What lead to stagnation, decline, and collapse of states and civilizations?

VHS said:

How did civilizations or states stagnate, decline, and collapse?

Click to expand...

this only is possible when a state faces a stronger enemy.

I think there are many causes.

Neither Sparta or Athens really recovered after the Pelopnesian war, by fighting themselves they had allowed other powers like Thebes and Macedon to become stronger challengers for the hegemony of Greece. With Sparta with its inward looking martial class they did not really have the manpower to police the Aegean for more than one generation.

Another example was Napoleon regrouping after the disastrous campaign in Russia and fighting in Europe at battles like Leipzig. He did not have enough cavalry as most of it was destroyed in Russia and war horses took time to train.

In WWII and the major tank battle of Kursk in 1943, it was not that the battle was a major tactical disaster it was more that the Germans could not replenish the lost armour as fast as the Russians.

I also think hostile treaties when geography is not favourable with a number of powers exerting power like the fall of the Polish Lithuanian empire and the Ottoman empire withdrawing from the Balkans leaving a power vacuum that Austria-Hungary tried to fill leading to WW1.

I also question war weary nations fervour for military prowess too, France in WWII surrendered early. In France's consideration they lost 2m men in WW1 whereas Britain lost just a 1m.
I think many Brits today are dissatisfied with politics and the Brexit revolt is a sign of that and think similarly they would not fight for the UK abroad on a conscription basis as they have lost faith in the system. Whether this is a sign of economic failure or cultural disintegration due to high immigration and its consequences is unclear.

Now if I look at the projection coming from China with their growing military and 'goose-stepping' military parades I get a different pictures. In a society that is growing economically with a skewed version of its past due to Communism and the Cultural Revolution it gives the impression they would militarily be a strong adversary.

I think there are cycles with the fall and rise of nations and it is an ever changing picture.

Humans are social animals and states are examples of a higher level of social organization. The most basic social organization is the nuclear family followed by the extended family. Since even these are subject to breaking up, it's not surprising that a more artificial higher level of society would break up. The real question is why did some states/empires last as long as they did.

Decline of the ruling elite among other factors

stevev said:

Humans are social animals and states are examples of a higher level of social organization. The most basic social organization is the nuclear family followed by the extended family. Since even these are subject to breaking up, it's not surprising that a more artificial higher level of society would break up. The real question is why did some states/empires last as long as they did.

Click to expand...

It is difficult to truly pinpoint why I can only point out factors.

From a military perspective the Roman leader Crassus used the practise of decimation as a punishment on his men he perceived to lack discipline. This shocked Roman society at that time yet gives a hint at why they were so motivated. Similarly the British navy of the 18th and 19th centuries had strict discipline, the cat o nine tails should provide an example.

I sometimes think that is why we allow such social imbalances in society today as a certain proportion of society will breed a number of kids desperate to get out of an emotionally volatile home at a young age and look to join a military unit and no doubt be filled with a certain amount of propaganda so they become good soldiers or airmen or sailors.

Running out of resources

Demographic collapse due to natural catastrophes, war , etc...

Stronger ennemies

Combination of the above, but mostly running out of resources (in the broad sense, sometimes basic resources such as water) is a key reason

Faramir said:

It is difficult to truly pinpoint why I can only point out factors.

From a military perspective the Roman leader Crassus used the practise of decimation as a punishment on his men he perceived to lack discipline. This shocked Roman society at that time yet gives a hint at why they were so motivated. Similarly the British navy of the 18th and 19th centuries had strict discipline, the cat o nine tails should provide an example.

I sometimes think that is why we allow such social imbalances in society today as a certain proportion of society will breed a number of kids desperate to get out of an emotionally volatile home at a young age and look to join a military unit and no doubt be filled with a certain amount of propaganda so they become good soldiers or airmen or sailors.

Click to expand...

This well describes the idea that the state is an is an instrument of coercion.

stevev said:

This well describes the idea that the state is an is an instrument of coercion.

Click to expand...

It's a tricky one as if we look say at the Nordic countries they did not fight Hitler or Stalin they either traded like Sweden or were occupied. Now they might treat their soldiers better yet I think they expect either protection from NATO (US) or a new European army.

Faramir said:

It's a tricky one as if we look say at the Nordic countries they did not fight Hitler or Stalin they either traded like Sweden or were occupied. Now they might treat their soldiers better yet I think they expect either protection from NATO (US) or a new European army.

Click to expand...

I think the OP is asking why powerful states like the Roman Empire or perhaps the Han Dynasty eventually failed. They were not really conquered. They just broke down. The USSR and the Warsaw Pact is a more recent example.

stevev said:

I think the OP was asking why powerful states like the Roman Empire or perhaps the Han Dynasty eventually failed. They were not really conquered. They just broke down. The USSR and Warsaw Pact is a more recent example.

Click to expand...

Fair point and the break of the Soviet Union is a better example and also I guess the break up of Yugoslavia.

Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies is a good read on this subject, although as an anthropologist by trade no small portion of his examples are societies for which we have no written history. Still, his is an important work in my opinion.

In Tainter’s view, societies become more complex as they try to solve problems – a process itself that tends to further complexity. This growing complexity requires a substantial "energy" subsidy (meaning the consumption of resources, or other forms of wealth).

At some point and for reasons that vary from society to society, marginal returns on investments in energy, education and technological innovation fall below the level necessary to support growing complexity.

Certainly an overreaching political state, with its typically unhampered militarism and a bureaucratic system that that moved past symbiosis into parasitism is often a significant contributor to the declines in return on investment, but Tainter’s treatment is more nuanced than just politics, economics, and war – although these are unquestionably drivers in the calcification of the society that hinders its ability to adapt to rising complexity.

First published in 1988, Tainter noted that the globalized modern world is subject to many of the same stresses that brought older societies to ruin.

Brief selections from Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies:

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. Growth of complexity has involved a change from small, internally homogeneous, minimally differentiated groups characterized by equal access to resources, shifting, ephemeral leadership, and unstable political formations, to large, heterogeneous, internally differentiated, class structured, controlled societies in which the resources that sustain life are not equally available to all. This latter kind of society, with which we today are most familiar, is an anomaly of history, and where present requires constant legitimization and reinforcement.

The process of collapse, as discussed in the previous chapter, is a matter of rapid, substantial decline in an established level of complexity. A society that has collapsed is suddenly smaller, less differentiated and heterogeneous, and characterized by fewer specialized parts; it displays less social differentiation; and it is able to exercise less control over the behavior of its members. It is able at the same time to command smaller surpluses, to offer fewer benefits and inducements to membership; and it is less capable of providing subsistence and defensive security for a regional population. It may decompose to some of the constituent building blocks (e. g . , states, ethnic groups, villages) out of which it was created.

There appear to be eleven major themes in the explanation of collapse. These are:

1. Depletion or cessation of a vital resource or resources on which the society
depends

2. The establishment of a new resource base

3. The occurrence of some insurmountable catastrophe

4. Insufficient response to circumstances

5. Other complex societies

6. Intruders

7. Class conflict, societal contradictions, elite mismanagement or misbehavior

8. Social dysfunction

9. Mystical factors

10. Chance concatenation of events

11. Economic factors

Tainter makes note of the fact that because we typically live in societies of high complexity we tend not to recognize that their presence is relatively rare in human history – that the much larger percent of people who have existed through time have not lived in an epoch such as the one we have been experiencing.

In my opinion, his book is worth the study.

BrutusofNY said:

Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies is a good read on this subject, although as an anthropologist by trade no small portion of his examples are societies for which we have no written history. Still, his is an important work in my opinion.

In Tainter’s view, societies become more complex as they try to solve problems – a process itself that tends to further complexity. This growing complexity requires a substantial "energy" subsidy (meaning the consumption of resources, or other forms of wealth).

At some point and for reasons that vary from society to society, marginal returns on investments in energy, education and technological innovation fall below the level necessary to support growing complexity.

Certainly an overreaching political state, with its typically unhampered militarism and a bureaucratic system that that moved past symbiosis into parasitism is often a significant contributor to the declines in return on investment, but Tainter’s treatment is more nuanced than just politics, economics, and war – although these are unquestionably drivers in the calcification of the society that hinders its ability to adapt to rising complexity.

First published in 1988, Tainter noted that the globalized modern world is subject to many of the same stresses that brought older societies to ruin.

Brief selections from Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies:

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. Growth of complexity has involved a change from small, internally homogeneous, minimally differentiated groups characterized by equal access to resources, shifting, ephemeral leadership, and unstable political formations, to large, heterogeneous, internally differentiated, class structured, controlled societies in which the resources that sustain life are not equally available to all. This latter kind of society, with which we today are most familiar, is an anomaly of history, and where present requires constant legitimization and reinforcement.

The process of collapse, as discussed in the previous chapter, is a matter of rapid, substantial decline in an established level of complexity. A society that has collapsed is suddenly smaller, less differentiated and heterogeneous, and characterized by fewer specialized parts; it displays less social differentiation; and it is able to exercise less control over the behavior of its members. It is able at the same time to command smaller surpluses, to offer fewer benefits and inducements to membership; and it is less capable of providing subsistence and defensive security for a regional population. It may decompose to some of the constituent building blocks (e. g . , states, ethnic groups, villages) out of which it was created.

There appear to be eleven major themes in the explanation of collapse. These are:

1. Depletion or cessation of a vital resource or resources on which the society
depends

2. The establishment of a new resource base

3. The occurrence of some insurmountable catastrophe

4. Insufficient response to circumstances

5. Other complex societies

6. Intruders

7. Class conflict, societal contradictions, elite mismanagement or misbehavior

8. Social dysfunction

9. Mystical factors

10. Chance concatenation of events

11. Economic factors

Tainter makes note of the fact that because we typically live in societies of high complexity we tend not to recognize that their presence is relatively rare in human history – that the much larger percent of people who have existed through time have not lived in an epoch such as the one we have been experiencing.

In my opinion, his book is worth the study.

Click to expand...

If by complexity we mean the number of ways a political system can exist, this might be understood in terms of entropy. Often misdescribed as disorder vs order, entropy is really a function of the the number of discrete states in which a system can exist. It's not necessary to compute this since it would take a number of definitions to create model. It's clear the number of decision centers in a bureaucratic state is much greater than a tribal culture where the headman or tribal council makes all the decisions. So a complex system operates at higher entropy and a greater probability of disorder.

Humans thrive on conflict. Peace causes sloth and stagnation. None of the other factors matter if you have the drive and brutality required to take what you need from someone else. Civilizations only fall because they can't take what they need from someone else, or because someone else moves in and takes what THEY need.

Dan Howard said:

Humans thrive on conflict. Peace causes sloth and stagnation. None of the other factors matter if you have the drive and brutality required to take what you need from someone else. Civilizations only fall because they can't take what they need from someone else, or because someone else moves in and takes what THEY need.

Click to expand...

During warring states period ( ancient China ) in one of the regional states ( don't remember now ), it was greatest shame, if there was no war within every 5 years...

AlpinLuke said:

Reading a book of general history you will meet so many wars on little and large scale that a suspicion is licit:

competition with other civilizations is probably the main reason why a civilization declines up to disappear.

The human species is social, but expansive and competitive. Just to make an example, we could remind that what we call today the "Western Civilization", when it was still the "Christian Civilization" risked to disappear because of the pressure of the Islamic Civilization [it was VIII century CE].

Click to expand...

Think the OP was asking why states eventually fail without being conquered or undermined by another power. I gave the examples of the Roman Empire and the USSR. BrutusofNY (post 13) quoted Joseph Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies . The more complex a social system is, the more energy it takes to govern. At some point the energy requirements can no longer be met and society unravels. This is clearly demonstrated in the history of China where a repeating pattern of large stable national states eventually failed and broke up into smaller warring states.

stevev said:

If by complexity we mean the number of ways a political system can exist, this might be understood in terms of entropy. Often misdescribed as disorder vs order, entropy is really a function of the the number of discrete states in which a system can exist. It's not necessary to compute this since it would take a number of definitions to create model. It's clear the number of decision centers in a bureaucratic state is much greater than a tribal culture where the headman or tribal council makes all the decisions. So a complex system operates at higher entropy and a greater probability of disorder.

Click to expand...

I think yours is good way of describing Tainter’s complexity argument.

I tend to view complexity as supported by a growing number of sensitive feedback loops that allow a social system to adjust to change. In economic terms prices represent the critical feedback information for the supply and demand of goods and services.

There are also social systems that seek to respond to changes in ideological conceptions and ethical norms – some of which need to be retained while others need to be altered or discarded.

Another component may well be What Richard M. Weaver called the “metaphysical dream of the world” – a generalized world-view that is sufficiently tolerant to allow psychological and social adaptability but is also firm enough to prevent the complete atomization of a society into its individual members.

Clearly, this is all very inexact; and that is a major challenge.

Of course the early 18th century political philosopher and rhetorician, Giambattista Vico, summarized the situation succinctly:

"Men first felt necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance.”

Do civilisations decline, stagnate and collapse? Or is that simply an over-simplified way of viewing change? Gibbon talked about the decline and fall of Rome - in terms of the Empire in its original form he had a case - but in terms of the civilisation? Roman civilisation did not stagnate and collapse - it evolved and changed. The Empire survived in the East until 1453. The Holy Roman Empire survived in the west until the time of Napoleon. The Roman Catholic Church still survives today & that evolved from Roman civilisation. The British Empire modelled itself on the Roman one to a degree and certainly all its leaders were classically educated. In many ways Roman civilisation is very much alive and well today if you think about it - just look at the architecture of government buildings in Washington. Ancient Rome was governed by the Senate - but so is the USA today.