The Collapse of Complex Societies, Joseph A. Tainter PhD

Financial Sense ^ | 13 September 2010 | Jim Paplava interviews of Joseph A. Tainter PhD

[Lorianne]

Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history. The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future. Dr. Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses.

Audio inteview:

[Lorianne]

Interesting health care reform, taxes and deficits as part of the discussion.

[fightinJAG]

The link isn’t working, at least for me.

[Lorianne]

Seems to be working fine for me.

I’ll try it again here:
http://www.financialsense.com/financial-sense-newshour/in-depth/joseph-tainter-phd/the-collapse-of-complex-societies

[perchprism]

ping for later

[patton]

The guy keeps talking about the marginal utility function of complexity, and avoiding the obvious -

Government, government regulation, and taxes - in that order.

That drives the dang complexity!

So I agree with what he is saying, he is just missing the forest for the trees.

And his metrics are infantile.

IMHO.

[fightinJAG]

Thanks.

[Lorianne]

I think he does say that about half a dozen times ... government, bureacracy, too much bureacracy, too many levels of beuacracy, high taxation, rich flee.

I agree he goes on some tangents but I thought it was pretty clear the picture he was painting about government overreach causing collapse.

[patton]

I do agree with his point - he just never makes it.

Also, the guy knows squat about “fossil fuels” - clearly never heard of methane hydrites.

And he never mentions the great barrier to production - government.

About 28:00 into it, he goes off on peak oil - I wanted to strangle him.

Anyway, great find - well worth listening to. But I ain’t buying his book. I would hit him with it.

Thackney?

[LiteKeeper]

Fifteen years ago, James Nelson Black wrote a book called When Nations Die. You might want to check out this very important book.

[LiteKeeper]

Amazon says this book was published in 1990. Why is it being featured now?

[Lorianne]

Thanks

[SunkenCiv]

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[colorado tanker]

Rome's overspecialized! Let's go get 'em boys!

[668 - Neighbor of the Beast]

Complex societies collapse because of the complexity. And that’s that.

[RegulatorCountry]

Complex societies do not encourage nor reward pursuit of self-sufficiency in sufficient numbers to perpetual such societies in the event of cataclysm or severe destruction resulting from war. Any given individual is far more likely to have specialized down to such degree as to be largely nonfunctional outside the confines of the complexity that exists no longer.

[Lorianne]

True.

As Henlein said, specialization is for insects.

[Lorianne]

ooops meant to post to you.

As Heinlein said: specialization is for insects.

[twigs]

Thank you. I just ordered it.