Collapse of Complex Societies

I am reading Joseph Tainter’s book about the collapse of complex societies. “Collapse” is very much on peoples’ minds these days with global warming, oil peaks, water shortages, madmen with agendas and nuclear weapons all predicting an end to our society. Interestingly, not much has been written about the collapse of societies in academia, while entire library floors are devoted to how they arose. This is strange as modern societies are very specialised and complex. Comparing our levels of complexity to previous civilisations puts us squarely in the historical anomaly category.

According to Tainter, a variety of causes lead to societal collapse. One is when “the creative minority becomes the authoritarian minority”, i.e. the minority who formulate the policies and rules lose touch with their society. They refuse to believe that their policies might not be working and simply apply their polices with more vigour.

Tainter writes that a society can also collapse in a stepped fashion. With every down step, the complexity and function of the society’s public institutions are diminished and people depend less and less on those institutions, equivalent to a “sea change” en masse and in situ. Possibly like Zimbabwe?