Societal collapse

For a related concept in sociology, see Social disintegration.

Societal collapse is the large scale breakdown or long term decline of the culture, civil institutions or other major characteristics of a society or a civilization, on a temporary or permanent basis. The breakdown of cultural and social institutions is perhaps the most common feature of collapse. Although societal collapse has previously been viewed as an endpoint for a civilization, the phenomenon is only a description of the processes of change in that civilization. Societies may not end or die when they collapse, but may instead adapt and be born anew. Societal collapse is certainly not a benign social process, but it may also result in a degree of empowerment for the most disenfranchised sections of the collapsing society.

The most common factors contributing to the collapse of society are environmental, social and cultural. Usually societal collapse results from the convergence of all three factors, but in many instances one factor may be the dominant cause. In many cases a natural disaster (eg. tsunami, earthquake, massive fire, etc.) may wreak such havoc on a culture that it can no longer sustain itself through past social processes and it undergoes massive change. In other instances significant inequity in the social structure may result in the lower classes rising up and taking power from a smaller wealthy elite. Societal collapse may occur over a relatively short period of time, or as a result of an event or series of events which lead to significant depopulation (eg. natural disaster, war, genocide, famine, pandemic). The groups which comprise a society may also make a deliberate or voluntary decision to disperse or relocate which in effect amounts to the "collapse" of that society, or presents to later archaeologists or researchers as a collapse.

Societal collapse has recurred throughout history and is an aspect of the human condition which may await all human societies. The modern day interest in survivalism is concerned in part with preparing for the possible collapse of contemporary society.

Societal dynamics

Societal collapse is often linked to a shift to sedentarism. This social organization eventually leads to the depletion of important non-renewable or only slowly renewing resources (in most cases) (see sustainability). Sedentarism enables a gross expansion of the society and its social institutions. Long distance trade, domestication of flora and fauna, increase in task specialization as well as the stratification of society are the most salient features of a sedentary society. Sedentary societies are not self limiting and often come to over use and dominate that land on which they exist. As population grows diminishing returns of various foodstuffs begin to threaten social complexity.

Thomas Homer-Dixon has recently suggested that societal collapse occurs as a result of a reduction in the Energy Return on Investment or EROI. This is the measure of the amount of energy needed to secure a source of energy. Societal collapse occurs whenever the EROI approaches 1:1. If it falls below 1:1, those attempting to harvest the energy source have insufficient energy to maintain themselves, and famine results. An EROI of more than 1 is necessary to provide sufficient energy for socially important tasks, such as constructing buildings, maintaining infrastructure, and supporting the social elite upon which a society depends. The EROI figure also determines the ratio between the number of people engaged in energy extraction compared to the total population. For example in the pre-modern world, it was often the case that 80% of the population was employed in agriculture to feed a population of 100%. In modern times, the use of fossil fuels with an exceedingly high EROI has enabled 100% of the population to be employed with only 4% of the population employed in agriculture. Diminishing returns of an unsustainable EROI, Homer Dixon proposes, leads to societal collapse.

Manifestations of societal collapse

Societal collapse occurs in one of two ways:

1. Its adaptive capacity is reduced by a sharp increase in population or social complexity, leading to a destabilization of social institutions and eventual massive shifts in population and social dynamics. In nearly all cases civilizations revert to less complex, less centralised and a more simple technological or socio-political forms. Examples of such societal collapse are: the Hittite Empire, the Mycenaean civilization, the Western Roman Empire, the Mauryan and Gupta states of India, the Mayas, the Angkor in Cambodia, and the Han and Tang dynasties in China.

or

2. It may be gradually incorporated into a more dynamic, more complex inter-regional social structure. This happened in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Levantine cultures, the Eastern Roman Empire, Mughal and Delhi Sultanates in India, Sung China, the Aztecs and Incas in Mesoamerica, and the modern civilizations of China, Japan, India as well as many modern states in the Middle East and Africa.

Societal collapse manifests itself in the various ways (several examples are found below):

• Complex societies stratified on the basis of class, gender, race or some other salient factor become much more homogeneous or horizontally structured. In many cases past social stratification slowly becomes irrelevant following collapse and societies become more egalitarian.

• One of the most characteristic features of complex civilizations (and in many cases the yardstick to measure complexity) is a high level of job specialization. The most complex societies are characterized by artisans and tradespeople who specialize intensely in a given task. Indeed, the rulers of many past societies were hyper-specialized priests or priestesses who were completely supported by the work of the lower classes. During societal collapse the social institutions supporting such specialization are removed and people tend to become more generalized in their work and daily habits.

• As power becomes decentralized people tend to be more self-regimented and have many more personal freedoms. In many instances of collapse there is a slackening of social rules and etiquette. Geographically speaking, communities become more parochial and/or isolated. For example, following the collapse of the Mayan civilization many Maya returned to their traditional hamlets, moving away from the large cities that had been the epicenters of the empire.

• Epiphenomena, institutions, process, and artifacts are all manifest in the archaeological record in abundance in large civilizations. After collapse types of artifacts found or evidence of epiphenomena and institutions changes dramatically as people are forced to adopt more self sufficient lifestyles.

Dysgenics

There is great controversy over the theory of dysgenics that suggests that, because the most intelligent reproduce least, this will leave the population less able to perform higher functions. Known as the Demographic-economic paradox, this theory assumes that the differences in IQ between the so-called blacks and other so-called "races" is due to genetics and not poverty. According to this theory, the high population growth rate of blacks and intermarriage between blacks and other races could possibly cause a societal collapse, due to their lower IQs predominating over time. Demographic studies generally indicate that because the opportunity costs per child is higher, wealthier, better educated women in affluent nations have much lower reproductive rates than the poorer, less educated, which has led to some concern regarding the future of intelligence in these nations

William Shockley, Nobel prize winner in physics, is a prominent supporter of these theories of eugenics. Shockley's approach was partly based on the controvercial and disputed research of Berkeley psychologist Arthur Jensen, Cyril Burt and H. J. Eysenck. Shockley also proposed that individuals with IQs below 100 be paid to undergo voluntary sterilization, a revival of practices that fell into disrepute as a result of the Nazi practices of euthanasing mentally defective persons .

Comparatively small differences in average intelligence can become very large differences in the very high I.Q. ranges. A decline in average psychometric intelligence of only a few points will mean a much smaller population of gifted individuals.

The argument that these differences between black and white populations is a result of genetics is disputed by the fact that adjustments for socioeconomic conditions almost completely eliminate differences in IQ scores between black and white children. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and Pamela Klebanov of Columbia's Teachers College, and Greg Duncan of the Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research at Northwestern University have shown that while black children had IQ scores a full 15 points lower than their white counterparts, poverty alone, accounted for 52 percent of that difference, cutting it to 7 points. Controlling for the children's home environment reduced the difference by another 28 percent, to a statistically insignificant 3 points -- in essence, eliminating the gap altogether .

In contradiction with this finding is the "Flynn Effect", based upon the fact that "performance on IQ tests has increased with each generation". For example with Raven's Progressive Matricies "People tested in 1992 scored 27 points higher on average than people of the same age had scored in 1942". Discussing these effects, Science reporter John Horgan concludes "The Flynn effect highlights the vital (if mysterious) role that culture plays in intelligence, at least as it is measured by IQ tests. It also suggests that, contrary to The Bell Curve, environmental interventions may close the gaps in IQ scores between different groups".

Modes of societal response

According to Joseph Tainter, in his book The Collapse of Complex Societies (1990), societies that inevitably collapse adhere to one or more of the following three models in the face of collapse:

1. The Dinosaur: The best example is a large scale society in which resources are being depleted at an exponential rate and yet nothing is done to rectify the problem because the ruling elite are unwilling or unable to adapt to said changes. In such examples rulers tend to oppose any solutions that diverge from their present course of action. They will favor intensification and commit an increasing number of resources to their present plans, projects and social institutions.

2. Runaway Train: An example would be a society that only functions when growth is present. Societies based almost exclusively on acquisition, including pillage or exploitation, cannot be sustained indefinitely. The society of the Assyrians and the Mongols, for example, both fractured and collapsed when no new conquests were forthcoming. Tainter argues that Capitalism can be seen as an example of the Runaway Train model. Current methods of resource extraction and food production may be unsustainable, however, the philosophy of consumerism encourages the purchase of an ever increasing number of goods and services to sustain the economy.

3. House of Cards: In this aspect of Tainter's model societies that grow to be so large and include so many complex social institutions that they are inherently unstable and prone to collapse.

An example of Tainter's model

These things do not necessarily act independently. Usually they are interconnected occurrences that reinforce each other. For example, leaders on Easter Island saw a rapid decline of trees but ruled out change (i.e. The Dinosaur). Timber was used as rollers to transport and erect large statues called moai as a form of religious reverence to their ancestors. Reverence was believed to result in a more prosperous future. It gave the people an impetus to intensify moai production (i.e. Runaway Train). Easter Island also has a fragile ecosystem because of its isolated location (i.e. House of Cards). Deforestation led to soil erosion and insufficient resources to build boats for fishing or tools for hunting. Competition for dwindling resources resulted in warfare and many casualties. Together these events led to the collapse of the civilization.

It is worth noting that mainstream interpretations of the history of Easter Island also include the slave raiders who abducted a large proportion of the population, and epidemics that killed most of the survivors, see Easter Island#Destruction of society and population.

Catabolic collapse

The theory of "catabolic collapse" by John Greer (2005) says that civilizations decline in a stepwise fashion, with periods of crisis and contraction followed by periods of stability and partial recovery. It says this as a matter of supply and demand; each crisis brings about a sharp decrease in the amount of capital (physical, human, and social) that has to be maintained, and this frees up enough resources to allow effective crisis management, at least for a time. The theory predicts that this sequence is likely to repeat itself many times over the next few centuries, as industrial civilization goes through the process of decline and fall.

Toynbee’s theory of decay

The British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, in his 12-volume magnum opus A Study of History, theorized that all civilizations pass through several distinct stages: genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration.

Toynbee argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, it comes from the deterioration of the "Creative Minority," which eventually ceases to be creative and degenerates into merely a "Dominant Minority" (who forces the majority to obey without meriting obedience). He argues that creative minorities deteriorate due to a worship of their "former self," by which they become prideful, and fail to adequately address the next challenge they face.

He argues that the ultimate sign a civilization has broken down is when the dominant minority forms a "Universal State," which stifles political creativity. He states:

First the Dominant Minority attempts to hold by force—against all right and reason—a position of inherited privilege which it has ceased to merit; and then the Proletariat repays injustice with resentment, fear with hate, and violence with violence when it executes its acts of secession. Yet the whole movement ends in positive acts of creation—and this on the part of all the actors in the tragedy of disintegration. The Dominant Minority creates a universal state, the Internal Proletariat a universal church, and the External Proletariat a bevy of barbarian war-bands.

He argues that, as civilizations decay, they form an "Internal Proletariat" and an "External Proletariat." The Internal proletariat is held in subjugation by the dominant minority inside the civilization, and grows bitter; the external proletariat exists outside the civilization in poverty and chaos, and grows envious. He argues that as civilizations decay, there is a "schism in the body social," whereby:

• abandon and self-control together replace creativity, and
• truancy and martyrdom together replace discipleship by the creative minority.

He argues that in this environment, people resort to archaism (idealization of the past), futurism (idealization of the future), detachment (removal of oneself from the realities of a decaying world), and transcendence (meeting the challenges of the decaying civilization with new insight, as a Prophet). He argues that those who Transcend during a period of social decay give birth to a new Church with new and stronger spiritual insights, around which a subsequent civilization may begin to form after the old has died.

Toynbee's use of the word 'church' refers to the collective spiritual bond of a common worship, or the same unity found in some kind of social order.

Examples of civilisations and societies which have collapsed

By the first method

• The Sumerians
• The Hittite Empire
• Mycenaean Greece
• The Neo-Assyrian Empire
• The Indus Valley Civilization
• The Mauryan and Gupta states
• Angkor civilisation of the Khmer Empire
• Han and Tang Dynasty of China
• Anasazi
• The Etruscans
• Western Roman Empire
• Izapa
• Maya
• Munhumutapa Empire
• Olmec

Sites which are believed to represent "societal collapse"

• Cahokia
• Easter Island
• The Norse colony on Greenland
• Pitcairn Island
• Malden Island

By the second method

• ancient Egypt
• ancient Babylonia
• the ancient Levant
• classical Greece
• Eastern Roman Empire (Medieval Greek) of the Byzantines
• Modern North East Asian civilisations, Hindu and Mughal India
• Chin, Sung, Mongol and Manchu China
• The Tokugawa Shogunate of Japan
• The Aztecs and Incas

References

• Diamond, Jared M. (2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking Books. ISBN 0-14-303655-6.

• Greer, John Michael. (2005). How Civilizations Fall: A Theory of Catabolic Collapse. Web accessible at http://www.xs4all.nl/~wtv/powerdown/greer.htm

• Homer-Dixon, Thomas. (2006). The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization. Washington DC: Island Press.

• Tainter, Joseph A. (1990). The Collapse of Complex Societies (1st paperback ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-38673-X.

• Toynbee, Arnold J. (1934-1961). A Study of History, Volumes I-XII. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• Wright, Ronald. (2004). A Short History of Progress. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 0-7867-1547-2.

See also

• Decline
• Diaspora
• End of civilization
• Entropy
• Global empire
• List of disasters
• Lost cities
• Medieval demography
• Overpopulation
• Peak oil
• Non-fiction works
  • Collapse (book) by Jared Diamond
  • A Study of History by Arnold J. Toynbee
  • The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter