Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CLXXXVIX–Problem Solving: Complexity, History, Sustainability

Tulum, Mexico (1986). Photo by author.

This Contemplation shares my thoughts on and a summary of an article by archaeologist Joseph Tainter that discusses societal problem solving’s complexity, history, and prospects for sustaining a society. It follows nicely from the four-part series I just completed regarding societal ‘collapse’ being primarily the result of stress surges following a prolonged period of diminishing returns in problem solving (See here: Part 1 (Website; Medium; Substack), 2 (Website;  Medium; Substack), 3 (Website; Medium; Substack), and 4 (Website; Medium; Substack)). 

Tainter’s focus in the paper is to better understand the problem-solving process so that societal ‘collapse’ is avoided. His goal is to identify problem-solving strategies that provide sustainable existence. One of the issues discussed is the human tendency to simplify complex issues and depend upon decision-making processes that minimise or ignore complexities. This results in a ‘solution’ that has only a tenuous connection to the ‘problem’ and eventually leads to system-wide consequences that may appear years/decades after the ‘solution’ is put into place.

While during and after reading the article (summarised below) I had some of the following thoughts. 

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It’s a common assertion by some that it is our ‘solutions’ to ‘problems’ that invariably lead to further problems that, in turn, require more problem solving. 

This is perhaps a consequence of the fact that our solutions are often in terms of furthering societal complexity and as a result of implementing them create secondary and tertiary issues that require their own problem solving.

It is likely also the outcome of the fact that our solutions tend to be focused on short-term/immediate results and we are less worried (if at all) about the longer-term consequences that arise from our problem solving. It doesn’t help this limited thinking that the ‘benefits’ of the solution are highlighted by those with a vested interest in seeing the solution implemented, and the possible negative qualities downplayed or ignored. This leads not only to the acceptance of the proposed solution by most but contributes to the belief that the problem has been solved and our problem-solving approach is always successful. Solutions work! 

When later negative consequences arise as a result of the solution put in place, they are not easily attributed to the earlier action/policy. Lag times between solutions and problems contribute to this perception as well, with supposed benefits occurring ‘immediately’ and some consequences not appearing for long periods of time–sometimes years/decades.

As Tainter points out in the article summarised below, it’s also often the case that solutions are only tenuously connected to the perceived problem they are supposedly addressing and thus not only are more problems created but the impacts of the problem persist, requiring further redress via more problem solving.

In addition to the above, it’s my belief that part of this exponential proliferation of societal problems occurs because the solutions used to address them are not only increasing complexity, tenuously connected to the problem, and focused upon short-term results, but often (if not always) a repercussion of the ruling elite taking advantage of the problem-/crisis-at-hand and leveraging it to support other agendas–especially the control/expansion of the wealth-generation/-extraction systems that provide their revenue streams and thus positions of power and prestige. This ultimately ends up in creating more problems as the solutions offered and carried out are only marginally addressing the issue-at-hand, as Tainter asserts. 

It is primarily in the marketing/spin of the solution by the mass media, governments, and associated businesses/industries (all the benefactors of the ‘solution’ put in place) that any policies/actions are fully and completely related to the problem. But in reality the solution is fundamentally the creation/expansion of a ‘racket’ that further enriches those who sit atop a society’s power and wealth structures. If the problem were actually solved, the monetary enrichment and the increase in social control often garnered by the elite via their ‘solutions’ would be stymied. And this is not what the ruling caste wishes to see happen.

There are of course a variety of additional reasons why any particular solution to a perceived problem leads to other problems that require other solutions. System complexity. Incomplete data/knowledge. Biased perspective. Blind spots. Groupthink. Etc..

Regardless of why solutions lead to even more problems, the issue for Tainter is that there appear to be three fundamental societal-level consequences/results of human problem solving: 

1. Simplification;
2. Further complexity;
3. ‘Collapse’.

It would appear that the most often pursued problem-solving strategy of furthering complexity to address issues tends to result in new problems that require even more complexity leading to a positive feedback loop: 

                   NEW PROBLEM(S)
                                              ↓                ↑
PROBLEM → SOLUTION(S) OF MORE COMPLEXITY

This pursuit of further complexity, however, requires evermore energy-resource subsidies. Of course (at least for those who acknowledge biogeophysical reality), this furtherance of complexity that relies upon continually increasing energy and other resources is a distinct issue on a planet with finite resources.

In the past, solutions of increased complexity had relatively minor impacts upon ecological systems and society–especially when their scale was relatively small. For example, riverine irrigation or the burning of biomass at a small scale did not result in massive ecological systems destruction, the overloading of planetary sinks, or major societal shifts. However, increasing the scale of even these basic ‘solutions’ can become problematic. 

From an environmental perspective, sinks may become overloaded resulting in planetary/regional boundaries being overshot–something we are witnessing in modern times as 8+ billion humans (and especially those in so-called ‘advanced’ economic societies) strive to exist and depend upon complex industrial technologies that require finite resources, especially hydrocarbons. From a sociopolitical perspective, large-scale irrigation projects require significant labour organisation, communication, and surplus-distribution institutions that can lead to increases in societal-level bureaucracies and increasing inequality.

Homo sapiens’ original lifestyle of nomadic hunting and gathering consisted of relatively limited complexity requiring minimal energy/resource subsidies to support it. It could be supported quite well with local, natural resources and human labour. It was a successful strategy for the overwhelming majority of our species’ existence. Environmental challenges and/or population pressures were met with minimal increases in technological and/or social complexity, and/or migration to un/underexploited regions–perhaps even the breaking off of small groups.

However, for the past 6000-12000 years, the primary problem-solving strategy of our species has become one of increasing complexity. This strategy unfortunately leads in the long run to negative impacts upon ‘sustainability’. In the moment of addressing immediate problems, long-term consequences tend to be ignored/denied as they are not of relevance in the here-and-now. Our default has become that  because of our ingenuity and technological prowess, at some future time some technological ‘breakthrough’ will ‘solve’ any new problems/issues that may arise. 

With a population performing at about minimal or close to basic sufficiency needs (e.g., hunting gathering), there existed a massive capacity to increase productivity with just human labour. Innovations (e.g., irrigation, draught animals, organisational institutions) attributed to human ingenuity could push productivity even higher and expansion over a number of years/decades/centuries could create a sense of such increases in complexity and technological ‘improvements’ being forever possible. Infinite growth on a finite planet IS entirely possible and not unreasonable from this perspective due to human ingenuity and technology. 

Any ‘problems’ are also completely ‘solvable’ and not anything to be concerned about. We are the ‘wise human’ or ‘thinking man’. We can do any and everything we can imagine. Look at us, we’re great!  [NOTE: from a psychological perspective our self-serving bias (part of attribution theory) tends to always attribute success to something internal–in this situation, our uniquely human ingenuity–while failures are the result of external factors.]

An important insight by Tainter that demonstrates a disconnect between our seeming self-congratulatory hubris that we can solve any problem is that: “with every victory over nature, the difficulty of achieving breakthroughs which lie ahead is increased”–classic diminishing returns on investments in complexity. I was reminded here of the ‘faith’ by so many in the energy transition sphere where almost all the success of shifting away from hydrocarbons to ‘renewables’ of some type rests on as-yet-to-be-hatched technological chickens and/or the scaling up of some current technologies that would require energy/resources beyond the capacity of our finite planet to provide.

This faith almost invariably ignores the impacts upon ecological systems of the continued resource extraction and processing needed for our complex, materials-based technologies. Some provide passing acknowledgement with the proviso that they are less problematic than hydrocarbons but this, in turn, ignores the significant hydrocarbon (and other finite resource) inputs required for scaling up the industrial technologies they are advocating and is blind to the multitude of variables (i.e., complexity) of the problem (actually predicament) at hand–this being almost always due to carbon tunnel vision: we just have to address carbon emissions and our complex society is ‘saved’.

The Byzantine ‘simplification’ that Tainter discusses is one of the rare instances of a society ‘voluntarily’ contracting–but its simplification was perhaps not truly voluntary/managed but demonstrated some adaptive responses to general ‘collapse’. An approach that some argue is the typical response of a society to issues rather than actual collapse: complex societies don’t ‘collapse’, they simplify in response to circumstances. This seems to me to be somewhat of a semantic argument and one I discussed in my previous Contemplation series. 

As I stated near the end of my last Contemplation: “…I wish to highlight the primary response typically pursued by the elite and that we are already bearing witness to, and will likely see much more of in the years ahead: opting to pursue increased complexity to address perceived problems.”

As Tainter points out in the article summarised below: a society pursuing a problem-solving strategy of increased complexity ends in ‘collapse’ if there is no energy subsidy available to sustain it. 

At this point in time, there is not only no scalable and ecologically-neutral energy subsidy waiting in the wings to save us and our complex societies from ourselves, but we have blown past the natural environmental carrying capacity of our planet thanks to the subsidies provided by hydrocarbons and rocketed into ecological overshoot where most of the planetary boundaries for sustainable living have been left far behind in the dust. 

This has but one inevitable near-term ending: societal ‘collapse’ (or ‘simplification’, if it makes you feel better to call it that). Only time will tell whether extinction accompanies our plight.

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Problem Solving: Complexity, History, Sustainability
Joseph A. Tainter
Population and Environment, Sep., 2000, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 3-41 

This article by archaeologist Joseph Tainter follows from his general thesis that human societies are at their basic functioning a problem-solving organisation which primarily uses the strategy of increasing complexity to address issues that arise. He argues that while such an approach can be quite successful in the short term, it is cumulatively detrimental to the sustainability of the society resulting eventually in ‘collapse’, simplification, or the pursuit of increasing complexity via increasing energy subsidies.

His goal is to better understand the development of our problem-solving strategies by studying examples through pre/history so that modern society can choose ‘solutions’ to problems that are ‘sustainable’ in nature. 

After outlining a variety of constraints  to the effectiveness and durability of institutional problem solving (e.g., environmental; structural–including other institutions; internal transaction efficiency; human cognition limits), he suggest that ‘solutions’ may often have only a tenuous connection with the problem and result in system-wide consequences that may appear years/decades after implemented.

Our societies tend to become more complex (more parts, types of parts, and integration of parts), especially so over the past 12,000 years (5000-6000 for state-level societies). There is a cost (in terms of resources, labour, etc.) to this but it has also provided utility in problem solving.

As an adaptive, problem-solving strategy, complexity investments can be effective initially when the easiest/cheapest solutions are used but this approach loses effectiveness over time as more difficult/expensive solutions are necessary–this is diminishing returns. As return on investments decrease, society becomes more vulnerable to collapse.

A great example arises in resource production where the easiest-to-acquire/-process/-distribute/-consume resources are initially used. As consumption increases and/or resource availability decreases, greater costs/effort must be used with non increase in returns. 

The same is true for knowledge production where productivity declines over time; i.e., each additional year of education past the first couple results in decreasing increases in productivity. Investments in more complex research, for example, grows exponentially while ‘progress’ rates do not, with each subsequent ‘breakthrough’ taking longer, costing more, and being less likely.

While the ‘solutions’ being pursued appear rational in the moment, mostly because costs and complexity are only slightly incremental, the cumulative and long-term impacts irreparably harm the systems involved.It is the cumulative nature of small increases in complexity and costs that cause negative impacts in the long term. As Tainter stresses, “[t]his is the key to understanding the development of unsupportable complexity: it grows by small steps , each necessary, each a reasonable solution to a problem.” (p. 19)

In using the Western Roman Empire as an example, Tainter points out that the economies of imperialism are such that initial subjugation provides the best returns (appropriated surpluses) but once governing costs are assumed such returns decline. These increased costs lead eventually to the need to devalue the currency to cover the growing shortfalls. This currency debasement led to insolvency and military funding issues, which resulted in military contraction and foreign invasion success. Domestic unrest also rose as living standards fell.

The response from the elites was to increase complexity by growing the governing bureaucracies, doubling the size of the military, increasing taxes, conscripting labour, and dictating occupations. The empire “became a coercive, omnipresent state that tabulated and amassed all resources for its own survival.” (p. 22)

As taxes became more burdensome, lands were abandoned with peasants seeking protection from wealthy landowners. Eventually negative feedback loops arose where lost provinces led to lost revenue that hurt military funding leading to more lost regions. The Roman military eventually disbanded, and the Germanic tribes the emperor was using overthrew him when they were not paid, In 476 A.D. the Western Roman Empire was officially no more.

Tainter also discusses the Early Byzantine Recovery episode where it was able to come back from near total collapse (at least until the Turks took Constantinople in 1453. Where the West’s emperors of the 3rd and 4th centuries responded to the crises via increased complexity, those of the East’s 7th and 8th centuries found a period of ‘simplification’ extended their society’s existence. 

Civic and military administrations were merged, cities contracted to fortified hilltops, education and literacy were scaled back to basics, and a class of peasant-soldiers arose–paid with land rather than a debased currency so long as they and their eldest male (and so on) provided military service. 

Finally, Tainter holds up the centuries-long military arms race of modern Europe as a classic example of diminishing returns on complexity (focusing upon the 1400-1815 time frame). For example, siege guns laid waste to the advantage of stone castles. This led to the development of defensive canons and fortified walls. These changes were expensive and prevented large militaries from forming but also led to more expensive siege methods. Despite such ongoing changes, the outcome was usually a stalemate. 

The most significant constraint was funding as complexity via technological innovations grew faster than revenue and the necessary resources to support it. To sustain this arms race, European states ended up drawing upon ever-larger segments of society, eventually using trade wealth and colonisation (via their resources) to fund their military adventures. 

The three examples Tainter draws upon show the basic outcomes to societal problem-solving: collapse (Western Roman Empire); simplification (Early Byzantine Recovery); and, growing complexity alongside energy subsidy growth (modern Europe). 

Tainter concludes that for state-level sustainability to be successful, research needs to focus upon complexity and attempts to identify problem-solving strategies that are sustainable. Modern societies  have become increasingly complex the past couple of centuries and especially since the discovery of hydrocarbon energy subsidies. But this subsidy is waning and will come to an end in the near future and it is our understanding of problem-solving systems and the three outcomes that might help to inform how we respond.

We can continue to grow complexity while experiencing diminishing returns, and proceed towards collapse. We can simplify our existence and extend our societies. Or, we can grow our complexities while hoping we discover an energy subsidy…

The longer summary notes of the article can be found here.

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You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially Catton’s Overshoot and Tainter’s Collapse: see here.

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