The Collapse of Complex Societies is a book written by archaeologist Joseph Tainter. I came across a reference to the book at the Global Guerrillas website. The site, by the way, is on The Forvm blogroll and is worth a visit from time to time. I think John gives us a good insight as to how, almost 5 years since the good guys captured the red flag, we still have US military wandering around Baghdad getting themselves shot.

Instead of giving a book review, I'll attempt a summary. It's a work directed to an academic audience, so there's a fair amount of padding, dead horse flogging, and straw man creation and destruction. Still the crux of the thesis is interesting and simply stated: the collapse of complex societies ("civilization" in politically incorrect terms) can be traced back to the Law of Diminishing Marginal Returns. Before going ahead with that, I can quote Tainter on what is complexity, and what is collapse:

Complex societies are problem-solving organizations, in which more parts, different kinds of parts, more social differentiation, more inequality, and more kinds of centralization and control emerge as circumstances require. Growth of complexity has involved a change from small, internally homogeneous, minimally differentiated groups characterized by equal access to resources, shifting, ephemeral leadership, and unstable political formations, to large, heterogeneous, internally differentiated, class structured, controlled societies in which the resources that sustain life are not equally available to all. This latter kind of society is an anomaly of history, and where present requires constant legitimation and reinforcement.

The process of collapse, as discussed in the previous chapter, is a matter of rapid, substantial decline in an established level of complexity. A society that has collapsed is suddenly smaller, less differentiated and heterogeneous, and characterized by fewer specialized parts; it displays less social differentiation; and it is able to exercise less control over the behaviour of its members. It is able at the same time to command smaller surpluses, to offer fewer benefits and inducements to membership; and it is less capable of providing subsistence and defensive security for a regional population. It may decompose to some of the constituent building blocks (e.g., states, ethnic groups, villages) out of which it was created.

Tainter takes us on a brief tour of what scholars have historically blamed for collapse – among others, the conflict/contradiction/mismanagement school to which Gibbon, Engels and Toynabee belong, and its main competitor, the mystical factors school where luminaries from Plato to Spengler have blamed collapse on decadence, loss of vigour and senility. This takes up a chapter and then Tainter gets down to his own theory on the law of diminishing (marginal) returns.

As I see it, the law of diminishing returns arises from our propensity to do what is easy first and save the hard parts for later. If I'm to gather wood, I'll gather it first near my cabin. Only when this supply is exhausted will I venture further afield. The law of diminishing returns takes effect when the energy I expend in my increasingly lengthy and arduous wood gathering expeditions exceeds the energy represented in an armful of firewood. That's my take on the matter, and Tainter spends another chapter on his, giving examples from agriculture, mineral and energy production, R&D, public health, education, and government, military and industrial management. I'll give one of his examples here from British admiralty statistics: (The “staff” include officials and clerks.)

year    capital ships   officers&men    dock workers    admiralty staff         dockyard staff

1914    512             125,000         57,000          4,366                   3,249
1967    114             83,900          37,798          33,574                  8,013

The heart of the book consists of three case studies. The collapse of the Western Roman empire, the Mayan empire, and the Chacoan society of south-western US (apparently Tainter's own balliwick) are examined in terms of how their complies with the law of diminishing returns.

On the whole, the book gives us, at first glance, a rather dismal outlook. Collapse seems inevitable. Tainter speaks of another law dear to economists, the Law of Infinite Substitutability. This holds that with the right combination of motive and ingenuity there are no economic problems that can't be solved. (Once my firewood runs out, I switch to coal, thence to Uranium, Kryptonite, and so on.) Problem one is that the Law of Infinite Substitutability does not apply to social organization, though, I note here, the full implications of recent and continued advances in information processing technology are still unknown. The second problem is that it is difficult to accept that the law of Infinite Substitutability will, as the name implies, apply indefinitely. Technological innovation has resulted in some fantastic advances. Tainter cites a study which shows that from 1951 to 1966, food production increased 34%. This however was accomplished by a 63% increase in tractor expenditure, 146% on nitrate fertilizers, and 300% on pesticides. The capital and resource inputs necessay to accomplish another 34% increase would be even greater. R&D is needed but R&D is also subject to diminishing returns. So it will require an ever greater share of the GNP which in turn means that cutting into standard of living will be necessary. This will lead to impasse.

There doesn't seem to be a solution. I can offer a couple of my own thoughts on the subject. I thought that perhaps society could orchestrate a gradual, rational decrease in its complexity to the point where investment in complexity could effectively solve the previously unsolvable. Of course this would entail a wholesale re-ordering of our society, economically, politically – the whole thing lock, stock and barrel. Could be nasty too – think of comrade Stalin or the Matrix. Putting that aside, there is something positive to be said about collapse, and again this is more my own contribution rather than Tainter. Even if it comes at the high price in loss of comfort and security, less complexity gives us more freedom, more equality and more scope to use our creative potential.
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Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just

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Nothing resembles virtue more than a great crime. Saint-Just