

Topic of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire is very complex. Empire's size, threat from the so called barbaric tribes, imbalances between East and West, rural and urban, the army, economic crisis, succession crisis in the third century, even Christianity, are one of the many reasons why it eventually collapsed. We can argue which of these had the greatest impact, but it's certain that the Empire collapsed due to both internal and external factors.

[Deleted]

It seems to me that at some point, when a society becomes strong enough, it can afford to tolerate stupidity -- ideologies that are very counter-productive and the virtual antithesis to the values that made the society powerful and wealthy. But over time stupidity tends to grow, and, when the last generation that still had proper upbringing and has kept the wheels running finally retires, the stupid people will suddenly have the majority. And then things go crashing down.

Imagine a rich kid who inherits a fortune from his parents. His parents worked hard for the fortune, but in their desire to give their kid a better life they raised him in an overly protected environment, and he never understood the sacrifices and hard work that the quality of life -- that he has always taken for granted -- requires. Due to unfortunate chances, the kid is not too bright either and ended up as a spoiled brat. So what happens when he gets full control of the wealth he inherited? He starts spending. And spending. And spending. Fancy cars, luxurious life, parties, drugs, whores -- until suddenly there's nothing left.

I feel that this is what's happening right now. Our parents and grandparents worked their asses off to rebuild the world from the ashes after two devastating world wars. Now the third generation has enjoyed relative wealth, prosperity and peace for most of their lives. The concepts of hard work and personal sacrifice are unknown to them, as is logical thinking in the world of disco parties and women's studies. History and sciences are boring to read and so out of fashion; it's more fun to laugh at Big Brother show! And then stupid, destructive ideologies start to rise; such as "we're rich, why don't we flood the country with immigrants just because we can afford it?"

[Super Friendly Kitty Cat]

That is the explanation the Romans gave for their own doom.

Rome fell under the arrogance and mismanagement of their ruling class.

They had a financial and political bubble, almost similar to America's housing bubble. To make matters worse, by the time Rome fell, at least Western Rome, their entire military was Germanic conscripts who the Roman soldiers and officers treated terribly.

Not to mention Western Rome had been propped up financially, and culturally from the East for quite some time.

If they hadn't split up, they probably would have never been sacked.

[Deleted]

One of the things that seem to recur every time that societies like that have collapsed, is that the governing power becomes less and less effective, often because of corruption or the fight for power becoming all consuming and leaves them ineffective to spend time actually fixing the problems. Rome being a prime example of deep rooted corruption and constantly fighting for power over the empire the last decades of its existence.

[Macaquerie]

Not quite correct, but it is somewhat true. It is important to note that Romans living in the period of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire did not think that the Empire was destroyed. Actually, for a short period of time they believed that they were prospering once again. This justification was constructed later.

Topic of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire is very complex. Empire's size, threat from the so called barbaric tribes, imbalances between East and West, rural and urban, the army, economic crisis, succession crisis in the third century, even Christianity, are one of the many reasons why it eventually collapsed. We can argue which of these had the greatest impact, but it's certain that the Empire collapsed due to both internal and external factors.

Yeah, one of the things that people always tend to miss when they think of civilizational collapse is that even after the fall, life still tends to be much better for people in those areas than it is for their neighbors who never bothered with technology or progress. People living in the shattered vestiges of the Roman Empire still led lives vastly better than your average Hun or Visigoth could ever aspire to, and those barbarians couldn't throw away their traditional warrior culture fast enough in favor of the good life of civilization.

[Deleted]

Yeah, one of the things that people always tend to miss when they think of civilizational collapse is that even after the fall, life still tends to be much better for people in those areas than it is for their neighbors who never bothered with technology or progress. People living in the shattered vestiges of the Roman Empire still led lives vastly better than your average Hun or Visigoth could ever aspire to, and those barbarians couldn't throw away their traditional warrior culture fast enough in favor of the good life of civilization.

There is some proof that would suggest that so called barbaric tribes didn't want to destroy Rome, but wanted to share in the wealth and life-style of the Romans. The reason why Romans (and the rest of the Empire) didn't not think that a great empire as the Roman Empire didn't collapse was because invaders often took administrative aparatus and basically continued the same practice as it was done before. The fall of the Western Roman Empire is usually set to the year of 476, but it is actually a long proccess, starting from the first very serious sack of Rome in 410 and going to 550ish when it vanished from the world's political scene as such.

[apepi]

They collapse because they end up becoming convoluted in one way or another. They should be easy for people to understand.

[Thoughtful Trolli]

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 problem literally exists BECAUSE of the terribly low quality elders, though.

There's no land left to carve out because it's sitting as someone else's blighted property, and fighting threats/challenges is literally illegal everywhere now.

[Deleted]

statistics, a complex societies are tough very tough, they can survive crop failures, plauge, succession crisis, incompetent ruler, civil war and invasion etc. Normaly that typ of events do not happen annually, and then it hapen its only two or three at the same time and the complex societies can absorb it. But as time go on the chance that the complex society are hit by four or more of that typ of disasters at the same time will hapen, statistically speaking, hence all complex societies are doomed in the long run, becuse they cant absorb a "perfect" disaster chain.

- - - Updated - - -

The fall of the Western Roman Empire is usually set to the year of 476, but it is actually a long proccess, starting from the first very serious sack of Rome in 410 and going to 550ish when it vanished from the world's political scene as such.

And the Roman Empire did continue in the Byzantine Empire that Rome was a part of in the 550ish....although the political center had been moved to Constantinople.

[PC2]

Wait, what? Who has this view?

Leftists have that view.

[DJ117]

Muslim immigration.

[Vetis]

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.