A new theory of history

The fact that societies have collapsed so often before makes a pretty convincing reason for supposing that today's civilisation will eventually collapse in its turn. It would be an enormous leap of faith to suppose that, after five thousand years of flux, the world order has suddenly reached a stable configuration in which western countries will remain permanently on top.

To decide exactly when and how today's civilisation might fall, and what will come after, needs more than just this observation. What is required is a consistent theory that explains the kind of patterns associated with ascendancy and decline. This theory can then be applied to the present day to decide whether contemporary societies are moving up or down in the world.

The theory proposed here is explained in the following sections:

1. Introduction
2. Terms and concepts
3. Ensembles
4. Political integration
5. Economic organisation
6. Social cohesion
7. Coupling
8. Dark ages
9. Causes of decline
10. Non-problems

Introduction

A society is not a collection of people (that is a crowd). It is a structure of human relationships. A social theory must therefore be a theory of relationships.

To develop a social theory that applies equally to the past, present and future, it is also necessary to adopt a crucial assumption, as follows:

Human beings--or the principles governing human relationships--have been much the same at all times and in all places.

This can be called a uniformitarian assumption, which is typical of science. Astronomers adopt a similar uniformitarian outlook when they assume that the laws of physics discovered to be operating in the vicinity of the earth over the last few centuries also apply in distant galaxies and throughout the history of the universe.

Such uniformitarian assumptions could be wrong, but without them science would not make much progress. There is no point in trying to argue against them from first principles. The question is whether they lead to any useful insights into the patterns displayed by the natural world or by human history.

Many people--both professional historians and laypeople--think that it is impossible to have a scientific theory of history. See here for further comments on uniformitarianism and theoretical history.

Terms and concepts

The theory consists of a model of social behaviour. This model relies on various primitive terms, definitions and principles, as follows. (Note: in axiom-based theories, there are always some undefined primitive terms; e.g. in Euclidean geometry they include point and line.)

Primitive	Actor	This may be an individual person or a group of people, such as a business firm or a country.
Principle		A single model (as described below) applies to actors at all levels. Note: the model's multi-layered nature helps it to account for society's rich structure.
Definition	Relationship	A relationship exists between two actors when the behaviour of one actor affects the behaviour of the other actor.
Principle		There are precisely three distinct types of relationship, as follows: Name Nature Description Political Coercive One actor directs the activities of the other actor Economic Contractual The actors exchange complementary services Social Co-operative The actors agree on goals, on the methods to achieve those goals and on the need to work co-operatively towards them In general, a given pair of actors may be connected by all three types of relationship simultaneously, though the strengths of the different types may vary.
Definition		In general, a group of actors will be joined by a network of pairwise relationships. We introduce three terms to describe the three types of network: Polity A network of political relationships Economy A network of economic relationships Society A network of social relationships
Note: there is a potential pitfall in the fact that the terms 'social' and 'society' are used in everyday speech to cover anything to do with human interaction, whereas in the model they have a more specialised meaning. In the present discussion, the technical meaning and the colloquial meaning are both used. It should be apparent from the context which is intended in any particular instance, though it is necessary to keep alert.
Definition		We introduce three terms to describe the overall number and strength of the relationships in the three networks: Integration The number and strength of political relationships Organisation The number and strength of economic relationships Cohesion The number and strength of social relationships We can also have derived terms, such as integrated=having high integration, disintegrated=having low integration, disintegration=a lack of integration; and so on for the other terms--organised/disorganised/disorganisation and cohesive/discohesive/discohesion. (The latter two terms are invented.)
Definition		There are two conditions that may exist between a pair of actors. Intimacy Each actor's goals include the other's goals Trust The actors are confident of meeting again These are introduced to help with the next set of definitions.
Definition		There are three types of interaction style that may exist between two actors. Friendship Both intimacy and trust are present Acquaintanceship There is trust but no intimacy Strangership Neither intimacy nor trust is present These interaction styles, and some of the following concepts, are introduced so that the model can explain the variety of forms that are found among human societies. Note that these are technical terms within the model and not supposed to be definitions of the words in colloquial use. E.g. your mother would (normally) count as your friend within the terms of the model, even though you might not use that appellation normally.
Principle		The different interaction styles allow different types of relationship to be formed. Friendship There are no political or economic relationships, but strong social relationships Acquaintanceship There are weak political, economic and social relationships Strangership There are strong political and economic relationships, but no social relationships These reflect the empirical findings of anthropologists and sociologists. For example, the members of a family (friend relationships) do not coerce (political) and contract (economic) with each other; they co-operate (social). Some parents may coerce their children, but then they would be interacting less in the friendship style.
Principle		There is a limit to the number of friends and acquaintances a given actor may have. Thinking of the actors as individual human beings, people can normally only be intimate with up to 50 other people. They can only trust as many people as they can keep track of--typically up to 1000. If the actors are countries of business firms, different numbers may apply, but the general point remains true. The number of strangers is unlimited, while the number of acquaintances is finite and, in general, larger than the number of friends.
Definition	Scale	This is the number of distinct actors with whom a given actor comes in contact in a given time interval. It depends on population size, population density and transport and communications technology.
Definition	Institution	This is a set of ideas and material objects guiding the way people form relationships. For example, the British government is an institution that involves ideas such as 'monarch' or 'civil service' and material objects such as the Houses of Parliament. It reproduces the same pattern of relationships from generation to generation even though individual monarchs and civil servants come and go.
Principle	Mutual Causality	In social systems, one change may cause others, which may eventually feed back to reinforce the original change. The process is so complex that it is pointless trying to separate cause and effect. These concepts have no meaning and are unhelpful for the study of social change. Each movement causes every other.
Definition	Ensemble	This is a collection of mutually consistent institutions. It can be regarded as an allowable form of social arrangements. For example, the anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski once wrote about his thoughts on seeing a bicycle leaning against a hut in an African village. It occurred to him that this seemingly innocuous object was symbolic of far-reaching transformations taking place in African life. The bicycle was made by a firm in Japan specially for the African market. To remain useful it required maintenance, involving a supply of technical knowledge and spare parts. Furthermore, the bicycle would have made no sense unless its African owner had roads to travel on and indeed reasons for travelling. Thus, the arrival of the bicycle in African experience depended on the simultaneous arrival of numerous other innovations. The bicycle, the supply chain, the maintenance, the roads, pacification of the countryside--these were all part of a new ensemble into which Africa was moving. One had to have them all simultaneously or not at all.
Definition		All the above concepts exist in two aspects: Perception What actors believe their relationships and interaction styles to be Reality What the relationships and interaction styles actually are
Principle	Reflexivity	Perception and reality may vary to some degree independently. However, perception affects reality and reality affects perception. The principle of reflexivity, and the distinction between perception and reality, is due to George Soros. He gives an example in the share markets. The price of a share reflects the perception (of the market) whereas its value (e.g. as determined by the company's balance sheet) is the reality. Price and value are not in general the same (i.e. perception and reality may be different). However, value can naturally affect price, and price can affect value (e.g a good share price may improve trading conditions for the firm). An example in general social systems is that a strong government (producing real coercive political relationships) can get others to do its bidding. However, a weak government that is perceived to be strong can also get others to do its bidding. Whether the government is weak or strong in reality evidently affects the perception, while the perception also affects the reality (e.g. if people submit because of the perceived strength, it will become easier to raise taxes and the government may then fund a sizeable police force to increase its real strength).
Definition	Contradiction	This is a lack of consistency between institutions (perceived or real). Contradictions are the source of all historical change. If there is a contradiction, the society is not in an ensemble. It then moves towards an ensemble.
Definition	Fallibility	This is a contradiction between the perception and the reality of a given situation. Such contradictions can persist for a considerable time. However, there is a tendency for them eventually to be revealed. The perceptions then collapse to the reality or may even overshoot it on the opposite side. This concept is also due to George Soros. An example is when the price of a share collapses because investors have woken up to the fact that it is grossly overrated.

Ensembles

There is a bewildering array of different societies, with very different institutions. For example, the San people of the Kalahari desert traditionally lead a very simple life. They forage for their food, hunting and gathering wild plants. They have few possessions. They roam far and wide. They live in very small groups. They share their possessions and food, and they have no proper leaders. This is very different from the lifestyle of people in a city, like New York. In the city, people engage in sophisticated commerce. They have access to a huge range of goods and services, and they are kept in order by a mayor, law courts and city police.

These differences can be explained in terms of ensembles, i.e. in terms of logical possibilities. If you live by foraging, you must inevitably live in small groups (imagine a thousand people descending on one blackberry patch). You have to roam around as you use up the resources of one locality. Being on the move, you have to rely on a few possessions that you can carry with you. In any case, with a small population you cannot have numerous specialists turning out a complex range of goods. In such a small group (typically ten adults), people are naturally friends. Hence, their interactions are based on co-operation, rather than commercialism and formal methods of social control. All these things go together in an ensemble. Remember also the principle of mutual causality. Everything causes everything else rather than there being a linear chain of explanation. For example, if you decide to live in very small groups you will not be able to support the specialists that are needed for a complex economy. Hence, you will have to live off the land. Thus, foraging implies small groups and small groups imply foraging. Causality works both ways.

Conversely, in a city it would be impossible to live by foraging. You could not rely on a policy of sharing--the potential for abuse would be too great. You also need leaders or some form of administration to keep things running smoothly (e.g. resolving disputes, getting rid of rubbish, maintaining roads etc.). Hence, things like shops, jobs, police and law courts go together in an ensemble. Note that city dwellers do not differ from the foragers as human beings. When they interact with their friends (e.g. at home, among the family) they behave in the same way as the foragers--sharing and co-operating. You pay for a meal in a restaurant; but you do not (normally) pay for a meal at your sister's house.

The key difference between the Kalahari San and the New Yorkers is one of scale. The San lifestyle is the ensemble that is appropriate at low scale. The New York lifestyle is the ensemble that is appropriate at high scale. More generally, we can distinguish three great ensembles, depending on scale. These are shown in the following table.

Low scale	The actors are all friends.	Institutions are based on co-operation, sharing and egalitarianism. Example:- the Kalahari San.
Medium scale	Most actors are acquaintances to each other (because the number of friends is limited).	Institutions involve some contractual and coercive behaviour, but these are relatively weak. When people do each other favours, they are 'in debt' (unlike among friends), but it can be a long time before the debt is repaid. Some people can dominate others but this depends solely on the force of their personality, and their influence is limited. Example:- village-level societies (e.g. American Indian tribes, peoples of Highland New Guinea).
High scale	Most actors are strangers to each other (because the number of acquaintances is limited).	Institutions are based strongly on contractual and coercive interaction, i.e. commerce and formal social control. Example:- New York.

We can therefore talk of the friend-ensemble, the acquaintance-ensemble, and the stranger-ensemble. These broad categories are the main ones into which different societies fall. Societies also show many more detailed variations, depending on their precise scale and the precise distribution of friends, acquaintances and strangers. These variations, of greater and lesser significance, can be regarded as sub-categories or sub-ensembles.

Two points that can be explained by these concepts are as follows:

1. Similar arrangements of social institutions crop up in societies widely separated in time and space. For example, the lifestyle of the Kalahari San is very similar to that of the traditional Inuit (Eskimo) and Australian Aborigines. We would say that they are all examples of the friend-ensemble. Similarly, ancient Rome and other early cities had the same basic institutions as modern ones (shops, magistrates, social hierarchy), while the cities of pre-Columbian American closely resembled those of the Old World, despite the lack of contact. We would say that they are all examples of the stranger-ensemble.
2. States (i.e. societies with the institutions we have associated with the city) arise rapidly in the archaeological record. There is a long formative period, during which population rises and there is increased social differentiation and bartering of goods. But the gradual development ends in a sudden revolution, as though the society has 'come to the boil'. Many crucial institutions, such as writing and kingship, appear almost simultaneously and overnight. We would say that the society has reached the scale at which the stranger-ensemble is appropriate, and you cannot have an ensemble piece-meal. It is all or nothing. Therefore, everything seems to happen all at once. The same point can be made in reverse. When societies move to a smaller scale ensemble (collapse) they do so all of a sudden.

The rest of this discussion is about stranger-ensemble societies. This is the kind of society that has characterised the historical record of the last five thousand years.

Political integration

A high-scale, stranger-ensemble society has a high level of political integration in comparison with acquaintance- and friend-ensemble societies. However, this level of integration can vary between societies or over time. High integration means a strong government with tight control over its population. Lower integration means a weaker government with less control. The degree of integration has specific consequences or characteristics. The key points are as follows.

The level of integration is associated with the level of...

...subjection and protection	a successful authority not only subjects a population but also protects it--this is because it prevents outsiders from imposing their will on its population
...peace and order	a successful authority does not allow its subjects to take the law into their own hands; it does not tolerate miscreants and they are discouraged by its ability to discipline them; in general, one will, the will of the authority, prevails; hence there are few crimes and few disputes, and those that do occur are resolved in an orderly fashion
...monopoly of force	a successful authority cannot allow its subjects to have the same coercive ability as itself; it disarms its population so that they are much weaker than itself
...extraction	a successful authority supports itself from the productive efforts of its subject population
...avoidance of the tragedy of the commons	the tragedy of the commons is the problem where people ruin some resource because the individual incentive to desist is small (why deny yourself the benefits of the resource if everyone else is abusing it; what you do alone cannot make any difference); a successful authority can see the problem and order people to desist
...grand projects	successful authorities tend to undertake grand projects (pyramids, road systems, space programmes); these enhance the impression of their power, and only they command the resources to achieve them

There is a paradox concerning integration. It brings desirable things like peace and order, but it also brings the undesirable requirement of having to bow to another's will. People who experience the conflict and disorder of a low integration society can see the advantages of a high integration one. People who experience the restrictions of a high integration society can see the advantages of a low integration one. This paradox means that neither situation is wholly stable.

Economic organisation

Like integration, the level of organisation can vary. High organisation means vigorous commerce. Low integration means less commerce.

An economic relationship involves an exchange. In a barter, both partners get something tangible out of the exchange. In a money economy, one partner gets something tangible, the other partner gets just a token (the money, i.e. metal discs, pieces of paper, or figures in a bank record). You cannot eat, wear or shelter under money. It is only any good because you can exchange it at a later date for something that is tangible and useful. It might be that the person who gave you the money in the first place takes it back. That would be like a delayed exchange. You gave them something useful and they gave you a token. Later, they give you something useful and get the token back. More generally, you may pass on the money to someone else in return for something useful. That now leaves them with a token. They will pass it on to someone else and so on. Eventually, the token should come back to the person who started it all off (otherwise, how will they get tokens to issue?). The important point is that, for a stable economy, economic relationships should form closed loops. In practice, the loops are multi-branched and very complicated, but they must still be closed overall. If the loops fail to close--and this can happen--the economy begins to unravel.

Entrepreneurs are people who conjure into existence economic relationships. They get together suppliers, to whom they pass money, and customers, from whom they receive it. In this way they prime the pump, or inject momentum into the flow. If their act of entrepreneurship is successful, the supplier and customer branches will eventually close up to form a loop. We can say that entrepreneurs create economic organisation.

Some more points about organisation: the level of organisation is associated with the level of...

...specialisation	an economic relationship involves an exchange of complementary services; if the services were the same there would be no point in a contractual exchange (the word contractual should be emphasised; people sometimes exchange the same service as part of a social relationship); this implies that the actors specialise in providing different services; the more complex the economy, i.e. the higher the level of organisation, the greater the amount of specialisation
...education	to maintain and develop specialist knowledge requires specialist training; societies that are successful at creating organisation place considerable emphasis on formal education
...material wellbeing (wealth)	high organisation means a wide variety of goods and services circulating at a considerable rate; the society as a whole is well off
...income equality	for organisation to be maintained, loops of economic relationships must be closed; this is not a zero sum game; the loop makes everyone around it better off than if they had to be self-sufficient; conversely, if big differentials of wealth occur, it shows that the loops are breaking down or that the poor sections of the population are not being drawn into the loops; beggaring your neighbour is an economic strategy with strictly limited potential
...consumerism	if large amounts of organisation are to be created, actors must be ready to consume many goods and services; high levels of organisation are therefore associated with a tendency towards self-indulgence; asceticism is not compatible with strong organisation
...innovation	if a society moves from a state of low organisation to a state of high organisation, it moves from a situation where there are few goods and services available to one where there are many goods and services available; in other words, new goods and services must be brought into existence; hence entrepreneurship requires innovation; a highly organised society is an innovative one

As with integration, there is a paradox concerning organisation. People like the material benefits of a highly organised society. However, they do not like the fact that this makes them dependent on other people for their economic wellbeing--there is a subterranean desire for self-sufficiency.

Social cohesion

Social relationships were defined in terms of shared goals and shared ideas about goals. Another way of putting this is to say that a social relationship implies shared values, attitudes and beliefs (VAB). You cannot directly see a persons VAB. People advertise their VAB through symbols--usually visual (flags, team colours, modes of dress) or linguistic (accents, jargons). A key locus for social relationships is religion. A strongly religious society is one in which people strongly share the VAB of the religion--it has a high level of cohesion.

Cohesive societies have an autonomous existence. People recognise the society as a higher level object, with a name and identity of its own--"we are the So-and-so". Political and economic groupings do not have an identity in the same way.

Whereas integration and organisation tend to increase in importance with scale, cohesion tends to decrease in importance. It is harder to maintain shared goals or shared values, attitudes and beliefs across a large population than to maintain them across a small one.

The level of cohesion is associated with the level of...

...moral behaviour	'moral' behaviour is essentially behaviour conforming to the mores, i.e. the VAB of a society; if actors share VAB, they will behave in a seemingly moral way; a society in which VAB are not strongly shared will seem to be amoral--"anything goes"
...conservatism	a cohesive society has a strongly shared set of VAB; it does not readily accommodate new VAB
...active maintenance	adhering closely to the mores of a society is not easy; some actors at least will chafe under the restrictions and will seek to express their individuality; to maintain cohesion, it is necessary to work continually against this tendency, reinforcing standards of behaviour; a cohesive society therefore appears to be intolerant
...legitimacy	legitimate behaviour is behaviour that corresponds to what is believed to be right; if actors behave in accordance with widely shared VAB, their behaviour will appear to be legitimate (if they transgress those VAB, their behaviour will seem illegitimate); social relationships can legitimise other networks of relationships; for instance, if subjects share in the belief that the king has a right to rule, the institution of kingship (a political phenomenon) is legitimised; astute monarchs have closely associated themselves with their society's religion in order to secure legitimacy
...loyalty	if actors share their goals they display loyalty towards each other and commitment to the overall social unit; people in cohesive societies display a high level of civic responsibility

As with integration and organisation, there is a paradox to cohesion. People like to live in a moral society, but they do not like the constraints and denial of self-realisation that that entails.

Coupling

The levels of integration, organisation and cohesion influence each other. However, they do so in a contradictory way. At low levels, the three systems of relationships tend to reinforce each other. At high levels, however, countervailing effects come into play and they damage each other.

See the following table. (This table should be interpreted as follows. The first two rows show the effects of integration on organisation and cohesion--firstly reinforcing and then countervailing effects. A similar treatment is given for organisation and cohesion.)

System	Reinforcing effects (predominant at low levels)		Countervailing effects (predominant at high levels)
Integration	Organisation	Order helps people to trade with each other, without fear of being plundered	Organisation	Excessive extraction reduces the incentives for entrepreneurship
	Cohesion	Success at keeping law and order fosters loyalty and commitment	Cohesion	Those at the top and bottom of a hierarchy have divergent interests (goals/VAB)
Organisation	Integration	Wealth allows the political authority to build effective mechanisms of coercion	Integration	A complex economy is hard to monitor and control
	Cohesion	Exchangers acquire shared goals in that their lifestyles depend on the exchange	Cohesion	Specialists have differing needs and biases; they tend to develop different VAB
Cohesion	Integration	Cohesion legitimises authority; a cohesive unit is better at resisting outsiders	Integration	The authority has obligations that limit the ability to coerce its subjects
	Organisation	It is easier to exchange with people with whom one has friendly relations	Organisation	The obligation for rich to share with poor reduces incentives for wealth creation

Given the countervailing tendencies, it is not possible for a group to be held together with simultaneously high levels of integration, organisation and cohesion. One or possibly two networks of relationships will dominate the other(s). Strong integration, say, can mask weak organisation and/or cohesion.

This already complex picture is further complicated by the existence of perception and reality. The perceived level of one system of relationships affects the formation or dissolution of real relationships of the other kinds.

The mutual reinforcement between the relationships creates the possibility of vicious and virtuous circles. For example, an increase in integration may promote an increase in organisation, which then promotes a further increase in integration and so on--there is a virtuous circle. On the other hand, a decrease in integration may cause a decrease in organisation, which then promotes a further decrease in integration and so on--there is a vicious circle. The countervailing effects, meanwhile, cause virtuous circles to switch to vicious ones, and vice versa.

Overall, the levels of integration, organisation and cohesion are in ferment, perpetually adjusting to each other. The combination of negative and positive feedbacks in a system of perceptions and reality puts societies in a metastable state, which means a state of contingent equilibrium with an inherent vulnerability to catastrophe.

Dark ages

In general, an ascendant society is one with high levels of integration, organisation and cohesion (accepting that they cannot all be equally strong). This means that it will be ordered and peaceful (integration). It will be innovative and wealthy (organisation). And its citizens will be loyal while its institutions will be widely recognised as legitimate. Conversely, a declining society or a failed society is one where integration, organisation and cohesion are disappearing or have disappeared.

This theory allows us to define dark ages, as follows:

A dark age is an extended period of significantly reduced integration, organisation and cohesion.

This begs the question of what counts as extended and what counts as significantly reduced. In fact, there is no sharp dividing line. Integration, organisation and cohesion are in continual ferment. Fluctuations vary from very small to very large. There is no particular size at which a fluctuation becomes abnormal. Dark ages are simply at one end of a continuum that includes more minor setbacks. Civil wars and economic depressions may be thought of as mini dark ages. Alternatively, dark ages may be thought of as particularly severe depressions.

However, the evidence suggests that to be classified as a dark age, a retrenchment must typically present the following features:

1. There is an absolute reduction of integration, organisation and cohesion, not merely a decline relative to surrounding societies.
2. The retrenchment is large enough to last several decades.
3. Integration, organisation and cohesion are all affected simultaneously (which is not true of civil wars and depressions).

It can be seen quite easily that by combining this definition of a dark age with the theoretical properties of integration, organisation and cohesion, the model predicts the very features that are commonly associated with dark ages. These include, for example, collapse of centralised authority and abandonment of trade.

The darkness of dark ages comes from the fact that they leave few records. This is understandable in terms of their disintegration, disorganisation and discohesion. There are no grand projects, no communal efforts and no co-ordinated activity of any kind. Education disappears. Life is a struggle and people must fend for themselves. In these circumstances, people do not have the leisure or possibly even the ability to record what is happening to them, and there are no great events to record anyway. Commercial mass-produced goods are unavailable and people resort to simple, home-made items that do not survive so well for future archaeologists. Knowledge and skills can disappear very quickly with just a short interruption, and it then takes a long time to recover them.

The best model for the ferment of integration, organisation and cohesion is probably the concept of self-organised criticality discovered by the physicist Per Bak. Self-organised criticality occurs in systems where there is a gradual build-up and episodic release of tension. The classic experiment of self-organised criticality involves a sand-pile on an electronic balance on to which sand is dropped one grain at a time. Every so often, there is a slippage and sand falls off the sides of the balance--the size of the slippage can be measured by the change in the reading of the balance. The slippages turn out to be of all sizes, with small slippages being the most frequent, medium slippages occuring occasionally, and large slippages being quite rare. There is a definite relation between the size of the slippage and the frequency of its occurrence.

The usefulness of self-organised criticality is that there is no need to introduce any special factors to explain the largest events. Major slippages of the sandpile are due to the same cause (sand dropping one grain at a time) as the minor slippages. As the sand drops, it causes the pile to evolve to a critical state where, in Bak's words, "anything can happen".

Similarly, in history we do not need to introduce special factors to explain things like the collapse of the Roman Empire. Political, economic and social relationships are forming and breaking apart all the time. Most of the time, the rupturing of relationships is absorbed. Occasionally, however, there is a more serious chain reaction, and you get a depression or civil war. Very rarely, things go further still, and you get a dark age.

The implication is that every time you hesitate over a spending decision (whether to make or not make an economic relationship), you are potentially capable of triggering the next great depression or dark age.

Causes of decline

Self-organised criticality suggests that dark ages are merely the (effectively) random outcome of a ferment that yields events on all scales. This gives a useful picture, but it should not be left at that. One can also look at the situation in terms of logical factors that make successful societies particularly vulnerable to breakdown. These factors can be divided into the proximate and ultimate causes of decline.

Proximate causes are the factors that become significant in the time immediately leading up to a dark age. Ultimate causes are inherently self-defeating processes that make successful societies victims of their own success.

See the following table.

Proximate causes of decline
	Mismanagement	Complex societies are difficult to understand and difficult to control. No one really knows what effects a particular law or tax will have. We are all familiar with the law of unintended consequences, where some measure has the opposite effect to that intended. This results from, among other things, the existence of poorly understood feedback loops among the institutions of an ensemble. The overall effect is that goverments are always at risk of taking decisions that propel their societies towards disasters. At the time, those decisions will have seem to be highly sensible and logical. In retrospect, their flaws will be apparent to all.
	Decadence	Decadence implies that people stop practising the virtues that led their society to high levels of integration, organisation and cohesion. Political decadence Having achieved peace and order, people become more concerned with their rights; they become insubordinate; the government finds it harder to push through unpopular measures. Economic decadence Having achieved comfortable lifestyles, people become resistant to innovation; they prefer to enjoy their wealth than to work hard at creating more. Social decadence Having achieved success, people lose interest in religion (they do not need its solace); they are less tolerant of misfortune and more selfish; the attitudes that led to success are de-legitimised.
	External factors	Sometimes blows from outside can bring down a society that is complex and fragile. These include: Invasion by less privileged peoples, attracted by the society's wealth and good order Disease--new ones emerge from time to time and can be devastating Environmental change--cooling or drought can make a society fail These are, however, the least important explanations of decline. They really do harm only when mismanagement and decadence have already diminished a society's resilience.
Ultimate causes of decline
	Contradictions	Successful societies find themselves increasingly protecting what they have already achieved, with less effort to expend on further progress; their very success attracts challengers, and it is difficult to stop their secrets leaking away; the technologies and institutions that help a society towards success also help those who would destroy it (e.g. the Roman peace facilitated the spread of Christianity, which was hostile to traditional Roman values); ascendancy means that actors are relieved of the individually borne costs of integration, organisation and cohesion, but can still enjoy the global benefits.
	Ambitions & capacities	Ascendancy permits the proliferation of overheads, i.e. institutions and activities that are considered necessary but tend to be ineffective at strengthening political, economic and social relationships; people do not accept that a certain level of welfare is sufficient and no more is needed; the more that is done, the more the demand goes out for further improvements; ambitions and aspirations ratchet upwards; however, the capacity to satisfy those ambitions does not grow so inexorably; organisation and integration are in continual flux; they are threatened by decadence and mismanagement; eventually a collision between ambitions and capacities is inevitable; that produces not a gentle adjustment but a crisis of confidence; aspirations are disappointed, the system loses legitimacy and collapse ensues.

When American farmers first settled the mid-west, things went very well for a while. However, there then came a severe drought. Many people were ruined, farms were abandoned and the whole area was all but deserted. As the climate improved again, the mid-west was resettled. Twenty years later, it was hit by another drought, but this time the effect was less. There was hardship, but many farmers weathered the crisis. The next drought had an even smaller effect and now mid-westerners are accustomed to the idea that such conditions apply every couple of decades; they take them in their stride.

This illustrates a general principle. As a society's fortunes are continually fluctuating, people can adapt their expectations. Instead of optimising for the short term and then suffering a reversal when conditions change, they take a longer term view. They adopt strategies that may have a lower pay-off in the short term but that guarantee a steadier income overall (e.g. investing some of the proceeds from good years as a security against bad ones).

One implication of this is that the first time, a society has reached a particular level of development, it is particularly vulnerable. It is unfamiliar with the problems that can arise. Furthermore, the longer a period goes by without any severe problems, the more complacent people can become. In other words, (a) the longer a dark age is delayed and (b) the more impressive a society's current achievements, the more severe the ensuing dark age is likely to be.

Since the world at the beginning of the twenty first century is fantastically more accomplished than it has ever been and has also enjoyed many centuries of steady improvement, one can conclude that the coming dark age is likely to be particularly catastrophic--probably the most catastrophic dark age that humanity has ever known.

Non-problems

The above model has explained decline and dark ages in terms of the logic of human relationships. Many contemporary predictions of a coming social catastrophe rely on quite different kinds of explanation. They include the following:

• Humanity's rapidly growing numbers may soon exceed what the planet can support.
• Some kind of vital resource, such as oil, may finally be exhausted.
• Society may break down because new technology will make too many people idle and purposeless.
• Human activity is damaging the environment and may undermine the basis of productive activity.

Some of these concerns are quite ancient. They appear to have an obvious logic and they are readily believed in by ordinary people. Yet appearances can be deceptive. No historical society has ever declined solely from such causes, even if they have been relevant at all.

Population	People speak of the 'population explosion' as a disaster in the making. Yet population growth has always been associated with improvements in the human condition. Societies have always been capable of limiting their numbers and have only allowed them to grow when it has become possible to support a higher population. For example, the first population explosion occurred around the time of adoption of agriculture, when human numbers took off on the basis of a more assured food supply. Population growth means that there are more people enjoying life expectancies. It can only be regarded, other than by misanthropists, as a fundamental good. The latest population explosion is the legacy of the industrial revolution. It is the fact that population growth is now tailing off that shows that the present round of human achievement is exhausting its potential. When, in a new era, humans conquer the other planets, problems of living space will become irrelevant.
Resources	It seems obvious that if you keep taking stuff out of the ground, you will eventually run out. Yet, as the economist Julian Simon has pointed out, the cost of every natural resource has decreased over recorded history, showing that resources tend to become less scarce--affront to common sense though that may be. Simon points out the role of what he calls the ultimate resource, i.e. human ingenuity, which allows people to exploit new materials or find new ways of exploiting old materials. R Buckminster Fuller also pointed out the phenomenon of ephemeralisation, whereby new technologies tend to reduce the pressure on resources--for example, today's mobile phone is less demanding of energy and raw materials than its bulky predecessor, while being vastly more capable. In any case, humanity has just scratched the surface of part of one planet in the solar system. The supposed problem of running out of resources is a pure myth and fantasy.
Technology	It seems obvious that labour-saving technologies must put people out of work, especially the less capable people who are capable of doing only manual labour. On these grounds, many people opposed the introduction of the motor car as threatened all those whose living relied on horse drawn carriages (from stablemen to those who scooped up horse droppings from the street). Yet the motor car has created far more jobs than it ever took away. The problem is a static view of the world, seeing only the harm that is done to the existing order and not the benefits of doing things in a different way. Technological improvements have always been associated with growth in human numbers. Despite all the hyperbolic claims for artificial intelligence, we are still a long way from creating a machine as flexible as a human being--even the least capable of them.
Environment	People readily believe in the notion of environmental determinism, i.e. that a society's fortunes depend on the climate. Westerners for example are easily convinced that the heat and humidity of the world's tropical zones is responsible for the laziness and underachievement of the people who live there. This is despite the underachievement of the temperate zones for the first 4000 years of recorded history and the fact that the west owes all its basic knowledge to people who once lived in those hot and humid places. Modern Singapore has become a prosperous society despite heat, humidity and the need to import every vital resource, including water. To be sure, climate has an effect on social phenomena--droughts cause hardship and damage the economy--but there is no straightforward correlation. People can overcome climatic problems and do not necessarily succumb to them in a feeble manner. As for worries about climate change, the fact is that climate has been changing, often dramatically, since time immemorial. The thing is to adapt to it, not try and prevent it--which would be impossible. Historically, periods of cooling have been regarded as the problem and warming as a desirable amelioration. The current environmentalist perception of warming as a problem is simply perverse. Europe was extensively deforested in early modern times and there is very little natural about the landscape whatsoever. Yet the planet has not suffered any obvious adverse consequences and Europe is a perfectly pleasant environment in which to live. It may also be noticed that there has been a great improvement in the environment over the last few decades, with fish returning to once poisoned rivers and city smogs a thing of the past. People can solve the problems of pollution by moving forward with new inventions, successfully exploiting what environmentalists disparagingly call the technological fix. As recent history shows, technological fixes work.

Kardashev levels

The Russian astronomer, Professor Nikolai Kardashev suggested a classification for the various stages that an advanced technological civilisation anywhere in the universe must go through. Human civilisation is currently believed to be somewhere in the range Kardashev-0.3 to Kardashev-0.7.

Kardashev-1 civilisation	Controls the resources of an entire planet
Kardashev-2 civilisation	Controls the resources of an entire solar system
Kardashev-3 civilisation	Controls the resources of an entire galaxy

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