Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh CCLX–
Elite Responses to the Architecture of Collapse, Part 1
Have you noticed that when a society begins to falter, to move sideways, its ruling elite rarely if ever respond by looking in the mirror and asking, “What are we doing wrong?” No–instead they ask, “How can we maintain our positions of power and privilege in the face of this latest crisis?” This question, and the patterns of actions that follow, have been repeated since the first large, complex societies arose some 6,000 years ago. Drilling into these patterns is the subject of my next few Contemplations.
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As I was working through my series on the Architecture of Collapse the past couple of months, I began to think about the type of responses our ruling elite tend to make in the face of diminishing returns on investments in complexity. I would argue that this is an important avenue of thought to explore given that their political- and economic-policy decisions have implications for our societies and ourselves.
I believe this is important to do as it may provide some insights to inform how we as individuals, families, and communities might prepare for the near-term future. These will not be prescriptions for what we must do. I have no certainty about what the future will bring. Accurately predicting complex systems–particularly ones where humans are involved–with their non-linear feedback loops and emergent phenomena is impossible in my opinion. The best I can offer is an analysis of the past and an outline of the patterns that appear to recur.
Regardless of one’s beliefs regarding societal collapse, I believe it’s informative and valuable to examine how a society’s elite tend to respond to the diminishing returns that societies invariably encounter; responses that the historical evidence suggests increase and accelerate the probability of societal collapse. This analysis, I hope, will provide avenues to explore and help inform some choices that may aid in personal and community resilience, but–as I state in my “warning” at the end of each Contemplation–“There’s no guarantee [such actions] will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from [their] pursuit.”
I am going to go back to my standard source for my interpretive lens as to what tends to occur in societies as they face diminishing returns on investments in complexity: archaeologist Joseph Tainter’s thesis laid out in The Collapse of Complex Societies. This is set to be a multi-part series of Contemplations, so let’s get into it.
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Problem-Solving Organisations and Diminishing Returns
In The Collapse of Complex Societies, Tainter argues that “Complex societies are problem-solving organizations, in which more parts, different kinds of parts, more social differentiation, more inequality, and more kinds of centralization and control emerge as circumstances require” (p. 37). He goes on to provide the two main theories as to how such societies emerged–the Integrationist and Conflict theories–but regardless of which one is closer to reality, they both acknowledge the role of legitimising activities by a society’s ruling elite to reinforce and sustain their positions of power and prestige; these activities tend to consist of symbolic manipulation and coercive sanctions. The elite tend to prefer symbolic manipulation over coercive sanctions since they are less costly and found to be more effective; but they are not afraid to use coercive sanctions and will do so when they feel they are required.
Diminishing returns arise because the easiest and least-costly solutions are implemented first. But as societies expand, those solutions become more costly and difficult to put in place. Problems compound and solutions invariably lead to additional challenges that need addressing, and responses tend to be layered upon each other–initial fixes remain while new ones expand upon them. All of these solutions require resources, especially energy, and with each new one, the costs of carrying them out increases; especially as they get more complicated and more difficult to implement.
Given the observation that societies are first and foremost problem-solving organisations, society–led by its ruling elite–tends to double-down on problem-solving strategies in the face of diminishing returns on investments. This approach, unfortunately, results in the acceleration of the fundamental issue of declining benefits in the face of increased costs. Declining benefits while costs are increasing typically lead to social unrest. As Tainter notes, a society can live with diminishing returns for a long, long time, but eventually members begin to find the costs too much to bear and begin to abandon their support for the systems that make up a society.
The ruling elite tend to be trapped by their own success and respond to diminishing returns on investments in complexity in somewhat expected and recurrent ways. When faced with the societal unrest that accompanies increased costs but decreasing benefits, the elite typically respond by increasing the legitimisation activities that aid in the maintenance of their privileged positions but also increase repressive social control mechanisms.
What I mean by “success” here is that the strategies employed by the elite help them to sustain their positions and, at least on the surface and for the short-term, address the issue-at-hand. In the longer term, however, these strategies serve to accelerate simplification since they increase costs but fail to increase net surplus. It is a feedback loop that almost always ends in collapse since the investments require resource inputs and eat into surpluses; collapse can occur when a stress surge takes place that might normally be dealt with via societal surplus but cannot because these have been eaten up by attempts to sustain the unsustainable. Alternatively, Tainter suggests that for collapse to occur, sometimes all that is needed is the passage of time.
Defense of perks. Addition of more complexity. Display of increasingly inflexible behaviours. These are the common pathways chosen by the elite when facing diminishing returns.
Based upon historical patterns, it appears that the elite would rather see society-at-large fail and the environment turned into a wasteland than voluntarily give up their positions of power, wealth, and prestige. Whether these patterns are reflective of the conscious preference of the ruling elite, institutional inertia, or a combination of the two, the outcome appears to be the same: resistance by the elite to simplification until the issue is forced upon them. They are an entrenched interest group that will protect themselves above all else. I don’t suggest this is out of malice necessarily; I suggest it is based on observable actions and policies throughout the last 6000+ years of large, complex societies.
Being in positions of power and influence, when diminishing returns are encountered the ruling elite seek to add additional bureaucracy and/or regulation, and look for greater control of the masses. They also seek to expand wealth-generation activities through taxes, trade, novel technologies, and pushing to grow the industries that provide their revenue streams.
As complexity increases and solutions to problems are pursued, it becomes increasingly difficult to adapt to new stressors and change course. Society becomes trapped in its increased complexity and the exponential increase in problems as solutions inevitably lead to more problems requiring more solutions that result in more problems–the classic progress trap that archaeologist Ronald Wright describes in A Short History of Progress.
As time passes, the problem→solution→problems→solutions→etc. course of action becomes more costly in terms of resource inputs and returns on these investments in terms of benefits for society decrease. These diminishing returns lead to a number of responses by the ruling elite who not only don’t wish to see their wealth and power diminish, but need to keep the increasingly distressed populace somewhat appeased.
The material and written evidence over the past few millennia suggest the elite have at least five general responses that keep recurring, suggesting that they may be structural defaults. When faced with diminishing returns, these responses are the common pathways a society’s governing institutions follow. I look into each of these responses in much greater detail in the subsequent parts of this series of Contemplations, drawing on the historical and archaeological evidence that shows their use. For now, the general pattern is laid out directly below.
Rather than decrease their own consumption and wealth, the elite tend to squeeze the masses even tighter. Increased taxes, tribute, or corvee labour have been the standard approach here. This is only a short-term fix, however, since problem-solving continues to be necessary particularly in terms of state military and administration to hold the society and its various layers of complexity together. Unfortunately, this often leads to an erosion of the economic base as costs continue to rise which necessitates a greater squeeze on the populace. The catch-22 here is that the elite and masses both depend upon this base, but with the masses becoming poorer and agricultural surpluses being reduced, society begins to experience occasional rebellions against the ruling elite.
Somewhere along this path, the ruling elite begin to invest more heavily in ideological justification for their rule and decisions. Such narrative management has always been present, particularly in terms of a state religion and the construction of monumental architecture, but as unrest grows the elite strive to demonstrate they are addressing concerns through such actions as building larger and more impressive state architecture, holding more elaborate ceremonies, and promoting hyper-patriotic beliefs. This, Tainter notes, is a significantly costly response that does not address dwindling resource surpluses but actually accelerates their consumption.
Another often-turned-to policy action is to expand militarily to gain resources. External conquest has often been a go-to response for large, complex societies whose resource needs have grown dramatically but whose resource base has encountered diminishing returns. Once again, this is a costly endeavour as it creates new borders to defend and new territories to administer. When overextended, this can result in catastrophic military failures whose resource use far exceeds the resources gained–if any are gained at all.
As failures build, the elite begin to look for scapegoats, not wishing to look in the mirror and consider their ill-advised policies and actions. When the vilification of external others is not enough, the gaze turns on domestic targets with minorities, heretics, and/or political rivals being blamed. This turn inwards can often lead to purges, civil war, and/or forced migrations of specific groups. None of the underlying resource constraints are solved through this approach, however, and can actually result in the destruction of human capital, disrupted trade networks, and increased resource consumption.
Increasingly, societies have turned to innovation via technology to fix what ails society. This has run the gamut from expanded irrigation systems to deeper mines to electrification to artificial intelligence. All of these technologies aim to boost societal production but typically end up costing society more than is produced by them because of the increasing cost in terms of resources and the additional layers of complexity they add compared to earlier methods. Massive irrigation for agriculture as opposed to natural rain-fed food production may have helped build a larger and more dependable system–at least in the short term–but it required constant communal labour and centralised organisation, both costly endeavours. Deeper mines may have continued to produce the wanted material but at a steeper cost, with lower quality, and result in massively larger waste streams–to say little of what could be continued dependence upon a finite resource.
The Elite Trap and Its Consequences
The responses that the elite favour are not independent of one another but tend to reinforce each other. For example: extraction from the masses helps to fund military expansion, with ideology justifying both of these; attention on failed policies can be deflected through the scapegoating of others–foreign and/or domestic; and technological fixes allow difficult choices to be avoided or delayed, helping to make it appear the elite are acting on behalf of the masses. All of these form a self-reinforcing cycle that actually accelerates society’s decline even more quickly should just one of these responses have been chosen.
It’s worth noting that these responses are successful in buying time for the elite and their privileges. They are failures, however, in that they contribute to eroding the societal surpluses that serve to support the various complexities. These responses, then, mean success for the ruling elite but failure for society-at-large; and they actively exacerbate issues and increase the risk for eventual collapse.
I should emphasise here that these five responses are not the only logical options; the elite could choose to simplify voluntarily, by reducing their consumption, dismantling the many layers of bureaucracy, and redistributing societal surpluses in a more just manner. Historically, however, the elite rarely choose anything aside from the responses I am going to discuss.
The elite gravitate towards these five general responses since they have been proven to work in the past; they are the go-to ones that are completely rational from the ruling caste’s perspective. By the time they are put in place, however, they tend to accelerate the decline since they add costs and further centralisation at a time when the opposite is needed. Voluntary simplification would be the most rational and effective response, but it’s next to impossible for these elites to act against their own self-interest and give up power, disband their bureaucracies, and redistribute wealth–not because they’re uniquely selfish so much as because their positions are structurally dependent on the complexity that they would need to abandon. The power, wealth, and prestige of the elite are embedded in the hierarchies, networks, and systems of society; dismantling these is akin to removing the foundation that sustains them. This is a feature of the system that they are dependent upon, not necessarily a failure of character.
For my part, I find the evidence compelling that a significant simplification–collapse, if you will–of our global, industrial civilisation is the most likely outcome of these patterns. I cannot be absolutely certain, but I am as certain as I can be about the future of this current experiment in large, complex societies. Regardless of the ultimate cause or causes, modernity will in all likelihood undergo a major simplification. But I am not striving to convince anyone of that in this series of Contemplations; rather, I aim to illuminate the elite responses to diminishing returns that tip the balance towards collapse. Whether you share my conclusion or not, the pattern of responses that the elite tend to use is worth understanding.
It may seem like an academic exercise to some, this desire to understand these responses, but I would counter that it’s useful to anticipate the type of policies and social dynamics that may emerge in the shadow of very impactful diminishing returns and the pressures that will mount for our ruling elite as social unrest increases due to a loss of benefits in the face of increasing costs. Such anticipation may help inform personal and community resilience-building–the ultimate aim of this series.
The remainder of this Contemplation series will serve to dive more deeply into these responses, provide some historical examples of their use, and explore what they could suggest for their application in our modern world. Part 2 will explore the first response listed above: Squeezing the Masses Even Tighter. This is one of the most common responses by the ruling elites, being the one easiest to implement and easiest to justify to the masses.
Special Offer
If you have made it to the end of this Contemplation, I have an offer for you. Send me an email at olduvaitrilogy@gmail.com requesting a copy of Part 1 of my trilogy and I’ll fire off a PDF of it to you for your “fictional” reading pleasure. If you like the beginning of the tale, please consider ordering the trilogy here: Purchase Book(s) — Olduvai.ca.
What is going to be my standard WARNING/ADVICE going forward and that I have reiterated in various ways before this:
Only time will tell how this all unfolds but there’s nothing wrong with preparing for the worst by ‘collapsing now to avoid the rush’ and pursuing self-sufficiency. By this I mean removing as many dependencies on the Matrix as is possible and making do, locally. And if one can do this without negative impacts upon our fragile ecosystems or do so while creating more resilient ecosystems, all the better.
Building community (maybe even just household) resilience to as high a level as possible seems prudent given the uncertainties of an unpredictable future. There’s no guarantee it will ensure ‘recovery’ after a significant societal stressor/shock but it should increase the probability of it and that, perhaps, is all we can ‘hope’ for from its pursuit.
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You can also find a variety of resources, particularly my summary notes for a handful of texts, especially William Catton’s Overshoot and Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies: see here.