Having finished reading Joseph Tainter's "classic" The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge 1988), I feel compelled to share his advice for contemporary civilization: invest heavily in energy research and development immediately, regardless of the perceived cost of doing so. The cost of failing to invest will be global economic and social collapse.
According to Tainter, social collapse, the reversion of a society to significantly less complex ways of living, occurs naturally when the marginal economic value of increased complexity fails to exceed the cost of that increase. In other words, people willingly give up participation in complex society in favor of smaller-scale, simpler options when the more complex society takes more from the individual than it gives back. Following this theory, Tainter provides in his book a convincing academic explanation of the collapse of three quite different societies: the Roman Empire, the Maya Civilization, and the Chacoan (Pueblo) society.
I recommend this book in general. Despite Tainter's sometimes dry academic style and excessive use of the passive voice, its 200+ pages of timely insight are worth reading first hand.
For those not immediately rushing out to buy a copy, I offer a passage from the second-to-last page (215):
Having found this passage at the conclusion of a well-researched and thoroughly fascinating anthropological analysis of social collapse, I thought it was worth sharing. I'd love to hear your thoughts on social collapse as it relates to present governmental policy.
Given what Tainter says about the role of energy in subsidizing the returns of an increasingly complex society, how do we avoid bringing about inadvertant collapse when we attempt to limit energy consumption in an attempt to deal with the climate change crisis? Is there a correct policy path to steer? If so, what is it?
According to Tainter, social collapse, the reversion of a society to significantly less complex ways of living, occurs naturally when the marginal economic value of increased complexity fails to exceed the cost of that increase. In other words, people willingly give up participation in complex society in favor of smaller-scale, simpler options when the more complex society takes more from the individual than it gives back. Following this theory, Tainter provides in his book a convincing academic explanation of the collapse of three quite different societies: the Roman Empire, the Maya Civilization, and the Chacoan (Pueblo) society.
I recommend this book in general. Despite Tainter's sometimes dry academic style and excessive use of the passive voice, its 200+ pages of timely insight are worth reading first hand.
For those not immediately rushing out to buy a copy, I offer a passage from the second-to-last page (215):
It is difficult to know whether world industrial society has yet reached the point where the marginal return for its overall pattern of investment has begun to decline. The great sociologist Pitirim Sorokin believed that Western economies had entered such a phase in the early twentieth century (1957: 530). Xenophon Zolotas, in contrast, predicts that this point will be reached soon after the year 2000 (1981: 102-3). Even if the point of diminishing returns to our present form of industrialism has not yet been reached, that point will inevitably arrive. Recent history seems to indicate that we have at least reached declining returns for our reliance on fossil fuels, and possibly for some raw materials. A new energy subsidy [i.e. new energy source] is necessary if a declining standard of living and a future global collapse are to be averted. A more abundant form of energy might not reverse the declining marginal return on investment in complexity, but it would make it more possible to finance that investment.
In a sense the lack of a power vacuum, and the resulting competitive spiral, have given the world a respite from what otherwise might have been an earlier confrontation with collapse. Here indeed is a paradox: a disastrous condition that all decry may force us to tolerate a situation of declining marginal returns long enough to achieve a temporary solution to it. This reprieve must be used rationally to seek for and develop the new energy source(s) that will be necessary to maintain economic well-being. This research and development must be an item of the highest priority, even if, as predicted, this requires reallocation of resources from other economic sectors. Adequate funding of this effort should be included in the budget of every industrialized nation (and the results shared by all). I will not enter the political foray by suggesting whether this be funded privately or publicly, only that funded it must be.
There are then notes of optimism and pessimism in the current situation. We are in a curious position where competitive interactions force a level of investment, and a declining marginal return, that might ultimately lead to collapse except that the competitor who collapses first will simply be dominated or absrobed by the survivor. A respite from the threat of collapse might be granted thereby, although we may find that we will not like to bear its costs. If collapse is not in the immediate future, that is not to say that the industrial standard of living is also reprieved. As marginal returns decline (a process ongoing even now), up to the point where a new energy subsidy is in place, the standard of living that industrial societies have enjoyed will not grow so rapidly, and for some groups and nations may remain static or decline. The political conflicts that this will cause, coupled with the increasingly easy availability of nuclear weapons, will create a dangerous world situation in the foreseeable future.
References
Sorokin, Pitirim A. (1957). Social and Cultural Dynamics. Porter Sargent, Boston.
Zolotas, Xenophon (1981). Economic Growth and Declining Social Welfare. New York University Press, New York and London.
Having found this passage at the conclusion of a well-researched and thoroughly fascinating anthropological analysis of social collapse, I thought it was worth sharing. I'd love to hear your thoughts on social collapse as it relates to present governmental policy.
Given what Tainter says about the role of energy in subsidizing the returns of an increasingly complex society, how do we avoid bringing about inadvertant collapse when we attempt to limit energy consumption in an attempt to deal with the climate change crisis? Is there a correct policy path to steer? If so, what is it?
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