In the several years leading up to the launching of this blog, I spent a great deal of time reading and stewing about our current difficulties and trying to place them in some analytically coherent big picture. One of the books I happened upon that made a big impression on me was Joseph Tainter’s
This is one of your more fascinating essays, rescuing and elaborating on an obscure (at least to me) scholar's elaboration of how civilizations rise and fall. The central theory makes intuitive sense. You could brought in Mancur Olson's Rise and Decline of Nations into the picture because it shares essentially the same thesis. That the top suffers from sclerosis due to the proliferation of interests who gum up the system. Tainter's theis is similar. In Olson's world, sclerosis is broken up by a major shock to the system -- war, or massively disruptive innovation. Could AI be that disruptor now? I will be waiting to see what mechanism of salvation you lay out for us next. Always great to read your stuff
Brink, I have couple of thoughts. First of all thank you for bring Tainter to my attention, I was not aware of him before. He articulates a problem with bureaucracy's I have struggled with for a while. The decreased ROI for increased complexity of bureaucracy and how to determine the correct size of an organization. I also appreciate your relating his three insights (1) social complexity is costly; (2) while social complexity can bring great benefits, it can also go too far and impose costs out of proportion to those benefits; (3) in the face of excessive costs of complexity, the equilibrating move is to unwind complexity and shed costs, to the current day issues.
While I agree with almost everything you say, I have one small quibble. You seem to conflate capitalism with consumerism. I agree with your statement “One fundamental reason for capitalism’s difficulties in promoting more widespread flourishing is the steadily diminishing nexus between economic growth and wellbeing.” but I believe that the reason is consumerism. The deliberate manipulation of peoples desires to encourage the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. This is not the same as capitalism, and is not even a necessary side effect but rather the result of greed. We do not even need to eliminate consumerism, but we do need to find a way to seriously constrain it. You said, “Capitalism is struggling because it has raised expectations it can’t meet for most people.” I believe that consumerism is what is raising those expectations.
I particularly agree with you statement, “Since most people aren’t flourishing within the confines of the system, we need to redirect some of our resources and innovative capacity toward helping people achieve greater social and economic independence from the system. We need to reorient the pursuit of happiness so that more of it occurs without reliance on the market or the state.” If we are able to do this we will we will reduce the attractiveness of consumerism, and reduce the ability to manipulate peoples desires. I am am anxiously awaiting your next essay.
Still a must-read for anyone interested in whether and why a complex society may collapse. For he is partly right that societies are problem-solving systems, that advances in complexity may improve problem-solving, and that “investment in sociopolitical complexity as a problem-solving response often reaches a point of declining marginal returns,” such that a society ceases to progress and heads toward collapse.
But I now think Tainter’s model is so flawed it’s misleading:
— It does not distinguish between complexity and complicatedness. He sometimes says complexity is increasing when it is complicatedness that’s increasing, not complexity
— It presumes that evolutionary progress proceeds from simplicity to complexity, and that simplicity decreases as complexity increases. Not so. When working properly, increases in complexity makes some challenges easier to address (e.g., market transactions, network coordination).
— It barely recognize that increases in complexity mean learning to benefit from the rise of new forms of organization and evolution (four major ones being tribes, then hierarchical institutions, next markets, and lately information-age networks.). He regard states mainly as entities for regulating class relations, whereas a deeper purpose is to regulate relations among different organizational realms/sectors: e.g., civil society, government, market economy, etc.).
— It recognizes that improvements in information and communications may ease matters; but it does not recognize that those four major forms of organization, though all present at the beginning, have emerged and matured at different rates in different historical eras. Also, each form has required a different, more advanced information-and-communications revolution in order to emerge and mature (from oral, to writing/printing, to electric, to digital).
— All of which means that there is a way out of its/his spiral view of collapse. As a society advances over time, the challenges it faces may become too complicated to resolve given the level of complexity that society has attained. This may be especially so if a society has made great progress under its existing level of complexity, such that the progress itself has generated critical new challenges which its existing level of complexity is no long suited to managing. However, if this occurs in an era when a new form of organization is emerging, accompanied by a new information technology revolution, and if actors within that society are adept at figuring out how to use the new form and technology, then that society, instead of declining and collapsing, may head into a major evolutionary transition toward next-level complexity that brings increased returns for quite some time. I am hoping this applies to America at our current juncture.
Fantastic post, Brink. As a technologist, I have no idea where you're going with the "breakthrough technologies now visible on the horizon can help us shed the excesses of social complexity and reclaim those habits of the mind and heart on which flourishing depends." I can guess, but I feel like my imagination is failing me a bit. But that makes me excited. I've been mobilized by Shannon Valor's call to "[rebuild] today’s technological imagination... infusing it with the full legacy of humane knowledge and creative vision", and I feel like you're pointing that direction. Excited to see what you sketch.
I hve wondered about the cycle of collapse and possible renewal for some time. Thank you for elucidating the concept very clearly and taking the time to research the matter.
How does this posited dynamic interact with, or compare to, Turchin's concept of elite overproduction? How might we distinguish the effect of a general overcomplexification with the more specific effect of too many people thinking of themselves as rightful elites?
Re: “If you look at the United States as a whole, there’s no connection between growth and happiness: according to one recent study, average happiness in the United States did not rise at all between 1972 and 2006, during which time real GDP per capita doubled.”
Isn't this just an instance of the Easterlin paradox? My take on this is that the happiness metrics are not suitable for this purpose: they measure relative, not absolute happiness or well-being, in a way that is continually recalibrated over time, and so they can't show long-run increases.
Brink - The level of thinking and the clarity of your analyses in your essays is an inspiration. Thank you for every long hour you are spending in order to share your thinking. If I may say so, there is a common theme that I am finding in reading them and striving to think through them. It is “the theme of we.” For example in this essay, “Since most people aren’t flourishing within the confines of the system, we need to redirect some of our resources and innovative capacity toward helping people achieve greater social and economic independence from the system. We need to reorient the pursuit of happiness so that more of it occurs without reliance on the market or the state.” My questions here are, “who are we?” and once defined, “what are our available means of action to accomplish the work necessary to reduce the risks of decline and promote the flourishing you reference?”
I can't recall how I stumbled on this newsletter, but I'm so glad I did - it's consistently original and thought-provoking. I've actually followed your work on and off for many years, having worked in trade policy in DC back in the day (meaning twenty-some years ago). Seeing thinkers' views evolve over time is fascinating. Many thanks for sharing this journey!
What an interesting article. Interesting to me right now because I’m finally reading George Orwell’s famous 1984. Tainter was born close to the time the book was written, and just a couple years after I was born. I can’t imagine where this thought is going but looking forward to the next article.
This is one of your more fascinating essays, rescuing and elaborating on an obscure (at least to me) scholar's elaboration of how civilizations rise and fall. The central theory makes intuitive sense. You could brought in Mancur Olson's Rise and Decline of Nations into the picture because it shares essentially the same thesis. That the top suffers from sclerosis due to the proliferation of interests who gum up the system. Tainter's theis is similar. In Olson's world, sclerosis is broken up by a major shock to the system -- war, or massively disruptive innovation. Could AI be that disruptor now? I will be waiting to see what mechanism of salvation you lay out for us next. Always great to read your stuff
Hmmmmmmmmmmm................... (I hope that’s an OK comment. It was meant in a positive way.)
Brink, I have couple of thoughts. First of all thank you for bring Tainter to my attention, I was not aware of him before. He articulates a problem with bureaucracy's I have struggled with for a while. The decreased ROI for increased complexity of bureaucracy and how to determine the correct size of an organization. I also appreciate your relating his three insights (1) social complexity is costly; (2) while social complexity can bring great benefits, it can also go too far and impose costs out of proportion to those benefits; (3) in the face of excessive costs of complexity, the equilibrating move is to unwind complexity and shed costs, to the current day issues.
While I agree with almost everything you say, I have one small quibble. You seem to conflate capitalism with consumerism. I agree with your statement “One fundamental reason for capitalism’s difficulties in promoting more widespread flourishing is the steadily diminishing nexus between economic growth and wellbeing.” but I believe that the reason is consumerism. The deliberate manipulation of peoples desires to encourage the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. This is not the same as capitalism, and is not even a necessary side effect but rather the result of greed. We do not even need to eliminate consumerism, but we do need to find a way to seriously constrain it. You said, “Capitalism is struggling because it has raised expectations it can’t meet for most people.” I believe that consumerism is what is raising those expectations.
I particularly agree with you statement, “Since most people aren’t flourishing within the confines of the system, we need to redirect some of our resources and innovative capacity toward helping people achieve greater social and economic independence from the system. We need to reorient the pursuit of happiness so that more of it occurs without reliance on the market or the state.” If we are able to do this we will we will reduce the attractiveness of consumerism, and reduce the ability to manipulate peoples desires. I am am anxiously awaiting your next essay.
Wonderful essay. Lots to think about here. Thank you for taking the time.
Still a must-read for anyone interested in whether and why a complex society may collapse. For he is partly right that societies are problem-solving systems, that advances in complexity may improve problem-solving, and that “investment in sociopolitical complexity as a problem-solving response often reaches a point of declining marginal returns,” such that a society ceases to progress and heads toward collapse.
But I now think Tainter’s model is so flawed it’s misleading:
— It does not distinguish between complexity and complicatedness. He sometimes says complexity is increasing when it is complicatedness that’s increasing, not complexity
— It presumes that evolutionary progress proceeds from simplicity to complexity, and that simplicity decreases as complexity increases. Not so. When working properly, increases in complexity makes some challenges easier to address (e.g., market transactions, network coordination).
— It barely recognize that increases in complexity mean learning to benefit from the rise of new forms of organization and evolution (four major ones being tribes, then hierarchical institutions, next markets, and lately information-age networks.). He regard states mainly as entities for regulating class relations, whereas a deeper purpose is to regulate relations among different organizational realms/sectors: e.g., civil society, government, market economy, etc.).
— It recognizes that improvements in information and communications may ease matters; but it does not recognize that those four major forms of organization, though all present at the beginning, have emerged and matured at different rates in different historical eras. Also, each form has required a different, more advanced information-and-communications revolution in order to emerge and mature (from oral, to writing/printing, to electric, to digital).
— All of which means that there is a way out of its/his spiral view of collapse. As a society advances over time, the challenges it faces may become too complicated to resolve given the level of complexity that society has attained. This may be especially so if a society has made great progress under its existing level of complexity, such that the progress itself has generated critical new challenges which its existing level of complexity is no long suited to managing. However, if this occurs in an era when a new form of organization is emerging, accompanied by a new information technology revolution, and if actors within that society are adept at figuring out how to use the new form and technology, then that society, instead of declining and collapsing, may head into a major evolutionary transition toward next-level complexity that brings increased returns for quite some time. I am hoping this applies to America at our current juncture.
Fantastic post, Brink. As a technologist, I have no idea where you're going with the "breakthrough technologies now visible on the horizon can help us shed the excesses of social complexity and reclaim those habits of the mind and heart on which flourishing depends." I can guess, but I feel like my imagination is failing me a bit. But that makes me excited. I've been mobilized by Shannon Valor's call to "[rebuild] today’s technological imagination... infusing it with the full legacy of humane knowledge and creative vision", and I feel like you're pointing that direction. Excited to see what you sketch.
https://open.substack.com/pub/sgreenleaf/p/ultrasociety-how-10000-years-of-war-15-11-27?r=2cw20&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web On Turchin's ULTRASOCIETY.
Yes, how do we provide people with agency and dignity in a post-industrial society? I look forward to your next essay in this thread!
I hve wondered about the cycle of collapse and possible renewal for some time. Thank you for elucidating the concept very clearly and taking the time to research the matter.
How does this posited dynamic interact with, or compare to, Turchin's concept of elite overproduction? How might we distinguish the effect of a general overcomplexification with the more specific effect of too many people thinking of themselves as rightful elites?
Re: “If you look at the United States as a whole, there’s no connection between growth and happiness: according to one recent study, average happiness in the United States did not rise at all between 1972 and 2006, during which time real GDP per capita doubled.”
Isn't this just an instance of the Easterlin paradox? My take on this is that the happiness metrics are not suitable for this purpose: they measure relative, not absolute happiness or well-being, in a way that is continually recalibrated over time, and so they can't show long-run increases.
Brink - The level of thinking and the clarity of your analyses in your essays is an inspiration. Thank you for every long hour you are spending in order to share your thinking. If I may say so, there is a common theme that I am finding in reading them and striving to think through them. It is “the theme of we.” For example in this essay, “Since most people aren’t flourishing within the confines of the system, we need to redirect some of our resources and innovative capacity toward helping people achieve greater social and economic independence from the system. We need to reorient the pursuit of happiness so that more of it occurs without reliance on the market or the state.” My questions here are, “who are we?” and once defined, “what are our available means of action to accomplish the work necessary to reduce the risks of decline and promote the flourishing you reference?”
I can't recall how I stumbled on this newsletter, but I'm so glad I did - it's consistently original and thought-provoking. I've actually followed your work on and off for many years, having worked in trade policy in DC back in the day (meaning twenty-some years ago). Seeing thinkers' views evolve over time is fascinating. Many thanks for sharing this journey!
Fabulous essay. Was not familiar with Tainter’s work.
What an interesting article. Interesting to me right now because I’m finally reading George Orwell’s famous 1984. Tainter was born close to the time the book was written, and just a couple years after I was born. I can’t imagine where this thought is going but looking forward to the next article.
Have you read “the great wave” by David Hackett Fischer and the work of Peter Turchin?