The Collapse of Complex Societies (New Studies in Archaeology) Reprint Edition

This is an interesting book. First published in the late 80's, it warrants renewed attention nowadays in light of all the end-of-the world hysterias currently emanating from concerns over economic turmoil, religious strife, nuclear terrorism, viral epidemics, and climate change. Even if most of us don't believe the worst is yet upon us, it's hard not to worry with so many books and movies out there depicting post-industrial societies where humans are left with their animal needs and violent proclivities, but none of the protections afforded by modern civilization.

Joseph Tainter, though, is no hysteric. He's a buttoned-down scholar without any apparent pre-conceived agenda and certainly no intent to sensationalize. He's actually a little boring, and casual readers expecting lurid thrills from this book are likely to put it down after the first few pages. Like other students of history over the years, he seems haunted by the fact that so many of the world's once-vibrant civilizations have vanished for no obvious reason. The tasks he's taken on to himself here are to (a) catalogue the major lost civilizations (b)summarize known facts surrounding their rise and fall (c) distill the academic literature regarding the causes of societal collapse down to a handful common theories, and (d) establish the framework for his own general theory. Since it's obvious from the start of the book that he's ultimately looking forward into dynamics that might one day lead to the demise of our own world, this book really grabs your attention once you begin to suspect he may know what he's talking about.

Tainter starts with a brief survey of eighteen vanished civilizations around the world which provide the substance for his study. His professional discipline is archeology, and several of his societies are ones, like the Minoans and the Chacoans, about which archeology tells us everything we know, since they left no written records. For others, like the ancient Romans and China's Western Chou Empire, he intrudes onto historians' turf because the written record provides a key part of the story. In fact, his most comprehensive and interesting discussion is of the Romans. I got the impression that he may have developed his animating insights for this book through his study of Rome, since he manner in which he imposes them on the sketchier cases sounds a bit vague to me in places.

Tainter is obviously not the first researcher to become fascinated by societal collapse. The phenomenon has spawned a whole genre of literature and a host of causal theories. He summarizes them all for us and groups them into eleven broad categories, including resource depletion, natural catastrophe, invasion, social dysfunction, random concatenation of events, and so forth. He points out that none of these are mutually exclusive and that all have something to offer. In the end, however, he pronounces the existing literature inadequate to the task of explaining how and why thriving civilizations eventually disappear. Hence the motivation for his study.

He does point to economic theories, one of the eleven groups, as the one probably richest in explanatory possibilities. And with that observation he lays the groundwork for his own theory, which is based in economics but is capable of subsuming elements associated with the other frameworks. In getting to his subject, Tainter generally avoids the term 'civilization'. He prefers instead the more precise phrase 'complex society', by which he means a social system entailing elaborate division of labor and supporting management hierarchies, government and a robust military. He refers to resources devoted to these functions as the society's "investment in complexity". He then explains the "rise" of a society as the period during which investment in complexity is growing and people are enjoying returns on it in the form of growing wealth, culture and security. Or at least enough people are enjoying these things that social and political stability prevail. Golden ages then can be seen as sweet spots in history during which the benefits from complexity are growing and incentivising more investment in it, triggering virtuous circles. However, such a dynamic is inherently self-limiting and eventually self-destructive.

Two phrases which Tainter borrows from economics are "marginal cost" and "marginal return". Eventually, the marginal returns from investment in complexity - meaning the returns currently available - inevitably level off and then decline, while the marginal costs stay the same or even increase. The only way central authorities can so on supporting such costs is through taxation or currency debasement, unsustainable measures in a system where benefits are perceived as declining. A system so weakened becomes vulnerable to popular revolt or invasion, or lacks the will and resources to overcome other disasters. Tainter describes, for example, how the "barbarians" who eventually overran the Roman Empire were in many cases welcomed and even assisted by the Empire's population, who increasingly saw themselves as benefitting little from Rome's "complexity", even as Rome's tax collectors became more predatory than ever.

Like the good scholar he is, Tainter is cautious in his approach to his subject and modest in the claims he makes for his conclusions. His theory is rather fatalistic and seems to regard a society's collapse as pre-determined by its rise. He is an unusually good writer and casts his points generally in short, declarative sentences that are easy to follow. His ideas, however, are not so simple, and require careful study to absorb fully. The book is short - only 216 pages - but it took me a long time to finish. I found it well worth the effort, and recommend it to others interested in this subject matter.

A major focus of this book is the effect of the law of diminishing returns and how this can lead to the collapse of societies. The author deals mostly with Central America's pre-Columbian cultures but this law applies to just about everything, and for all time. The sequence: intensification - depletion (aka diminishing returns) - new technology/paradigm shift/more intensification - depletion etc. and finally collapse applied to agricultural intensification, depletion, then collapse of the Maya civilization, and may well impact modern ones as well. I gave a copy of this book to a friend who teaches university economics, and he felt that he had no choice but to incorporate this view in his curriculum.
Score one for me...

Despite more than 20 years passing since this book was publisghed, its significance is only increasing as we reflect more on the complexity and vulnerability of our modern societies. Even for those not agreeing with the basic premises and/or conclusions of this woirk, it will provide a challenging and stimulating read. One drawback is the author's categorical dismissal of ALL other possible causes of societal collapse apart from the one he describes. I assume this is the unfortunate consequence of the nature of academic debates in the humanities that don't necessarily attempt to produce a synthesis of previous theories but rather upend them.

Tainter explains decline using a well-known economic law, the law of diminishing returns. However, the argument is not malthusian, but framed in the science of complexity: as a society gets more and more complex, the return of additional investments in complexity is decreasing and eventually can become negative; when weakened by this complexity burden, society are more fragile and can fall under contingent attacks of various sort. Very well written and documented, I particularly enjoyed the account of the fall of the Roman empire based on this theory. Tainter also makes a good job in comparing his theory with other explanation of decline or society collapse, showing why some common approaches are actually flawed (e.g. when decline is due to an external shock, or cultural explanation based on the decline of fundamental values in society).