Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXXVIII–Collapse = Prolonged Period of Diminishing Returns + Significant Stress Surge(s), Part 4
This Contemplation follows from Part 1 (Website; Medium; Substack), 2 (Website; Medium; Substack), and 3 (Website; Medium; Substack) that was prompted by the devastation brought to the southeastern United States by way of Hurricane Helene. This recent natural disaster (followed closely by Hurricane Milton) is but one of dozens to hit the globe during the past year.
As I stated in the introductory Contemplation “my own immediate reaction to the significant damage and a few articles/conversations with others has me viewing the tragedy that is unfolding as another step in the path towards ‘collapse’ of the U.S. nation as currently constructed. Another straw, as it were, on the camel’s back that supports societal complexity for this particular nation state/empire–which would have repercussions for most other societies on our planet given U.S. global hegemony (and its faltering nature).”
In Part 1, I describe how complexity and collapse are viewed in archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s thesis (See: The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press, 1988. (ISBN 978-0-521-38673-9)). Part 2 looks at diminishing returns and begins to explore what the ‘collapse’ process entails, i.e., what occurs during and what follows the loss of sociopolitical complexity. Part 3 expands on what the past tells us about what a large, complex society experiences as it is in the process of ‘collapse’, what it looks like post ‘collapse’, and began to touch on what our present-day complex societies may have in store as we continue along the path of increasing complexity while encountering diminishing returns.
In this Contemplation I review the patterns that past complex society collapses exhibit and what this suggests for those of us alive today as our exceedingly complex, globalised industrial society gets rather long in the tooth.
Past Collapse Patterns
Let me begin by summarising the previous three Contemplations that provide an overview of what Dr. Joseph Tainter argues the archaeological evidence shows with respect to the changes that occur over the lifespan of a complex society–particularly its ‘collapse’ phase.
First, society is viewed as a problem-solving organisation that forms to address the stresses that arise from living in an unpredictable and occasionally chaotic environment (both biogeophysically and socioculturally). Problem solving requires resources (especially energy) for its technological innovations and/or organisational growth of problem-solving institutions. A significant consequence of our problem-solving strategies is increasing complexity.
The ‘costs’ of problem solving are met easily during a society’s growth phase when return on investments is high (due to resource surpluses being abundant) and ‘solutions’ are relatively simple in nature. However, complexity and its associated costs are cumulative in nature resulting in ever-increasing costs and ever-decreasing returns on investments. This results in a continuous drawdown of resources (particularly the least costly, easiest-to-access ones) and ever-growing demands upon the populace (especially via labour and/or ‘taxes’). Note that along with growth in complexity comes an increase in social differentiation, inequality, centralisation, and social control mechanisms.
In the face of ever-increasing complexity and costs, the speed of declining returns intensifies until a point is reached where they turn negative and greater and greater inputs/costs are needed just to sustain society. The perceived benefits of evermore societal investments begin to fade as reserves are increasingly drawn upon, leaving less and less for problem solving (which is becoming more difficult), and demands upon the population grow.
Increasingly, problems are poorly addressed or not resolved at all. Subsequently, citizen dissatisfaction grows–especially apathy towards the polity and its elite–with some individuals and/or small social units ‘opting out’ of the larger community. As a result of all these changes, the economic strength of the polity falters creating a positive feedback loop that is increasingly difficult to halt or reverse.
Once diminishing returns are encountered, a society becomes more susceptible to stress surges that may overwhelm its various institutions/systems. The increasing failure of societal problem solving leads greater numbers of people to lose faith in the polity and its elite to meet the challenges that arise. People also begin to lose faith in the problem-solving strategy of ever-increasing complexity.
The collapse process is marked by: falling benefits for society as a whole—mostly impacted are the masses since the elite (those that sit atop a society’s power and wealth structures) tend to be insulated in a number of ways; substantial cost increases and demands on the public; population decline with increasing numbers opting out, typically via migration elsewhere; and, growing negative impacts upon the environment as the drawdown and use of biogeophysical resources increases exponentially in attempts to offset diminishing returns.
One typical elite response is the imposition of strict sociobehavioural controls—usually via legitimisation activities and/or oppressive control mechanisms—to try and decrease inefficiencies and sustain their revenue streams and positions of prestige. Perhaps the primary and overarching response is to increase the pursuit of complexity. This, however, exacerbates resource drawdown and negative impacts upon the environment leading to a quickening of diminishing returns and turning them negative. In turn, more and more of the population opt for simplification and withdraw support for the polity.
“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold...”
-William Yeats, 1920
The Second Coming
As a result of diminishing returns and faltering support, the polity’s revenues begin to fall with the elite further burdening their citizens to sustain themselves. The standard response to this situation is currency debasement that tends to lead to lower living standards for the masses. As a result of decreasing revenue and increasing costs, especially for the military, foreign challengers meet with greater success. Domestic unrest also rises, with some regions breaking away. With a fall in energy-averaging systems, self-sufficiency grows. Technology simplifies to that which can be developed and maintained locally.
Societal ‘collapse’ is signalled, then, by a simplification (a reversal of fortunes as it were) in all of the aspects that growing complexity brought, including: social stratification/differentiation; economic/occupational specialisation; centralised control/regimentation (especially sociobehavioural); epiphenomena of growth (e.g., monumental architecture, artistic and literary achievements); information flow; energy-averaging systems (i.e., trade); societal organisation/coordination; and territorial expansion.
Collapse In the Present
Our hominin species has been present on Earth for about 300,000 years. Most of that time it has sustained itself via a hunting-gathering lifestyle. These groups were still complex in nature and used technological innovations to meet their basic needs, but their size, sociopolitical complexity, and technology was limited in nature relative to today’s global, industrial societies. Growth of groups that might overshoot the carrying capacity of the surrounding natural environment–placing pressure upon sustainability and requiring sociopolitical complexity–was primarily dealt with by some small group of members breaking off and seeking an unexploited region. Migration was perhaps one of the primary means of dealing with population pressures for millennia.
It is primarily during the past 12,000 years or so (and especially the last 6000) that evidence suggests a different mode of living arose where much larger groups formed and began to solve the stressors of existence via ever-increasing sociopolitical complexity that involved more technological innovations and the development of hierarchical social institutions to organise and distribute surpluses (that has been kicked into hyper-exponential change via hydrocarbon reserves). The differential access and control of these resources eventually morphed into a large, hierarchical society displaying increasing inequality and complexity.
But once diminishing returns on their investments in this approach kicked in time, or a series of unexpected stress surges, caused it all to come crashing down in the form of drastic simplification from a previous peak of complexity. EVERY. TIME. Sometimes this ‘collapse’ was short-lived and the remnants of society began to pursue complexity again, but most of the time this was not the case. The overwhelming majority of the time society dissolved to a point that was no longer recognisable relative to previous times. The society had ‘collapsed’.
As Tainter reiterates in his text: “Collapse is recurrent in human history; it is global in its occurrence; and it affects the spectrum of societies from simple foragers to great empires.” (p. 193)
To close, I wish to highlight the primary response typically pursued by the elite and that we are already bearing witness to, and will likely see much more of in the years ahead: opting to pursue increased complexity to address perceived problems.
Evidence would suggest that this is the exact opposite of what we should likely be attempting but we are pursuing it regardless. Unfortunately, in doing so we are exacerbating all of the negative aspects of growing complexity: inequality; specialisation (and thus interdependency, both nationally and internationally); mechanisms for sociobehavioural control; currency debasement; resource drawdown and concomitant environmental/ecological-systems destruction.
As Tainter suggests, these observations are important to us in the present since they can inform us as to what we are likely to face as our societies attempt to counter the consequences of diminishing returns and its numerous impacts upon us.
Scanning the media regularly over the past couple of decades would suggest that some of these societal collapse consequences have already taken place or begun to for some nation states and for some regions within nation states. This is not necessarily for the reason of diminishing returns in many but for the reason of geopolitics where power struggles have or are occurring, and for some where stronger powers have undercut the ruling elite to sow chaos–usually with the aim to fill the subsequent power vacuum and control the nation’s wealth and resources.
But even if we ignore such cases and focus upon seemingly strong nations, we can begin to see some of the collapse process unfolding. Certainly it would appear that central authority, or at least support for it, is breaking down for a number of nation states. Civic strife between opposing factions can be seen increasing in intensity, if not actual ‘battles’. Government revenues are faltering and the typical response of currency debasement is occurring to counter this. Resources are being redirected from the masses to the privileged few that sit atop the power and wealth structures of society. Supply chains are being disrupted due to trade disputes and other geopolitical maneuvering.
Many of these changes are being hidden or rationalised away as one-offs, or due to some nefarious ‘other’. But they are occurring nonetheless in a number of places, including supposed stable nations. It is only through willful ignorance that they are not perceived for what they are: signals of impending sociopolitical collapse due to an elite class attempting to offset diminishing returns on our investments in complexity.
What exactly will befall our large, sociopolitically complex societies is anyone’s guess. But, throw our predicament of ecological overshoot on top of this cyclical phenomenon and the writing is on the wall: societal simplification is inevitable.
Perhaps one of the more significant impediments for our species in being able to accept that societal collapse is inevitable is that in our human proclivity to deny/avoid/ignore anxiety-provoking thoughts, the vast majority of us disregard the overwhelming evidence…so we support, even encourage, the elite response to keep pushing on the string of increased complexity and technology. Because, you know, human ingenuity. But all we are accomplishing by doing this is helping to make a tough situation even worse.
We mostly ignore, at our peril, the alternative (and one that will appear whether we wish it or not): simplification.
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Released September 30, 2024
It Bears Repeating: Best Of…Volume 2
A compilation of writers focused on the nexus of limits to growth, energy, and ecological overshoot.
With a Foreword by Erik Michaels and Afterword by Dr. Guy McPherson, authors include: Dr. Peter A Victor, George Tsakraklides, Charles Hugh Smith, Dr. Tony Povilitis, Jordan Perry, Matt Orsagh, Justin McAffee, Jack Lowe, The Honest Sorcerer, Fast Eddy, Will Falk, Dr. Ugo Bardi, and Steve Bull.
The document is not a guided narrative towards a singular or overarching message; except, perhaps, that we are in a predicament of our own making with a far more chaotic future ahead of us than most imagine–and most certainly than what mainstream media/politics would have us believe.
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