0:00
"Collapse, if and when it comes
again, will this time be global.

0:04
No longer can any individual
nation collapse.

0:07
World civilization will
disintegrate as a whole.

0:12
What may be a catastrophe
to administrators

0:15
need not be to the bulk
of the population.

0:17
Collapse is not intrinsically
a catastrophe: it is a rational

0:21
economizing process that
may well benefit much

0:25
of the population." Joseph
Tainter. Good evening.

0:29
This is Radio Free Beszel.
I am Alphonse.

0:32
Tonight: Tainter's collapse
and complexity.

0:38
Imagine you get a job as
a high-flying lawyer

0:41
in New York City. You're
making a big salary,

0:45
but you're working long
hours. And as a result

0:47
you have to spend money on
a lot of other things.

0:50
You have to spend money on
a house in an expensive

0:52
neighborhood. You have to
spend money on clothes,

0:55
on flying, on a nice car.
When you have children,

0:58
you have to hire tutors for
them because you don't

1:02
have the time to spend
looking after them.

1:05
And at some point in your
life you look at

1:08
what you're doing and you
think, everything I'm

1:10
doing is work, and nothing
I'm doing is for me or

1:13
my family. Maybe it would
make more sense to

1:15
find a small place out
of the way somewhere,

1:19
reduce my income, but reduce
my spending too.

1:22
Simplify my life. Maybe
my life would be better

1:25
then. In other words, you
figure that you might

1:29
actually be better off if
you simplified your life

1:32
instead of living
with all the

1:34
complexity that allows
you to be wealthy.

1:37
That, in a nutshell, at a
personal level, is what

1:40
Tainter is talking about
when he talks about the

1:42
collapse of societies or
civilizations. Collapse

1:46
isn't something forced on
a society - at least

1:49
not in most cases. It's a
choice. It may be a bad

1:52
choice, but it may also be
a less bad choice than

1:56
the alternatives. There
have been many theories

1:59
of the collapse of
civilizations. One particularly

2:03
popular approach, going
back to ancient times,

2:06
is that a civilization
is like a person. It's

2:09
vigorous when it's young,
stable when it's mature,

2:12
and then it declines and
disintegrates in old age.

2:16
Well, that might be
a description of

2:18
what happens to some
civilizations.

2:20
It doesn't explain anything
about why a society

2:23
collapses, or why it collapses
when it collapses.

2:28
There are other theories
that people have come

2:30
up with, for example that
a society may collapse

2:33
when it runs out of a
crucial resource. Or

2:35
it may be attacked by
outsiders like the

2:38
barbarians who invaded the
Roman Empire. Or it

2:41
may be a consequence of
class conflict within

2:45
or the corruption of elites.
But Tainter says

2:48
these explanations are weak,
because societies

2:51
and civilizations often
weather such crises.

2:54
There may be natural disasters
that they survive,

2:58
barbarian invaders who
don't get through. In

3:00
fact, Rome had fought
off stronger attempts

3:03
at invasion before it
finally fell. And

3:06
problems like class conflict
and corruption

3:09
are normal in societies. They're
usually there all

3:12
along - so why would they
suddenly cause collapse?

3:16
Tainter's theory of
collapse is in his

3:18
book, The Collapse of
Complex Societies,

3:21
published in 1988.
By collapse he

3:24
means a rapid reduction
in complexity.

3:28
Complexity may sound
like an abstraction,

3:30
but it's actually something
fairly concrete,

3:33
something that we could find
proxy measures for.

3:35
For example, a complex society
would be one likely

3:38
that has more social roles;
more different kinds

3:41
of jobs; more different
kinds of products that

3:44
are produced, more that
are consumed; more

3:47
trading partners; more
different scales of

3:50
settlements, from villages
to cities; deeper

3:53
social hierarchies; and
so on. So complexity

3:57
is something that you could
actually measure.

3:59
And a rapid significant
reduction in complexity

4:02
would be noticeable.
What Tainter says

4:05
is that as societies
encounter challenges

4:08
they increase their complexity.
For example, say

4:11
your society has war-like
neighbors, and it faces

4:14
the threat of invasion. In
response it develops a

4:17
military. That means now
that there's a hierarchy

4:21
within the military of
officers and soldiers.

4:24
Arms and equipment need
to be manufactured,

4:26
supplies, training academies
and so on. So there's

4:30
an increase in the complexity
of the society to

4:33
address the problem of the
threat of invasion. Say

4:36
the country actually goes
to war and conquers the

4:39
war-like neighbor. Now
there needs to be an

4:41
administration to manage
the new territory.

4:44
Again there's an increase
in complexity. And that

4:47
complexity has costs. That
army has to be paid.

4:51
Someone has to pay for
the equipment. Someone

4:53
has to pay for the training.
Somebody has to

4:55
pay for the administration
of the new territory.

4:58
The problem, Tainter says,
is that as the society

5:02
becomes more complex, the
benefits of additional

5:05
complexity reduce and the
costs increase - or at

5:09
least the balance between
those shifts. So

5:12
the returns on the investment
in complexity

5:14
go down. One of the clearest
examples of

5:18
this is food in hunter-gatherer
societies.

5:21
Food existed in nature, and
all people had to do

5:25
was go and find it and collect
it. And in fact

5:28
those people had some of
the most leisure time of

5:31
any people ever. As human
population increased,

5:34
that was a challenge that
was met by finding

5:37
more food sources and
intensifying agriculture

5:40
by actually growing food
rather than going

5:42
and finding it. People
could grow more food

5:45
in the same amount of land,
but it took more

5:47
work. In other words, it
took more human energy

5:50
to grow food than it did
to find it. And this

5:53
continued right up until
the present day. In fact

5:56
right now it takes about
10 calories of fossil

5:59
fuel energy to grow one
calorie of food energy.

6:03
If it wasn't for the essential
free energy that

6:05
fossil fuel gave us we would
be starving to death.

6:09
And Tainter argues this applies
to other resources

6:12
too. No matter what the resource
is, whether it's

6:15
oil supplies or forests
or fisheries, humans

6:18
naturally go after the
low-hanging fruit first.

6:22
And the result is that as
we need every additional

6:26
fish, every additional barrel
of oil and so on,

6:29
that additional fish,
that additional

6:31
barrel of oil is more
expensive to collect.

6:34
The same is true for an
empire like the Roman

6:37
Empire invading other
territories in order to

6:39
take their wealth. As it
conquers more territory,

6:42
the administrative overhead
grows faster than the

6:45
wealth from the newly conquered
territories.

6:48
And as that return on
investment decreases,

6:51
it may start to look to
some of the people in

6:53
the society as if this isn't
worth it anymore.

6:56
There may even come a point
where the benefit

6:59
of invading one more territory
or extracting

7:02
one more barrel of oil
just isn't worth it,

7:04
where the cost actually
exceeds the benefit.

7:08
Now one response to
this might be to

7:10
say, well, technology
will solve this.

7:12
But the same phenomenon
occurs with

7:14
technology, as Tainter
demonstrates.

7:17
we go after the low-hanging
technologies first,

7:19
just as we went after the
low-hanging resources.

7:22
You can see this for example
with computer

7:25
chips. For a long time
Moore's Law ruled and

7:28
computer chips rapidly
got more sophisticated

7:31
and cheaper. But in the
past decade or so that

7:34
has slowed down. And this
happens in technological

7:36
development generally.
Technology isn't a way out,

7:39
it's just one more example
of diminishing returns.

7:42
The one thing that can be
a way out, Tainter says,

7:46
is a new source of energy,
as for example when

7:48
we started exploiting
fossil fuels and oil.

7:53
But that cost is not necessarily
distributed

7:56
equally among the people
in a society. Those

7:59
who are part of the additional
complexity are

8:02
having resources allocated
to them in order to

8:04
manage things. For example,
a military

8:07
empire has to spend
on its soldiers.

8:11
Or if it doesn't spend on
the soldiers, they're

8:13
likely to revolt. So there
comes a point where

8:16
some of the groups in
society may find that

8:18
they might be better off
if the society was

8:21
less complex. The farmers
may find that they

8:24
are paying high taxes to
maintain an army that

8:27
doesn't seem to be benefiting
them, for example,

8:30
and at that point they
may prefer collapse.

8:34
And Tainter said in fact that
happened - that many

8:36
of the Romans welcomed the
barbarian invasions

8:39
because it wiped away
the expensive taxes

8:41
and administration that
they were paying.

8:43
Now when I say taxes,
i don't necessarily

8:45
mean government costs:
those costs could be

8:48
in any institution in society.
Complexity can

8:52
be all over the place. Now
if Tainter is right,

8:56
this pattern of diminishing
marginal returns

8:59
strikes every society. And
ours is no exception.

9:03
In fact, when I look at
the quality of living

9:06
from 40 or 50 years ago,
it seems to me that it

9:09
has not gone up. Back then,
a single income with

9:12
a job that didn't necessarily
require university

9:15
education was sufficient
to support a house, a

9:18
family, education and so
on. And today it's not.

9:23
Our inflation statistics
may suggest that we

9:26
are better off because
we have better phones

9:28
and better televisions,
but when you look at

9:31
the essentials of life
- things like housing,

9:33
transportation, food,
education and health

9:36
care - those things are
extremely expensive.

9:39
And one of the reasons
they're expensive

9:41
is because of increased
complexity.

9:44
So it might be that many of
us would be better off

9:47
with what Tainter would
describe as a collapse:

9:49
a significant rapid reduction
in complexity. I

9:52
should just note that collapse
in Tainter's terms

9:55
doesn't have to be a free
fall. It doesn't have

9:58
to mean the elimination
of society altogether.

10:00
It simply means reduced
complexity. We might be

10:03
better off with it, he says:
but it can't happen.

10:07
He says collapse occurs
and can only occur in

10:10
a power vacuum. What he
means is that a society

10:14
that's in competition with
other societies can't

10:17
collapse. If it tries, it'll
basically be taken

10:20
over. And when it's taken
over it's unlikely to

10:23
become less complex. And
in fact we've seen this,

10:26
when Greece hit the
wall financially

10:28
in the 2010s and tried
to go bankrupt.

10:30
It wasn't allowed to. It
was bailed out by the

10:33
rest of Europe - even though
the administrators

10:36
and politicians who arranged
the bailout knew

10:38
that Greece could never
pay back the money.

10:41
And yet they bailed it out
and then they extracted

10:44
wealth from Greece by
privatizing public assets.

10:48
So Tainter says, in societies
in competition,

10:51
collapse can't happen unless
they all collapse

10:54
together. They have to
keep competing. And as

10:56
they continue to compete,
much of the population

10:59
may find that it is immiserated
as complexity

11:03
increases and it has to
be paid for somehow by

11:06
someone. Now one of the
interesting things about

11:09
Tainter's theory is that
it's not political.

11:12
For Tainter, none of this
is a consequence of

11:15
conflict between classes.
Class conflict may

11:18
be normal, but because
it's normal it can't

11:20
explain exceptional events
like collapses.

11:23
But if you look at the dynamic
within a society,

11:26
there's obviously a class
component. The people

11:30
who are benefiting the most
from the increased

11:32
complexity are going to
be the administrators,

11:34
the managers and the leaders
and so on. And

11:37
the people who are going
to be paying it are

11:39
the masses of the population,
the workers.

11:42
For the administrators,
increased complexity

11:45
is what pays their wages.
They don't want to

11:47
collapse. For the majority
of the population,

11:50
collapse might bring benefits.
If competition

11:53
with other societies prevents
collapse, that is

11:57
actually to the benefit
of the administrative

12:00
class. It might seem
beneficial then

12:03
to actually simply reduce
complexity slowly

12:06
rather than collapsing
suddenly. But that is

12:10
very difficult. Tainter says
it basically doesn't

12:13
happen. Because it's much
easier to add complexity

12:16
than it is to eliminate
complexity,a

12:18
nd that although he
doesn't say, it

12:20
may be the consequence of
class dynamics. Because

12:23
those with the greatest interest
in complexity are

12:25
those who make a living
from it. And they have

12:28
no interest at all in allowing
it to be reduced.

12:31
Despite exhausting resources
and the environment's

12:34
capacity to absorb our
wastes, according to

12:37
Tainter it's highly unlikely
that we would be able

12:40
to simplify our way to
sustainability. So we're

12:43
in a bind. We can't collapse
because we're in

12:46
competition - until we all
hit the wall together,

12:50
the whole world. And then
there's potentially a

12:53
global collapse, as he says,
or we find some new

12:56
source of energy. And
that source of energy

12:59
allows us to continue longer.
Unfortunately,

13:02
that doesn't seem to be
on the horizon. This is

13:07
Alphonse for Radio Free
Beszel, www.beszel.ca.

13:13
Good night.