The Collapse of Complex Societes

Tainter presents a detailed review of the major theories on societal collapse.  Through appeal to diminishing marginal returns on complexity, Tainter takes a pseudo-economic line to argue that decay is inevitably in the cards for any complex society.  Unfortunately, little attempt is made to constrain the notion of ‘complexity’.  In reference to the prospect(s) for modern society, one of Tainter’s more interesting observations is that complex societies that exist as islands in a sea of barbarism tend to collapse suddenly and dramatically, while those that exist amongst estimable competitors tend to undergo long, drawn-out decay as power is slowly but surely usurped.  Rather than the desperate bank-runs and grocery-store pillages envisaged by some, I would not be surprised if Tainter envisages a less catastrophic 21st Century in which the United States and Europe slowly deteriorate into a backwater of China.

Talk of collapse is becoming increasingly fashionable, as is starkly illustrated by analysis of the word ‘collapse’ in English literature: (using the on-line database at http://www.culturomics.org/)