We All Fall Down
by Jason GodeskyJeff Vail has published an excellent new essay called, “The New Map: Terrorism in a Post-Cartesian World,” arguing that the era of the nation-state is now ending; the era of the rhizome network is beginning. This essay speaks to an argument that keeps cropping up over at IshCon, with many doubting “the collapse,” that is, doubting that there will be one, single, apocalyptic end to civilization. They claim that speaking of a “global civilization” may be the goal of globalization, but it is an unfulfilled goal–and speaking of it as if it were already achieved is naught but American hubris. They argue that there are many civilizations in the world, not one, and that we may be facing the collapse of this or that civilization individually–”a collapse”–but certainly not the end of all civilization in the world. After all, they say, isn’t “civilization” a matter of memes?
I’ve never provided my full explanation for why none of this is the case; in fact, it was only Tainter’s Collapse of Complex Societies that helped me to truly crystalize my thoughts on the matter. The issue turns on what archaeologists describe as “peer polities.” Tainter described them thus:
Collapse today is neither an option nor an immediate threat. Any nation vulnerable to collapse will have to pursue one of three options: (1) absorption by a neighbor or some larger state; (2) economic support by a dominant power, or by an international financing agency; or (3) payment by the support population of whatever costs are needed to continue complexity, however detrimental the marginal return. A nation today can no longer unilaterally collapse, for if any national government disintegrates its population and territory will be absorbed by some other.
Although this is a recent development, it has analogies in past collapses, and these analogies give insight into current conditions. Past collapses, as discussed, occurred among two kinds of international political situations; isolated, dominant states, and clusters of peer polities. The isolated, dominant state went out with the advent of global travel and communication, and what remains now are competitive peer polities. Even if today there are only two major peers, with allies grouped into opposing blocs, the dynamics of the competitive relations are the same. Peer polities, such as post-Roman Europe, ancient Greece and Italy, Warring States China, and the Mayan cities, are characterized by competitive relations, jockeying for position, alliance formation and dissolution, territorial expansion and retrenchment, and continual investment in military advantage. An upward spiral of competitive investment develops, as each polity continually seeks to outmaneuver its peer(s). None can dare withdraw from this spiral, without unrealistic diplomatic guarantees, for such would be only invitation to domination by another. In this sense, although industrial society (especially the United States) is sometimes likened in popular thought to ancient Rome, a closer analogy would be with the Mycenaeans or the Maya.
Peer polity systems tend to evolve toward greater complexity in a lockstep fashion as, driven by competition, each partner imitates new organizational, technological, and military features developed by its competitor(s). The marginal return on such developments declines, as each new military breakthrough is met by some counter-measure, and so brings no increased advantage or security on a lasting basis. A society trapped in a competitive peer polity system must invest more and more for no increased return, and is thereby economically weakened. And yet the option of withdrawal or collapse does not exist. So it is that collapse (from declining marginal returns) is not in the immediate future for any contemporary nation. This is not, however, due so much to anything we have accomplished as it is to the competitive spiral in which we have allowed ourselves to become trapped.
We can certainly see this phenomenon at work in the various contemporaneous collapses that Jared Diamond discusses in Collapse. In the cases of Rwanda and Haiti, local collapse did not amount to much except great strife and mayhem. The competition of so many complex polities requires that any opportunity to grow be taken–and the collapse of a neighbor is a definite opportunity to grow. The Rwandan genocide ended with the intervention of the Rwandese Patriotic Front, a Tutsi-dominated group of Rwandan expatriates–based in and supported by Uganda. The genocide provided the basis for the First and Second Congo Wars. Haiti has similarly seen intervention from the Dominican Republic, the United States, the United Nations, and the very same “international financing agency” Tainter mentions above–the IMF and the World Bank. Montana has been kept afloat by its participation in the larger complex system of the United States.
More recently, we have seen another dramatic example of such a collapse: in New Orleans, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Once again, surrounding complex societies–the United States, in this case–quickly moved to reabsorb the collapsed area into the system of complexity. Once again, increased complexity is our response to every challenge: rather than simplify and simply abandon the unsustainable site of New Orleans, the city will be rebuilt, driving the diminishing returns of the complexity strategy lower.
Though here, Tainter portrays the competitive peer polity system as a guarantee against collapse, he later devotes time to discussing the collapse of the entire peer polity system. In fact, such things have happened often before. The Mayan cities were competitive peer polities, but collapsed all the same. Notice the effective peer polities have on collapse: no single entity can collapse on its own. But that means nothing if they all collapse together.
In fact, we have made some movement away from the system of peer polities, and towards a single, global civilization, making this even more likely. Writing in 1988, Tainter said that the modern world was divided between only two competing peer polities, with all other players relegated to mere extensions of the First World or the Second World. With the collapse of the Soviet Union–another fine example of how the collapse of a single entity in a competitive system of peer polities plays out–this state of affairs ended. Did we, then, see the emergence of a much more varied peer polity system? Or did we see the emergence of a nascent global civilization?
Obviously, both factors are at play. Globalization is nothing new, and it’s never entirely one-way. When Alexander the Great tried to conquer the whole world, he intended also to spread the “superiority” of Greek culture. Hellenism became perhaps the earliest example of what Americans refer to hubristically as “globalization,” but what might be better termed, “Americanization.” Hellenism was not entirely one-way; Greece was exposed to new cultures and new ideas, and many exotic fads came home to the Aegean. However, while the Greeks picked up some knick-knacks and baubles, Hellenism very nearly replaced the cultures it conquered. Not entirely, of course. Indian Hellenism was a far cry from Egyptian Hellenism, obviously; but they shared more in common than not. No such process of cultural affliction is entirely one-way–but it is simply wrong to consider it equal, either.
Americanization has similarly conquered the world, much of it in a far more direct manner than we might imagine. The U.S. military has propped up dictators, despots and other rulers the Romans would simply have called “client-kings” over a surprising range of Africa and Asia. Economically, international financial organizations–such as the IMF and the World Bank–have bound much of the world to American business interests. John Perkins‘ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man provides an insiders’ account of how this process of economic subjugation works. Those countries that still cannot be conquered by military intervention or crushing debt are simply infiltrated culturally–not out of malice, or even out of some grand design to conquer the world, but simply because it is easier to sell American products if you can destroy the native culture and make everyone think, live, eat, and consume like Americans. Neoconservatives laud the possibility of a new kind of empire in America’s benevolent power–a Pax Americana enforced by overwhelming firepower, just like the Pax Romana. Yet their arguments to justify why this empire is different sound very much like the arguments of every previous empire as to why they were different. Neocolonialism differs from regular old colonialism primarily in that no one wants to acknowledge that it exists.
Ultimately, the new paradigm has made the notion of Cartesian space irrelevant. This is one of the main points Jeff Vail makes in his aforementioned essay. Vail focuses on the breakdown of Cartesian space–the myth that “nation,” “state” and “country” are all synonyms, or more precisely, that there is a 1-to-1-to-1 relationship between ethnic groups, governments, and some piece of contiguous territory. He writes:
Globalization, the process of seeking international economies of place and scale, is another assault on the territorial barriers of the Nation-State system. It creates a positive feedback cycle by both benefiting from and causing the destruction of the territorial exclusivity of the Nation-State. While the dissolution of Cartesian limitations facilitates the necessary further intensification of hierarchal structure, it also facilitates the emergence of the competing, co-spatial, contemporaneous paradigm of rhizome that is currently embodied by the phenomena of international terrorism.
The rise in trans-national terrorism is perhaps the final straw that, when combined with the influences of multiculturalism and globalization, destroys the legitimacy of the Nation-State. The Nation-State system is predicated upon the twin principles of sovereignty: a domestic monopoly on the use of violence, and a singular focus for inter-state violence. Terrorism invalidates both claims. Exacerbated by reactionary ideologies and the expanding economic inequality brought by globalization, terrorism undermines the state’s role of security provider. Additionally, as independent international actors, both terrorist organizations and multinational corporations represent their own interests, unconstrained by either a Cartesian notion of Nation-State borders or the prevailing interests of a national constituency. In a world freed of the rigid delineation of the Nation-State system, and with the substantial, overlapping web of affiliation and connectivity created by, among other things, terrorism and multinational corporations, the stage is set for a defining conflict that will replace the last vestiges of the Nation-State with the New Map.
A mapping of the First World’s oligarchic leadership, such as provided by the website, “They Rule,” quickly illustrates how arbitrary it has become to differentiate between governments and corporations. Tainter talks about complexity in a society as levels of organization. The emergence of the vast, organic network of multinational corporations has created another level of complexity beyond that of the nation-state. Currently, our highest level of complexity–as the empire was for the Romans–is not the government, but the corporation. The corporation holds influence over many governments; it transcends the borders of governmental jurisdiction, and more often than not defines the agenda of those governments it holds influence over to a disturbing degree.
Where were the Mayan equivalents of the United Nations, or the International Monetary Fund, or the World Bank, or the G8, or the World Trade Organization? Where were the higher levels of complexity that subsumed the Mayan peer polities? There were none; and because there were none, the Mayans were more, not less, safe against collapse. Yet, when their resources ran low and they could no longer support the level of complexity they had developed, they collapsed.
The key to collapse in a peer polity system is that all peer polities collapse together. The collapse of a single polity is not possible–it will simply be absorbed by its neighbors. Therefore, it is the peer polity system itself which must collapse. This is not unprecedented, obviously, but it does speak to the underlying premise raised by posters at IshCon, a point Daniel Quinn makes in Ishmael and other works: that civilization is all about a mindset, the “Taker” memeplex. As a cultural materialist, however, I believe that people adopt the ideas that serve their day-to-day existence–rather than choosing a day-to-day existence to suit their ideas. Otherwise, why has Daniel Quinn’s New Tribal Revolution not met with more success? With so many “changed minds,” as Quinn calls them, why has there been so little material change?
But in a system of competitive peer polities, Quinn’s plan of voluntary simplicity cannot effect any kind of wide-ranging change. Such voluntary simplicity is, essentially, collapse on a very small scale. The government itself is only one level of nested, complex organization; why should it enjoy any pride of place for the only operable level of collapse? The abandonment of a business, even the collapse of a level of complexity in a household, is some manner of collapse. In a competitive peer polity system, our individual choices to abandon the constant escalation of complexity merely provides more room for other complex organizations to grow. If we choose to have only 2.1 children, our neighbors will take advantage of that greater space in the commons by having even more. If we scale back our consumption of material goods, then others will consume even more. The overall level of complexity across the system will remain the same.
Most accounts of attempts to live primitively thus far end in ruin. Rewild.org features an article titled, “Realities of Going Primitive,” where the author laments some of the specific ways that the peer polity system refuses to allow any amount of collapse:
It is not only being watched and the hunting regulations that aggravate me, but there is also the issue of housing codes and zoning nightmares. Social Services once threatened friends of mine, who were residing in a wigwam with their children, that the children would be taken away unless they were in a house that met zoning codes. This meant they had to have tar paper on the roof, a wooden floor, no open fire, and a thing called a “rat wall.”
This is the most inescapable fact of the current crisis: civilization is incapable of coexisting with anything, even other civilizations. The need to constantly grow–driven by its doomed strategy of answering every challenge with greater complexity, no matter the cost–plays out a game that must inevitably end with only one player dominating the entire earth. Of course, that is also the end of the game–since, at that point, there’s nowhere left to expand to, and that one player will also be eliminated. The players can believe anything they like; they are caught up in an ever-escalating spiral that can only end in disaster.
Ultimately, the current peer polity system can only end in one of two scenarios: (1) the entire peer polity system collapses, as a system, a la the Mayan city-states, or (2) a global civilization emerges, and almost immediately collapses. In reality, these two scenarios are more ends of a spectrum than anything else, and in fact, they differ primarily in semantics more than anything else. There will be local collapses along the way, but like the collapses of Rwanda, Haiti, Montana and the U.S.S.R., they will be of consequence almost exclusively to their victims.
So how does a peer polity system collapse? Never by ideology, as abandonment is not an option. It can only be ended by the removal of critical resource infrastructure. Every complex society requires a certain amount of energy throughput to maintain itself; more complexity requires more energy. For the Mayans, a decade-long drought drastically reduced their food supply–that is, their energy throughput–leading to the collapse of their peer polity system. What will do our system in? There is a gathering host of crises, any of which might be the final straw. Peak Oil is an issue of great concern. Tainter discusses the fossil fuel subsidy that our industrial society is so dependent on. This level of complexity is not possible without fossil fuels, so the depletion of fossil fuels will certain mean collapse. Global warming may change our climate such that we are no longer to extract energy from crops–essentially the same crisis the Mayans faced, only writ large. Jared Diamond discusses many alarming statistics of general agricultural depletion in Collapse. More likely, though, it will not be any one of these factors, but all of them combined. Ultimately, our increasing complexity assures collapse, whatever it is that makes the killing blow. As I wrote in “On Katrina“:
Even if it has no such dramatic effect [as a catalyst for Peak Oil, and thus, of civilizational collapse], it clearly showcases the nature of the problem we face. Katrina is a product of global warming, but it may have its most far-reaching effects on the issue of Peak Oil. Civilization faces a number of such crises, which we tend to study in isolation from one another. Yet any one of them could spell the end of civilization. A solution to one or the other is, thus, meaningless. Our problems do not exist in isolation from one another–they feed on each other, and accelerate one another. In truth, there is only one crisis we face–a terribly complex crisis with many facets.
This is not something that we should necessarily fear. Tainter highlights that collapse is, above all, an economizing process. Complex societies do not suit us well at all; humans propser much more in simple societies. Those simple societies are impossible so long as large, powerful, complex societies will not allow them to form. Thus, the only hope for the re-emergence of the simple societies that have been the norm for our species is with the complete demise of complex societies. Fortunately, that is very nearly assured now. Tainter notes:
There are major differences between the current and the ancient worlds that have important implications for collapse. One of these is that the world today is full. That is to say, it is filled by complex societies; these occupy every sector of the globe, except the most desolate. This is a new factor in human history. Complex societies as a whole are a recent and unusual aspect of human life. The current situation, where all societies are so oddly constituted, is unique. It was shown earlier in this chapter that ancient collapses occurred, and could only occur, in a power vacuum, where a complex society (or cluster of peer polities) was surrounded by less complex neighborhoods. There are no power vacuums left today. Every nation is linked to, and influenced by, the major powers, and most are strongly linked with one power bloc or the other. Combine this with instant global travel, and as Paul Valery noted, ‘ nothing can ever happen again without the whole world’s taking a hand.’
The world today is full, which looked at another way, means that our complexity now surrounded by the ultimate power vacuum: the vacuum of space. In the past, civilizations were isolated from one another. When civilizations collapsed in one part of the globe, they continued in another. Where civilizations collapsed for anything other than infrastructural reasons, they would spring up again–as with the fall of Rome and its successor states. But, where civilizations collapsed because the infrastructure required by civilization was no longer available, we see the emergence of simpler cultures–as with the Pueblo descendants of the Hohokam.
“The world today is full,” but the infrastructure required by civilization is quickly evaporating. The possibility of civilization today is held only because we had civilization yesterday. Surface deposits of metals and fossil fuels are gone; they must be retrieved from so deep inside the earth, an industrial infrastructure is required. Most of the agricultural land used today has been terribly depleted–it is arable today only because of petrochemicals, imported fertilizers, and the application of the industrial infrastructure in the Green Revolution. Civilization today is dependent on itself. This makes for a most precarious situation that guarantees collapse. To quote the resistance leader in the excellent movie, Equilibrium: “If we can disrupt their supply for just one day, our cause will be won by human nature itself.”
Hey Jason –
A question to ponder… as I read this most excellent article :-), I sort of ran through some various scenarios. Very Roughly, of course. Consider this one:
If we see the US collapse, as the “first” step in the overall process, is there a possibility that this could reduce some of the pressure everywhere else? I’m just thinking that we have a relatively sheltered border, so I could imagine a break down into smaller ‘kingdoms’ here. Add to that the level of complexity that the US contributes to the whole, particularly as relates to consumerism and acculturation.
Do you see this as a possibility, or do you think that Europe would rally /or ‘take over’ our world-role… or some other similar absorbtion.
On a similar topic… I have seen you (and others) refering to the ‘Chicago School’ as an opposing theory to collapse… and I have come to realise that this does not represent my thoughts on the matter (although I can see how it might appear that way from previous discussions). Rather I see collapse as impending — although I am less comfortable putting a time line than some — but I see the initial collapse as less dramatic: ie if we were to characterize complexity on a scale of 1-100, I see you suggesting a drop off from 98 to perhaps 10 followed by a relatively stable-state, whereas I see a drop off from 98 to perhaps 40, followed by more (or less) dramatic fluctuations between perhaps 35 and 65 (45-55).
Janene
Comment by Janene — 28 September 2005 @ 12:12 PM
Any time a single polity in such a system collapses, it reduces some pressure on the overall system. After all, the biggest problem is that as you expand, there’s less “room” to expand into. If one player drops out, suddenly there’s a bunch of “room” for the taking. But this never lasts long, as there’s a mad grab to reabsorb as quickly as possible. I think to a large extent, Europe already has taken over the U.S. They are, in many significant ways, much more prosperous than us. Why? Because we pour nearly all of our resources into our military; they pour almost none of theirs. In effect, they’ve managed to play NATO to make the U.S. little more than the biggest mercenary company in history, a fully-owned subsidiary of the European Union.
The reason I see collapse as so complete is because of the argument I made in the last paragraph–we have now depleted our resources so effectively that those resources will not be available without our current level of resources. In other words, we’ve made the resources civilization requires possible only on the up-side of the slope, never on the down-side.
Why did complexity increase with the dawn of the Bronze Age? And again with the Iron Age? Higher ERoEI–in those cases, mostly higher agricultural efficiency. That higher efficiency comes down to physical properties of materials. How much force can a stone plow withstand per square inch of surface area, versus an iron plow? That will determine how much your plow can take without breaking–which determines how much land you can plow, and how long you can plow, etc. In other words, agricultural efficiency. There’s a limit to the number of things you can do to improve efficiency without metals–and it’s not particularly high. Somewhere around the Neolithic (that’s why the Neolithic never got much farther than that–to get past that, they needed metals, i.e., they needed to stop being the Neolithic).
Could we find some material other than metals, that still fulfills all the needs of metals? Sure, possibly–with about the same probability as finding a replacement for petroleum, and for most of the same reasons.
We’ve burned the earth behind us. The resources civilizations need are now buried so deeply it takes a civilization to get them, and those resources will only be replenished with the passing of geological time. If there is any interruption–say, from a collapse–then geological epochs will pass before there can be another civilization.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 September 2005 @ 2:39 PM
Hey –
Sure, yeah, I know where you’re coming from… I just look at it a little bit different is all.
Disused metal will rust and become unuseable… but used, and cared for, metal could last a thousand years…
I don’t have much faith in the ‘technology will save civiliation’ line of thought, but I do have a lot of faith in the adaptability and ingenuity of individual human beings. So I simply anticipate that where individuals want something bad enough, they will figure out a way to get it, or find something better (in one way or another) in the process of trying.
But its all moot. We may both be wildly wrong, we may both be right (in pockets) or we may find variations unimaginable… in the mean time, its all good
Janene
Comment by Janene — 28 September 2005 @ 3:56 PM
Dammit, I wish I could remember all the arguments, but I got this from a metallurgist. But, let’s say you’re right, and metal you take care of can be kept. That means the only metal to survive the first generation will be the metal that’s taken care of. That’s not a lot; and it will be dwindling every year as accidents happen.
That’s certainly not enough to make all your plows out of.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 28 September 2005 @ 9:03 PM
Hey –
Who said anything about plows? (Oh, I guess you did
) I’m mostly thinking about bladed weapons…(and I get the thousand years from the priceles Asian swords that are still floating around from the early dynasties. Add to that our current know how, I expect those who have will take care)
Janene
Comment by Janene — 29 September 2005 @ 8:19 AM
Ahhhh, family weapons. Sure, those could last quite a while. Warrior-elites, a la the Welsh “Heroic Age”? Hmmm … not sure you have an aristocracy with “the right stuff” for something like that, but it’s another possibility. Actually, it’s a very tribal possibility, given what we know of the last “Heroic Age.”
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 September 2005 @ 9:28 AM
Hey –Well, yeah, there is the heroic thing… but I was thinking more along the lines of hunting weapons and defense… swords just happen to be what I know has survivied (priorities and all that
)
Janene
Comment by Janene — 29 September 2005 @ 10:12 AM
Either way, we’re not talking about anything close to the scale needed for any kind of metal-based agriculture, so we’re still talking about complexity no greater than the Neolithic.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 29 September 2005 @ 10:21 AM
I’ve often wondered about essentially the question that you’re discussing here: How far can you reduce specialization and stratification without crossing the line and DECREASING the standard of living for the median person? Is SOME specialization a good thing, even though it is a clearly hierarchal process? For example, if there is no specialization, then there is probably no ability for people to use anything metalic (or ceramic, for that matter) in the long-term. Sure, during our lifetimes there will alwasy be plenty of useable metal around. But 500 years from now? Would MINOR specialization, say one metalurgist, smelter or blacksmith in a tribe of 10 or 50 be worth the trade off? What about one potter?
My best answer at the moment to my own question is this: exclusionary specialization is bad. So as long as the whole society KNOWS how to blacksmith or throw pots, it doesn’t matter that one person does most of the blacksmithing because that kind of specialization is efficient without the drawbacks of exclusionary specialization. Just like it makes more sense to send 3 people out hunting for a full day than it does to send 30 people out hunting for 1/10th of a day (because you need to travel a certain distance to improve odds). This is a very poorly formed argument, but I think that it is an important point to discuss: how much specialization, how much hierarchy is GOOD, and where is the line? What safeguards can prevent this from getting out of control??
One answer that I’ve talked about in the past is that each “node”, or localized tribe, must be locally self-sufficient in the basic necessities, but if they then specialize in and trade in a localized good (say salt for seaside groups), that doesn’t create the dependency that destroys rhizome. So if one tribe was self-sufficient in their basic needs, and they also specialized as a group in gathering old metals, smelting it, making ploughs, and trading that for fabrics or honey or whatever, that might not be a bad thing…
Comment by Jeff — 29 September 2005 @ 12:10 PM
I love the article Jason. But, in you and Janene’s reply/debate, you two have left out a very obvious source of metal. junkyards, cars, hell, we could break up roads to get at the rebar in them. The recycling of current metal would help out, but you are correct in that “new” metal(in the ground) is much too deep to get at without a civilization’s resources backing your prospecting.
But, in the end, only 5 of the 20 plows i built will make it to my grandchildren, and then 2 of those will make to their grandchildren, and maybe one will go to their grandkids. So i totally agree that even recycling would have a miniscule effect on overall sustained levels of technology, and with that, the sustained level of civilization.
I am with Janene on this one. Lvl 98 tech is where we are, and collapse will drop us back to 40, fluctuating between 30-50. You also have to factor in the current standards of worldwide technology. Places like india or afghanistan, where most only have a 40-50 tech rating right now, wouldn’t drop much further. Granted, the cities will collapse into dogshit, but the more remote villages will continue at fairly the same way.
Anyway, great article.
Comment by Rory — 29 September 2005 @ 12:42 PM
We all fall down - for sure - sooner or later, collapse happens. The end of the ‘oil age’, probably via economic collapse, the accompanying social chaos, and rampant cannibalism. The question is, who gets back up again? It seems very doubtful to me that survivors could be anything other than ’stone age’. Those who survive, and eventually prosper, will be those who possess the skills required to live without the aid of anything that comes from ‘modern’ society - including metal. They will also be able to indefinitely escape and evade those remaining who would eat them. How ‘tribal’ or ‘rhizomic’ they will be remains to be seen I suppose.
I am new to this site and have found it most interesting and inspiring. However, some of the articles are clearly above my intellectual comprehension. I am not well-versed in some of the concepts I find here. The language sometimes elicits, well, a kind of blank-stare, far-away, what-the-hell-are-you-talking-about kind of look on my face if you know what I mean (hehehe…). In other words, can you guys dumb any of this down for me a little?
Basically, I’m coming from a ‘bushman’ place in terms of wilderness survival skills. There’s a part of me that wants to advocate for alternative, renewable energy sources etc., but I am increasingly skeptical that we’re in a reversible condition. A return to the stone age condition seems inevitable to me.
Does it seem that way to you?
~Crazy
Comment by Crazybaldman — 29 September 2005 @ 11:46 PM
Jeff,
I’ve often considered the very same problem, and come to the very same conclusion. It’s the difference between exclusivity and emphasis.
Precisely my thoughts on the matter.
Rory,
Most remote villages are still dependent on petroleum. The Green Revolution has had its most profound effects on the Third World, not the First. Third World populations are almost entirely sustaiend by First World crop imports at this point. So I disagree with your assessment, mostly because I think you’re underestimating how much we all rely on the current infrastructure.
Crazy bald man,
Now, how can you go and say that when you just summarized my whole case so effectively just a paragraph before?
My stuff is aimed at a very academic audience. That probably won’t change; it’s who I am. We have other writers, though, who aren’t quite so, well, full of themselves. Like Mike and Giuli. You might prefer their writing.
Absolutely; that’s precisely what I’m driving at. If you’re “oming from a ‘bushman’ place in terms of wilderness survival skills,” then you’re already where we want to get. We’re just starting to learn the skills. While we learn the basics, we’re setting down a whole bunch of high-falutin’ theory for the brainiacs in the room. But if you’re already there, then you’re well ahead of us.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 30 September 2005 @ 8:27 AM
Hey –
Jason & Rory,
hmmm… I see the thrid world falling in closer to, say, 75 or thereabouts. There is no question in my mind that a collapse in complexity will have HUGE consequences for the third world across the board.
But on the other side, Jason I think you discount the farmers and thier knowledge a bit too much sometimes. Whether Rural America or Rural Third World, time (and therefore ideas) tends to move much more slowly in the ‘hinterlands’. Just thinking back, my grandfather was, for all intents and purposes, an organic farmer. He used a tractor, and he probably used some amount of vaccination for his cows… but he never sprayed fertilizer or pesticide on his fields, and he never got involved with hormonal treatments etc. That’s important only because he WASN’T unusual.
He may be retired now, but there are still many of his peers still working the same ways (and others that have adopted these ‘new fangled techniques’). But if these new things became unavailable, they would be perfectly capable (and willing) to return to the old ways. They have draft animals, and old draft plows still sitting in the older barns and sheds. They have all kept kitchen gardens, so they are fully aware of what that entails. And they live in communities that, while not anything like what I (we) are looking for, are still much more cohesive than what we see in most of this country.
All this to say that some farming communities will draw in and become some sort of new agricultural paradigm… as you say, they won’t be able to expand as they did 10,000 years ago, so we’ll see what that means 100 years down the road. But you won’t see massive die off and starvation in these communities as you have sometimes suggested.
(There is a family… (extended family) down the road from my grandpas farm… HE is the great grandson of my great great grandma’s sister. Just the fact that I know this, and we have always considered them ‘relations’ speaks volumes on the social differences of rural life)
Janene
Comment by Janene — 30 September 2005 @ 12:50 PM
Matt Kabwe, the most vocal of those critics at IshCon I mentioned at the start of the article, has started a thread there to address my comments here.
Janene,
I’ve known quite a few farmers myself. I live in western PA, after all. I’m surrounded by them. If you don’t know how to farm without your tractor, then the loss of petroleum is going to hurt you pretty badly. Possibly even worse–most of them buy Monsanto seed. And their crack-down on people (*gasp!*) planting their own seed has been pretty effective….
Comment by Jason Godesky — 4 October 2005 @ 11:40 PM
Hey –
Of course. I’m not saying that all farmers would make a seamless change… in fact, few to none would make it seamlessly. All I’m saying is that I expect the farming community that I know so well is NOT unique… which tells me that there are still people there that did once farm without chemicals, and that those same people probably still garden, to this day, without oil based equipment… so they have the skills neccessary to make the change, and enough memory to be willing to do so.
I don’t know the south well, (ok, AT ALL!), but I wonder if many of the most rural areas are even more backward relative to ‘modern farming’. I hear rumors now and again about cotton pickers… and of course vegetable farms are also still picked by hand…. so I think there are a lot of skills left even here in the US, that you may not always account for.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 5 October 2005 @ 9:18 AM
I do give the rural world much better odds than the rest of us, mind you. But even rural life is heavily dependent on industrialization these days, and they’re hardly going to be the same. If nothing else, they’re subsidized by the cities.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 5 October 2005 @ 9:24 AM
Hey -
Yeah but…. yeah but… yeah but…
We’re never gonna quite agree on this issue. After all, we’ve gone back and forth before. Its not that I disagree overall… I just emphasis things a little differently than you do. Some day, maybe we’ll see.
Janene
Comment by Janene — 5 October 2005 @ 2:26 PM
I think we’re at least agreed that farming will never be the same again, no?
Comment by Jason Godesky — 5 October 2005 @ 2:30 PM
Da!
Comment by Janene — 5 October 2005 @ 4:19 PM
When I read this article in Raise the Hammer I couldn’t help but think of this response.
Comment by Curt — 25 October 2005 @ 9:54 AM
“This is not something that we should necessarily fear. Tainter highlights that collapse is, above all, an economizing process. Complex societies do not suit us well at all; humans propser much more in simple societies. Those simple societies are impossible so long as large, powerful, complex societies will not allow them to form. Thus, the only hope for the re-emergence of the simple societies that have been the norm for our species is with the complete demise of complex societies. Fortunately, that is very nearly assured now.”
The collapse would mean starvation and death for billions of people, war and misery for the rest. I find it interesting that you consider this fortunate. I always thought that the neo-cons were cold hearted bastards, but you have them beat by several orders of magnitute. Glad you find the prospect of the starvation of billions to be charming and delightful.
Comment by blackaegypt — 26 October 2005 @ 6:24 PM
See #5 under 5 Common Objections to Primitivism.
Comment by Devin — 26 October 2005 @ 8:00 PM
Better billions now, than trillions tomorrow - I believe is the point. The prospect of the starvation of billions is not charming and delightful, but rather an [i]inevitable[/i] conclusion due to such a scheme as civilization. And what of the far greater balance of non-human life on earth? How might it value the of the prospect of a radically smaller human population?
The war and misery for the rest will be relatively short lived - through the collapse and the desperation immediately beyond it. But freedom waits for us all there, sustained at a lower level of complexity.
Of course, if you don’t think civilization is rampaging down a dead-end street toward unavoidable collapse - than billions of dead humans probably seems a rather harsh scenario to embrace.
Comment by JCamasto — 26 October 2005 @ 8:21 PM
The neoconservatives are busy creating misery that otherwise would not be. We’re preparing to survive the misery already bequeathed us by our ancestors–ancestors who, like you, could not bear to pay such a terrible cost, and so, left it for the next generation to pay. And with each generation, the cost became that much more. Now it is almost more than we can bear, and it will be paid with this generation, whether we like it or not (and I doubt we will). But if you do succeed in averting this catastrophe, you will only ensure a still greater one–perhaps even the end of all multicellular life on earth. A generation or two more, and that could become a viable possibility.
So, spare me your righteousness. Our current damnation was sealed by people with such vision (or is it merely cowardice?). There is a world of difference between actively creating new misery, and acceding to a natural, inevitable calamity, learning to survive it, and looking forward to the renewal that will follow.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 27 October 2005 @ 11:06 AM
Lots of good stuff - how about taking a long, and simple view? Prior to the Agricultural revolution (systematisation/mechanisation of agriculture), the world population was in the low few hundred millions - supported by reasonably full reservoirs of biological resource (biodiversity, fish stocks, forests etc etc). It is now 6.5 billion, with MUCH less left in the reservoirs. ANY species that goes through a population burst such as we have (by the way, who on earth decided that we are Homo SAPIENS? Homo klutz more like) will have a catstrophic die off. By the year 2100, the human population will be slamming down to below the pre-Agricultural revolution level (see Easter Island as an example of population crash). We are facing an energy crisis, a food crisis (ALL fisheries are overfished, agricultue is way over-dependent upon cheap energy), a climate crisis (global warming is hitting now - but plenty to come), the list goes on and on.
As a species, we are WAY more unfit for our environment than our preAgricultural revolution predecessors - we have lost more skills than we realise - especially community inter-relation type ones. Previous societal crashes (Roman Empire etc etc) were able to have some mitigation of impact because of rescuers next door. This one is new - it is global - our neighbours will all be desperately trying to deal with their own crises. Imagine the impact of Katrina without the massive cheap energy-based resources used (eventually) to rescue.
Back extrapolate from 2100. Take - arbitrarily - 1 billion as the population of the world at that point - and then figure how to get from 6.5 billion now (and still rising) to 1 billion in less than a hundred years. MESSY!
Small - 200 or so - communities - networked with others on the basis of energy-smart exchanges have some hope. The rest - good luck to all of us; we’re going to need it.
Comment by simon nz — 16 December 2005 @ 10:08 AM
I’m afraid the central argument - we all fall down together - is just completely wrong. Here is the key sentence:
“A nation today can no longer unilaterally collapse, for if any national government disintegrates its population and territory will be absorbed by some other.”
But that is a non-sequitor. If a country collapses the remnants will probably be absorbed by another, but that does not disallow, negate or prevent the country collapsing in the first place!
For a plausible example, consider what might have happened to Cuba after it lost its cheap oil. If it hadn’t moved to more local sustainable agriculture there might have been a major die-off and social/government collapse. The USA might have then walked in and picked up the pieces.
The collapse would have had no more effect on other countries than third-world famines do today, “peer polity” Japan or Germany would not have been dragged down/under by it.
I believe it is also wrong to claim competition always drives up unsustainable complexity. If country A adopts a more sustainable, less complex approach which improves happiness, and country B adopts a complex exploitative system with long working hours, there is no reason to doubt other people and societies will see the benefits of A and tend to preferentially adopt it.
In recent years this has been the philosophical undercurrent of the antagonism between France and the USA. I don’t see the USA winning the propaganda war. Perhaps if you live in the USA you view it differently.
Toby
Comment by Anonymous — 18 July 2006 @ 11:46 AM
I didn’t say probably—I said it will. Prisoner’s dilemna: if you don’t conquer your fallen neighbor, a third neighbor will, and then you’ll be at a disadvantage when he comes for you next. It’s escalate or be destroyed, and the misfortune of one player is to the benefit of whichever player takes advantage of it first.
What this means is that the level of complexity in a given area cannot drop. In a situation where it would otherwise drop, it’s immediately filled in by a neighbor who uses that shortfall to his own advantage. Look at what’s going on in Lebanon. In a vacuum, that would’ve collapsed decades ago. Instead, complexity remains the same, as it’s used by Syria, Israel and other powers trying to sieze the resources there and continue their own struggles. So it cannot collapse because complexity remains all around it—instead, you just have chaos, violence and strife, but without any end and without any relief from the costs of complexity.
Cuba, I think, has been much romanticized by certain parties. Our embargo is far from perfect, and Cuba does not exist in a void. It shifted its complexity around a little bit to remain viable, but it’s still dependent on a certain flow of resources from outside. Cuba only produced 80% of its own food—where do you think that last 20% comes from?
History proves the fallacy in that scenario: country B conquers country A, and country A ceases to exist because it didn’t keep pace with the intensity.
France can afford a bit of “luxury” because the U.S. has largely become Europe’s military. That leaves much more money for social programs and the like. Simply because Europe’s externalized its costs didn’t make those costs go away. Tensions between the U.S. and France are ephemeral; the current situation in France is afforded only by ceaseless American toil to fuel the war machine it all depends on.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 July 2006 @ 12:07 PM
If country B rapidly exploits non-renewable resources, then it has a short-term advantage in energy and resources over country A. Country A has the long-term advantage. The question is can country A survive in the short term.
Both France and the USA use non-renewable resources and exploit poor countries to maintain their standard of living, so neither is the good guy here. But if France is slightly more sustainable and environmentally aware, does it risk being invaded by the USA? No, because it is a nuclear power.
Does France benefit from US militarism? France signed lucrative oil contracts with Iraq, which were cancelled by the puppet administration installed by the US after invasion, so recent history suggests not. The same problem of US military adventurism occurs for other EU countries in other policy areas. Frankly it’s absurd to suggest that the US military serves anyone’s interest but the US’. Most Europeans (including leaders) want the US to reduce its military spending.
Toby
Comment by Anonymous — 18 July 2006 @ 1:44 PM
Once country B begins to run low on the resource it’s running through, it will face a choice: use its advantage to invade country A and take more of the necessary resource, or undergo a massive and painful transition to become sustainable. History provides many examples of countries facing this choice, but not one that chose to voluntarily change.
That is not nearly as relevant as the fact that they now compromise a single system. The national boundary was always arbitrary. Focusing on it can lead to many false dilemnas, like this one. The U.S. invading France only becomes a threat if the two countries start to separate. As it is now, they are enmeshed in a single system, so we’re talking about a system attacking itself.
France’s exploitation of the U.S. is similar to the “Red States’” exploitation of the “Blue States” in the U.S., in the form of differential tax burdens and the allotment of federal money, so the U.S. invading France makes as much sense as New York invading Iowa. Systems are never perfectly balanced, and some parts of a hierarchical system benefit at the expense of others at each level, but they still comprise a single system.
France’s dealings with Iraq are an extremely minor tiff in their ongoing relationship, analogous to the federal government cutting a given state’s discretionary budget. The fact remains that France’s military spending is far lower than it would have to be if it were on its own–like most of Europe’s–and that has allowed more spending on social programs. The United States has essentially become the military arm of the European Union.
Perhaps, but I doubt they’ve thought that through. I’m not positing a conscious relationship, but if the U.S. were simply to act on its own behalf, then European countries would need to defend themselves, rather than rely on the close cultural, economic, and social bonds that bind them into a single system to compel the U.S. to defend Europe regardless of whatever passing political squabbles may arise. That would require greater military spending on Europe’s part, which would require less social spending, longer work hours, less sustainable practices, and essentially, an evening out of today’s state of affairs, wherein the United States would get to be more “European,” but Europe would need to become more “American.” Good for me–not so good for Europe.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 July 2006 @ 2:25 PM
Big business and financial interests in the US and EU have similar globalisation/neocolonial goals, but individual companies and countries compete. The US military operates mainly as an enforcer for US big business (read “War is a Racket” for details) and hence damages European interests overall.
The idea that the US is magnanimously being a “policeman” for other countries “own good” is about as credible as the idea that colonial Westerners brought “civilisation” for the native’s “own sake”, and originates from the same vein of white-mans-burden idiocy.
European countries do defend themselves, in fact they often end up giving the USA substantial money or support when it goes on military adventures. For example in the first Gulf War, Japan and Germany each paid more of the war costs than the US.
The converse is not true. The last territorial war involving a European country was the Argentine invasion of the Falklands. The US decided to be neutral and provided no financial or military aid to the UK.
In short, Europeans would be wealthier and safer if the USA decided to restrict its armed forces to its own continent and stopped putting out the begging bowl every time a “war president” wanted to be popular.
Toby
Comment by Anonymous — 18 July 2006 @ 5:25 PM
Individual countries compete in the same way that individual companies compete. This was once nested; companies competed inside of countries. This is no longer the case, though; the competition of companies cuts across national boundaries. The result is a single system bisected by many competing interests. The “New Map” is one of a single system.
The U.S. military isn’t just an enforcer of U.S. big business, but of all big business. No big business is exclusively American; they cut across national boundaries and exist in many different countries. U.S. biligerence in the service of U.S. businesses cannot help but benefit all other businesses inside the system. This has nothing to do with the U.S.’s self-styled magnanimous “policeman” status, but the simply fact that Europe and the U.S. are part of the same system. The divisions between them are arbitrary and largely meaningless. The U.S. cannot defend its interests without also defending Europe’s.
When calculating war costs, the calculation is often facile. Did you comparison above account for the amount of U.S. spending in military concerns on a standing basis? My guess would be that our massive military spending covered most of the first Gulf War, and the “costs” are being counted only as those things that are over and above the status quo–so naturally, Germany and Japan (who both have almost no military whatsoever) had to raise significant sums above their usual (nearly non-existent) budget, whereas the U.S. could eclipse all other simply on account of what it typically spends on military adventures.
Claiming that Europeans would be wealthier and safer if the U.S. ceased its imperialism is short-sighted. The things the U.S. does is pretty evil, but it also ensures the ability of the First World to survive. Without exploitation of the Third World, the First World cannot continue. How will that exploitation continue if not for American imperialism? Either the Europeans would need to see to such messy matters on their own, requiring them to spend far more to provide for their own military adventures, or they would need to give up their current standard of living.
I don’t have much respect for the United States, but I’ve had one too many encounters of late with Europeans all too quick to look down their noses at American evils. Europe enjoys it peace and prosperity only because the United States is willing to play the villain on Europe’s behalf. The United States is certainly not a force for good in the world as it likes to fantasize, but Europe is the one place on earth with even culpability. After all, we merely inherited the imperial systems Europe erected, and we continue to run them as much for Europe’s benefit as our own.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 18 July 2006 @ 8:12 PM
The fact that a country is a nuclear power places a lower limit on its complexity. Maintaining nuclear power requires a very high level of complexity. However, once that level is achieved, what could motivate a given country to increase it further? Certainly, a nuclear power is not at risk to be invaded.
Comment by _Gi — 19 July 2006 @ 1:15 PM
The last 50 years show what’s wrong with that argument: there are other ways to invade, destabilize, and/or exploit a nuclear power that routes around its nuclear capability. Biological weapons, terrorism, etc.; the “Global War on Terror” is all about how you go about destroying a nuclear power. Bin Ladin isn’t being completely conceited when he claims to have brought down the USSR, after all: the Afghan War “bled” the USSR, pulling it into a foreign quagmire where it was forced to spend more and more of its resources. By the time it was able to pull out, it was too late. (I really think the biggest portion of the credit for the USSR’s fall really has to be given to Stalin, though.)
Comment by Jason Godesky — 19 July 2006 @ 1:24 PM
Russia was able to “fall down” and bounce back without dragging the rest of the civilized world to its level.
Still Russia remained invasion-proof even in its collapsed state. It lost a lot of complexity previously afforded by specialization of labor and economies of scale of the Soviet Union republics and Warshaw Pact countries. But it didn’t lose enough complexity to lose the nuclear weapons. All this loss of complexity had no corresponding effect here in USA.
If USA collapses in a similar fashion, Russia or China might find themselves unable to restore complexity here because they will not be able to invade, yet they may still find ways of preserving their own complexity or slowing and postponing their own decline.
Comment by _Gi — 19 July 2006 @ 2:16 PM
Russia didn’t bounce back. “Russia is a collapsed state. Only two things hold it afloat in this sea of interlocked ‘peer polities’–a decaying military might and the ability to produce a few products that other states still need. “1 Russia “fell down,” but it has not “bounced back.”
Russia was (and remains) quite open to invasion, as well as to dissolution. See, Chechnya. Because the former Soviet Union has proven such an excellent resource for American business, it has been absorbed by the United States. Oh, sure, we allow nominal sovereignty in the same manner that the Romans provided for “client kings,” but Russia doesn’t defend itself: the United States defends its annexed Eurasian colony. We found some time ago that multinational corporations and neocolonialism are far more effective than direct, military conquest.
If the U.S. were to collapse in a similar fashion, Russia would complete its collapse as its imperial patron fell. China would probably implode, since it’s at the brink of dissolving into civil war already, and has been for some time. If Europe was to collapse at the same time (very likely, since the U.S. and Europe are for all intents and purposes a single system–in fact, I can’t imagine how you could have the U.S. collapse without Europe), then we’d be seeing a global collapse, since complexity everywhere else is propped up by Euro-American complexity.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 19 July 2006 @ 2:28 PM
Against what foe is Russia protected by American forces? Which country can invade Russia? Americans are thrown out of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan is trying to charge US 200 million dollars to rent a military base. The American position in former Soviet Respublics is getting weaker. Russia and China are creating a new alliance and Iran is invited as well as India. I think they’ll be fine if US collapses.
Comment by _Gi — 19 July 2006 @ 3:03 PM
Russia is threatened by China, and many of the former Soviet Republics have seen a good deal of aggression in the Middle East. In fact, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan are good examples of “invasion” in the former USSR, as both countries are facing Islamic insurgencies aided by foreign fighters, like al-Qa’ida. Russia has been dealing with Chechnya (which is also linked to al-Qa’ida) for quite some time. You’re right that the U.S.’s position in the former USSR is getting weaker, but we veritably took the country over when the USSR fell through economic and business interests. Russia resents American domination, and is teaming with Iran and China to end that domination, but that domination is the only thing keeping Russia afloat. If the U.S. withdraws, Russia will be carved between China and Iran. The boundaries may remain the same, but the network of business agreements, economic alliances and other networks of influence that create the only real systems of power in our world will carve up Russia’s empty shell with little trouble.
Comment by Jason Godesky — 19 July 2006 @ 3:18 PM
Russia has nothing to fear from Iran.
It is in far worst shape. It has less industries, less educated professionals, less business expertise, weaker military, no nuclear weapons, and it receives most of its weapon systems from Russia.
Having a different multinational as one’s employer is not the same as having one’s territory conquered by a military power. It doesn’t have quite the same effect to motivate a country to increase its complexity. If USA withdraws, Russia will not need an alliance with China to balance American domination. Russia does not need American protection because there are no threats Russians cannot handle themselves.
Comment by _Gi — 19 July 2006 @ 4:02 PM
Probably the absolutely longest we could keep this going should we find some miracle save that would make some future generation foot the bill, is until somewhere between 2080 and 2100. At that point, there would probably be something like 12 billion people and the die-off would include the whole biosphere.
Comment by Thomas Rondy — 8 September 2006 @ 1:43 AM