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Surviving a Reduction in Social Complexity
Posted Dec 17, 2008 by Richard Heinberg
The literature on societal collapse has expanded in timely fashion in the past couple of years, with the publication of Jared Diamond's best-selling Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed; Thomas Homer-Dixon's widely praised The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization; John Michael Greer's illuminating The Long Descent: A User's Guide to the End of the Industrial Age; and Dmitri Orlov's hugely entertaining Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects.
All of these stand on the shoulders of Joseph Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies, published back in 1988 and still the standard work on the subject.
Tainter describes the development of societal complexity as a strategy for solving problems (too many people, not enough food, warlike neighbors, changing climate, and so on). But investments in complexity yield diminishing returns, so eventually the strategy always fails and the society must simplify again. This simplification typically manifests as political and economic crisis, abandonment of urban centers, declining population, or war.
Complexity costs energy, and so complexity emerges only in societies that have energy to spare: at a minimum, agricultural surpluses, but better yet forests to cut or fossil fuels to mine or pump. One of the reasons that returns on complexity begin to decline is that growth in exploitation of energy sources cannot be sustained: soils erode, forests disappear, or—could it really happen?—fossil fuels deplete.
Because fossil fuels have given us such an enormous energy subsidy, we industrial humans have been able to elevate societal complexity to an art form. It takes a little perspective to appreciate this, because we take it so much for granted.
Ultimately, we humans are all just big omnivorous mammals. Without the ability to make or understand language, we would each get up in the morning and simply start milling around looking for food. With the emergence of language, starting a few tens of thousands of years ago, we figured out how to cooperate in strategic ways to kill large animals, organize seasonal migrations, and otherwise improve our survival prospects. This was the very beginning of societal complexity, and the energy cost was minimal compared to the payoff.
Today we get up in the morning and . . . well, here the story diverges in millions of different ways. We have jobs and careers. Some of us commute to offices or factories. Some people have jobs building or maintaining the cars we drive. Other people have jobs reading the news we listen to on the radio as we navigate the freeway. I could go on endlessly. The web is global in extent and dizzying in detail. No single individual can comprehend more than a small segment of the entire structure, so massive is its scale and so multiply interconnected are its billions of components.
It takes linked systems of money creation and distribution, manufacturing, transportation, resource extraction, and regulation to keep all of this going.
And it all costs enormous amounts of energy to maintain.
As energy becomes more scarce and expensive, society will simplify itself. This much is clear. The questions that bedevil us: How will that simplification occur?, and, How simple will society become?
In the current global economic meltdown, we can see early symptoms of societal simplification. Millions of jobs are being lost. Complicated investment schemes have gone bust. Industries are downsizing. But it's clear we are only at the beginning of the process.
Everyone's fears for the social system are ultimately personal: in the worst case, instead of getting up in the morning and finding our way within a functioning collective hive of organized activity, we might end up just milling around looking for something to eat. But with almost seven billion of us milling, we would be bumping into one another eyeing the same nuts and berries.
Thus as fossil fuels deplete, as water becomes more scarce, and as climate changes, it is essential that we humans make a plan for how to simplify our society with minimal destruction of the planet and of one another. The project is made difficult by the fact that most of us are completely unaware that this is what we must do: we labor instead under the belief that our current problems can be solved with ever more complexity in the forms of technology (genetically modified crops and hybrid cars) and government bailouts for failing companies.
Ironically, the process of simplification is likely to go best if we can organize it—for example, we need to train millions of new food producers who can grow with reduced or no chemical and fuel inputs. This might seem to mean the addition of one more layer of complexity. But all that's needed really is a redirection of priorities within aspects of the existing system. We already have all the institutions we need (indeed, we probably have too many); we just need to change their messaging.
Yet no overarching governmental effort can fully succeed in organizing the simplification process, because government is part of what must be simplified. Much if not most of the transition must be negotiated within the minds and through the habits of individual human beings, as they discover that what they have been doing simply doesn't work any longer and that they must do something else.
It's going to be a big adjustment for everyone. But we needn't end up milling around aimlessly if we begin talking and negotiating about the transition now, rather than waiting until our only option is to fight over nuts and berries.
Get The End of Growth http://www.postcarbon.org/eog | Watch the animation Who Killed Economic Growth? http://bit.ly/whokilledgrowth
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20 comments
Don't debate - get underway with the conversion
From: Charles Cresson Wood, Oct 26, 2009 09:14 PM
This forum unfortunately has apparently fallen into one of the traps found in a lot of the peak oil discussions - arguing about specifically what will happen, exactly how it will show up, whether peak oil is real, etc. Notice how our power and focus has been so quickly diverted by the clearly off-topic post of Charles Barton. We could have been, more constructively, responding to Richard Heinberg's insightful piece, which, as I read it, is asking us to consider what simplified functionality in our society looks like.
So much of the broad outlines of the near future are clear, and we don't need to argue about them: (a) we will have vastly less petroleum at our disposal, (b) we won't have time or resources to convert to renewable systems so as to live the same standard of living, (c) we won't be organizing this conversion effort through the Federal government which is hopelessly tied in with special interests like the oil industry, etc. It's time for action, not endless debate, as George W. Bush has encouraged with his statements about global warming (such as "it still needs more research").
For example, as Richard Heinberg implies, it's time to change what we are teaching our young people in college, so that they will be prepared for the new post-peak future. Training them to be stockbrokers, lawyers, and other useless occupations of the society that is dying is a grand waste of resources and talent. But what skills should be taught and by who? Who will have the guts to change the curriculum at an existing university so that it then teaches post-peak skills?
Likewise, how will we pressure Obama into paying public attention to the serious and worsening oil situation? These, and many others, are questions of action that must now be addressed -- not more "is it really going to happen?" or "is it really going to be that bad?" questions. I suggest that we ignore the people with these distracting questions, instead devoting our time to the action-oriented conversion effort that must be undertaken right away.
carrying capacity
From: Mihai, Mar 15, 2009 01:42 PM
actually should have read 1.5 bln, i.e. one and a half billion people
Social complexity
From: Mihai, Mar 7, 2009 01:20 PM
Social Complexity is driven by energy. Agriculture, coal, oil, nuclear and any other ways of importing energy into society have increased complexity. There may also be matter and information imported though energy is the prime mover.
The human body complexity is driven by energy too. If calories intake is higher that expenditure the person will end up overweight. He will enter a reinforcing feedback cycle of cravings and overeating that will make him obese. From the stock-flow point of view, this feedback will increase flows through certain channels thus changing the distribution of stocks in the body: the percentage of muscle mass is reduced, of fat is growing, of partly-digested faecal matter also growing. These are unnatural imbalances that are not easily sustainable without import of further resources. This is when the obese person becomes very high maintenance: working becomes difficult to impossible, while food and medical costs rise.
He will go on to adopt deliberate ignorance or flawed or narrow minded mentalities (people have to eat, eh?) that justify his behaviour (that’s human nature, eh?) Fortunately an obese person can always outsource wisdom (from a nutritionist for instance) and turn his life around.
Can Humankind outsource similar wisdom ? Only if you believe in Divine inspiration and that is only for the selected few. Some of the flawed mentalities we have developed recently are: individualism, social Darwinism, perpetual economic growth, “we are not too many people on Earth”, “resources are not a problem - price mechanism will take care of the correct distribution”, “technology will solve all problems”, “all we need is nuclear fusion”, “we won’t die off, we are special” etc.
As the velocities of molecules in a heated mass of gas become more unevenly distributed with increased temperature so is society by all sorts of criteria: wealth and income, good character, responsibility and ethics, technological knowledge, employment, health condition and Body Mass Index, social and spiritual values, and all these imbalances are aspects of increased social complexity. To sustain such imbalances the governments will raise taxation to be able to fund increasing needs for: health care, law enforcement and prisons, victims’ compensation, unemployment, futile efforts to educate a growing number of uninterested youths, to fight a war or to maintain peace. And all that goes reasonably well for as long as there are still enough resources, such as oil. But when energy becomes scarce (because of speculation or peak oil itself) this seemingly small fluctuation triggers the big-time “sand pile avalanche” which nobody can stop. Because nobody tries to stop it, everybody is busy trying to survive or thrive and in the short run will do things that increase the avalanche effects.
This is a simplifying process that will bring Humankind closer to the carrying capacity of the Earth (which could be around 15 billion people). Simplifying processes in all living systems inevitably involve intrinsic frugality and death.
complexity
From: Dr. Jeffrey Portland, Jan 10, 2009 12:41 AM
There might seem to be complexity in every situation. Though, there's got to be a point to start a transition in every means. Greater adjustment if the objective is simplification.
Although it seems sometimes
From: student, Jan 1, 2009 02:55 PM
Although it seems sometimes as though the fundamental problem is one of (viably usable) energy, and its impending scarcity relative to peak oil, I am leaning toward the notion that the root problem is that masses of human beings prefer death and destruction, and a slow suicide than to desire the radical and fundamental shift of understanding required to live in harmony with reality. Aetherometry (aetherometry.com) has been in existence for many years now and how come it is not taken seriously? If there are scientists out there (not ones funded by fascist regimes) pioneering an understanding of energy that allows us to utilize the energy of space for technological purposes (with no pollutant byproducts), with repeatable experiments, and sound theoretical development - not to mention patented over-unity devices - then why is it that humanity is still hell bent on self destruction? Its like the masses of religious fanatics who would sooner die for an abstract notion of "God" than to live and let go of their festering hatred of difference. I spent years as an idealist thinking that all people needed was to see the solution and that they would then make the necessary changes to live a life more aligned with reality, but now I am convinced that humanity is sick, and that the suicidal fascism, so grotesquely manifest in the Nazi/Catholic regimes of the second world war has quietly spread itself across the globe and infected most of the world, whether through capitalism, christianity or islamism.
Zoning bylaws
From: katie, Dec 31, 2008 09:38 PM
Good point about where people will practice the skills they learn at a community college, derryl. The HOA (homeowner association) rules are a very big barrier most places, and I'm not sure what the zoning laws prohibit. Most of associations don't allow things like clotheslines, either.
Perhaps as things collapse partway those zoning laws and HOA rules will start to be ignored. For example, if Obama grows a Victory Garden on the White House lawn, or perhaps uses a clothesline--probably his household staff, not him directly ;)--there might be a change in the way we see these things. If the college offers these courses, it might make it popular. There are places where rules are just ignored by the ones who enforce the rules. Of course, people may take these courses and then move along with their skills.
Another place to start is to change these rules deliberately. If you look at Portland, OR the gardening on tree lawns and other small spaces is already happening. People keep chickens there, too, I've heard. Not that a large city like Portland doesn't have bigger problems looming with peak oil. But we have to start somewhere, or perhaps everywhere we can to do something.
My opinion: I don't think there are any utopian scenarios in our future, just ones that are less bad. Doing what we can, especially locally, may help it be less bad.
complexity
From: derryl, Dec 30, 2008 02:56 PM
In Collapse, Jared Diamond observes that some foreseeable calamities prove politically impossible to avert even if the knowledge or technological resources to prevent collapse are available. The main thesis of peak oil/peak energy is that the resources will not be available and without dramatic action now energy scarcity will be forced and chaotic, not voluntary and controlled. Like exploding in the air vs. running out of fuel and gliding in to a crash landing.
Politician do not get reelected by scaring the hell out of voters with impending doomsday scenarios. Maybe that's why "global warming" was invented, kind of an 'action-optional' introduction to energy doomsday that might motivate some energy conservation without causing panic. Meanwhile some unknown new miracle energy technology may be invented that averts the collapse.
I think as long as there is this hope it will not be politically possible to start a national or global scale move toward an energy reduced future. If that hope proves unfounded and we wait too long--maybe we already have--then the collapse will be chaotic.
The idea of encouraging more simple-life skills teaching at community colleges has merit. The trouble is, the large scale structure of our economy (including population and employment concentration in cities) makes it difficult to implement a gradual transformation. Can you move out to the country and still keep your job which means driving 50 miles each way? That just burns more energy and makes the problem worse. Zoning bylaws prohibit digging up your yard to plant a garden, so how will people practice self-sufficiency skills they learn in college?
There is no simple way to smoothly convert from complexity to simplicity. I guess that's why historic collapses have usually been catastrophic rather than controlled and smooth.
Observations
From: Frank Gifford, Dec 24, 2008 02:23 PM
In regards to nuclear energy, and many other attempts at energy and economic development, I would observe the following. Modern humans have failed to apply the Second Law of Thermodynamics; the Law of Entropy. Briefly put, among other principles, this law informs us that nothing can be contained long term in concentration: not coal impoundment ponds, not nuclear waste, not terminator genes, ... Second, while we may observe patterns and attempt to apply them to prognostication, we should also keep in mind the actual unfolding of the future is comparable to the solution of a complex problem. No one can know its solution until it is actually solved. This issue is discussed thoroughly in The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size (Penguin Press Science) by Tor Norretranders. From one important perspective, humans are tellers and enacters of stories (time binders). There is also evidence of the importance of maintaining positive (but realistic) vision of the future; of telling a positive story.
I restate my earlier thesis; until we learn to sense reality, we will surely stumble and bumble around in the dark. As a species, my sense is we are making some progress in this regard. The current state affairs offers us an opportunity to do more work in this area. If you are interested, check out ISHK. Our project seeks to use these principles and also apply permaculture, deep ecology, and seeing through native eyes, EntropyPawsed.
I appreciate Charles Wood's
From: Katie, Dec 23, 2008 04:31 PM
I appreciate Charles Wood's suggestion to keep the conversation going forward. Here's one thought: An institution well-suited for this transition may be the community college. Community colleges have a number of relevant features:
1. A community college is supposed to be responsive to the local community and its needs, and often they are. It's local, which is what simple systems need.
2. CC's are likely to be more flexible than other educational institutions.
3. CC's train students in hands-on practical skills. Both credit and non-credit offerings at my local community college are designed for various certifications. Here are some non-credit certifications: phlebotomy, first aid, small engine repair, and organic gardening certification (I'm taking their certification courses in the upcoming semester).
I once visited a CC in an Applachian area where they demonstated skills that predate the use of electricity, for example, using a wood lathe that is powered by foot or a spinning wheel. One theme of their program was to keep these skills alive and help the craftspeople who have them. They had a little village set up that demonstrated how it "used to be done." This same college also trains students in forestry and wildlife programs.
4. Many community colleges are currently focusing on "green jobs." While some of these are related to alternative energy systems that are still complex, their hearts are in the right place, they are responsive to current needs. Not too big a switch to look at the kinds of practical skills we would use in a simpler system.
5. Many CC's provide meeting space for any number of innovative groups in the community.
6. A person can offer a class at the non-credit branch of the CC fairly easily. If you have a skill to teach, teach it. If you have a skill you'd like to learn, convince someone with expertise to teach it. Even better, donate the money generated to a local organization and get more community involvement.
7. A person can run for the board of trustees of their local CC and win, thus having a voice in the direction it takes.
8. In recent budget cuts in our state, the governor announced that CC's budgets would not be cut, since we need to train people for the "new economy." What that "new economy" was in the governor's opinion might be different than in the opinion of some of us on this board :).
I wonder what skills we might need to teach young people (and older ones, too) that could be taught in a CC, both credit and non-credit classes.
Here are some that are currently offered at our CC that could be useful adapted slightly (adaptations in parentheses):
First aid
Field biology in different seasons (learn to ID wild edibles)
Astronomy
Home construction
Culinary arts(could focus on food preservation techniques, cheesemaking, etc).
Nursing (midwifery could be taught, too)
Nursing assistant
Physical therapy
Physical therapy assistant
Dental assistant/Hygiene (focus on prevention)
Apprenticeships in the skilled trades (stonemasonry)
Here are some classes that might be taught, some are less intensive than others.
Keeping chickens in the city
Raising rabbits
Butchering animals for food
Bicycle repair
Building a bicycle from parts
Passive solar home remodeling (there is a construction program at our CC)
Building and using a solar oven
Boat building, repair
Operating a boat (sailboat, paddleboat, rowboat, etc).
Edible landscaping
In writing this, I'm tempted to think that it looks like too little to cope with what is coming. But you have to start somewhere.
No bridge crosses the huge gulf
From: Richard C., Dec 22, 2008 12:56 PM
Unfortunately the road to simplification ends very soon and empties into a gulf of wars, death, misery, and destruction. We will need to wade and swim through this gulf (surviving will be a miracle)to get back on to the sane road of peaceful simplification. There is no bridge over this calamity that we can simply cross...it with society has ultimately collapsed.
Panic will soon set in and draconian laws will be enacted. "Preemptive war" will be defined as "neccessary war for survival" and most humans will just refuse to reproduce....the strongest and most ruthless will survive. The beginning of the end will be the eminent collapse of the US within the next five years. America having been the world's referee and police while Europe has stagnated will leave the world in a free-for-all. The religious strife of the last seven years will explode and weapons/technolgy proliferation will lead to a world war bigger than the last. Only this time the big boys will not be able to afford to defend themselves and worldwide chaos ensues....and that's just the beginning.
To Charles Barton: Your
From: Leo Strauss, Dec 21, 2008 03:55 PM
To Charles Barton:
Your latter post demonstrates a mixture of technical words and phrases that would make any technocrat proud.
Your initial post is a rant against what you consider to be "selfishness", or maybe a rejection of technology?
I have a few questions for you. Even if this earth has a plentiful supply of uranium, plutonium, and any other radioactive substance, what will we do with all of it? Will use it in power plants? If so, when will they be constructed, and how long until they are full operational? Will we use to in transportation? How will this energy be used, with the exception of a potential use in large-ocean vessels...
Your parents emerged from the Depression to become succesful, as did many Americans. You fail to realize that Americans today are very different from Americans in the 1920's. I know this is a qualitative analysis, but it is true.
Simplification of Human Culture
From: Frank Gifford, Dec 20, 2008 09:36 AM
Thanks Richard for your insights. The comments illustrate a dominate human characteristic;the filtering of our perceptions of "reality" through our personal biases. And a bias against bias is still bias:) ISHK works in the area of developing human perceptions. Its mission is absolutely critical now. The proportional relationship of energy to social complexity is absolutely clear for those who can see it. The Dieoff Site is what it is. From where I see it, an amazing resource for understanding the world and the current human predicament. Since we are now beyond the 500+ year phase of ecological exuberance, just about any assessment of the present state of humanity could seem depressive. In order to leave a reasonable world to children of future generations, it seems clear that we must all embrace simpler (and low energy) lifestyles. We seek to demonstrate one possible way at our project, EntropyPawsed in West Virginia. Based upon my personal experience, there are still joys and fulfillments to be experienced. These are of a kind not available to humans when they are wrapped in materialistic lifestyles.
Someone has to start the
From: Katie, Dec 19, 2008 10:27 PM
Someone has to start the conversation about the transition in their local community at work and at home. This is uncomfortable and there aren't too many people who feel up to the task. Inevitably, this person will be accused of being too negative, crying wolf, being misguided, etc.
Yet if those who are speaking out about the problem and looking toward generating solutions continue to do so in a steady, rational way at least there will be a solution that's been proposed when things begin to break down badly. Will this be too late? I appreciate Richard's posing the question. I'm not optimistic, but would like to be wrong about that.
I believe people long for more simplicity. At the same time, the supposed security of our complex system is something people will fight tooth and nail for. Some want power and some are scared and grant power to those they think will keep them secure in a frightening time. This is true at the local level of the homeowner's association, not just the national level. How do we address people in a way that helps them find the security to be had in simplicity. A shaky security compared to what we had in the past, but the only security possible in the future.
Survival
From: Curtis, Dec 19, 2008 04:47 PM
Of course Dieoff.org is the real downer. There are a number of books that were written 20 to 30 years ago that go over some of the basis for this. Hirsch, "The Social Limits to Growth"; Henshaw, "This Side of Yesterday"; Hardin, "Exploring New Ethics for Survival" among many; Stavrianos, "The Promise of the Coming Dark Age". The real bible should be "Environment, Power and Society" The Hierachy of Energy by Howard T. Odum Columbia University Press 2007. This goes to the heart of how energy is used to sustain complex systems. The new metaphor has to be music and harmony.
Surviving a reduction in social complexity
From: Anonymous, Dec 18, 2008 11:07 PM
Nowhere in Richard's article does he say that he dislikes complexity or that his personal preference is for simplicity. He's simply stating facts.
Read Tainter and read Jared Diamond, then look at the way this society operates. You seem to be miles away from understanding.
Simplicity is complex
From: Anonymous, Dec 18, 2008 07:22 PM
I think to lump such issues into "simplicity" and "complexity" creates oppositional misunderstanding. To concisely emphasize my point: Social reversion to "simplicity" creates much complexity through reorganization: coding and regulations, cultural meshing and informational resources such as ecology and "energy literacy." Yet, to simply maintain the status quo (pursuit of mechanized techno-fixes, fossil fuel consumption in spite of atmospheric carbon levels) represents simplicity. I believe our brains are (were) constantly becoming more complex (endocrine disruptors are flaunting their capabilities). We have progressed from No Language to Language; No Writing to Writing; Religion to Science (spirituality has its place). Perhaps we may be on the threshold of Mechanization to Ecological Bioengineering (there are far more letters in the latter, after all). Needless to say, if we are to avert billions of human deaths (never mind the rest of nature, Charles), we will have to undergo Competition to Cooperation or, as David Korten calls it, "Earth Empire to Earth Community."
The Worst is Yet to Come
From: David Johnson, Dec 18, 2008 06:06 PM
To think we can go on living the American Dream (Fantasy) is Charles Barton's fantasy. We live in a system that is primitive and full of greed. If we as a society were truly caring and truly sophitacated we all, rich and poor, would be living like kings. Instead we have created a divided society that is scared and is starting to pay the price for our gluttony.
It must be really scary for the likes of Paulson and Bernanke to know it's out of control and there is nothing they can do about it.
Yea call it what you want but the Great Depression didn't have resource issues and in those days most people were pretty poor to begin with and to get by was acceptable. We are sooo spoiled now and not so willing to accept just surviving, not to mention we have a few hundred million more people involved.
Unfortunately our political system only reacts when it's too late; we need a President that has the balls to tell America like it is.
Charles Barton, Huh? I
From: Fernando, Dec 18, 2008 05:44 PM
Charles Barton,
Huh? I mean, wow, just plain wow!
Wait! On second thought, that has to be one of the most brilliant examples of satire that I have ever read.
We have seen economic crises
From: Charles Barton, Dec 18, 2008 07:40 AM
We have seen economic crises in the past. My parents survived the Great Depression, and went on to lead prosperous lives. Fossil fuels can be replaced as energy sources, and it will be possible to raise the standard of living around the world to the level enjoyed in Europe, the United States, and Japan. Energy need not be scarce, and civilization will not collapse.
Your dislike of complexity is an irrational personal whim. It is representative of a failure if never that infects certain European and American Intellectuals. This is a matter of values and not facts. I view the disdain for the complexities of modern civilization to be anthropophobic, and the views of society than would lead to the death of most human beings on the earth. What you think is a simplification of society would actually lead to billions of human deaths. It is Pol Potism on a global scale, a crime against humanity of on a scale never seen before, if undertaken voluntarily. There is no material justification for the calamity you would bring on your fellows, The World contains enough energy sources, in the form of Uranium and Thorium to last its human inhabitants for hundreds of millions of years. Basic resources are abundant, and easily recoverable given the full potential of nuclear energy. Applied on a global scale your personal preference for simplicity could only lead to a great human disaster.