Why Civilizations Fail? Why Are They Hardwired to Collapse?
Why Civilizations Fail? Why Are They Hardwired to Collapse?
Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail by William Ophuls - Book Overview and Thoughts
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After months of discussing only Hannah Arendt's work, let's take a break from long format books and discuss some short but insightful texts that I came across recently.
One of them is "Immoderate Greatness" by William Ophuls. This book draws on various fields to conclude that civilizations are predisposed to failure from the moment they emerge. This work piqued my interest because it draws on a variety of areas of expertise while also touching upon topics covered in Ray Dalio's books, such as the cycles of civilizations.
Furthermore, while some of the information has already been widely discussed, the way this text condenses it all into such a short book makes it easily accessible to anyone, regardless of philosophical or scientific background.
To begin this newsletter, we should start with the following quote from the first pages of the book:
“Wise men say, and not without reason, that whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past; for human events ever resemble those of preceding times. This arises from the fact that they are produced by men who ever have been, and ever will be, animated by the same passions, and thus they necessarily have the same results.”
Niccolò Machiavelli
Based on this quote, we can deduce that the book's premise is that civilizations are bound by the same patterns of human behavior that eventually lead to the downfall of societies, just as they have in the past.
In essence, the homo sapiens has an innate desire to rise above the natural state of things and to transcend their own nature, which is why the book is titled "immoderate greatness". Attempting to go beyond nature implies that there is a natural limit. Furthermore, because civilization is not natural, it requires an ongoing supply of matter, energy, and morale to function; otherwise, it deteriorates or collapses.
But what are the specific factors that contribute to these excesses, and why do we call them "excesses"? Is industrial civilization doomed to fail because it embodies the same passions as previous societies? This is the book's conclusion, but the exact reasons will be revealed shortly.
Ecological Exhaustion
This is probably one of the most widely known and discussed reasons. As mentioned before, civilizations are not natural; we can clearly see this in our current societies, but even ancient civilizations have caused environmental damage to some extent. For example, agriculture, by definition, contributes to soil loss and degradation. Cities require water and wood to provide housing, which means a need for ecological resources.
Furthermore, we may believe that small civilizations in the past were more modest and limited to their needs, but this is not necessarily the case. For example, the fall of the Roman Empire devastated landscapes.
Following this, Ophuls claims that this is nothing but the nature of humanity. Every organism on Earth strives to expand its habitat by making use of available resources. However, resources are limited, and they either exhaust or cease to regenerate themselves at the rate required to consume them.
The same is true for waste; we produce it faster than it dissolves, poisoning our existing resources. We use nonrenewable resources to drive consumption, inevitably causing these limited resources to disappear without ever coming back for us to consume.
Moreover, many civilizations have tried to compensate for the lack of resources by means of conquest, but this isn’t a permanent solution because there are still biophysical limits involved everywhere in the world.
Lastly, civilizations tend to use resources to their full potential at all times. But nature varies over time. For example, water supply can fluctuate during drought years. Because civilizations use their resources to their full potential, when resources fluctuate, it is impossible to produce the same agricultural output, resulting in hunger or famine. This is very concerning because it demonstrates that while resources are sometimes available, we are accustomed to using them to their full capacity at all times, making us dependent on abundance when, in reality, nature fluctuates, and this without even considering how climate change worsens these fluctuations.
We can now understand that civilizations are doomed to collapse. But why do we continue to fall into this trap?
Ophuls provides some answers by pointing out that signs of overdevelopment are ignored until it is too late, and humanity only realizes the error of its ecological ways in retrospect. But there are more specific causes, one of them being that environmental costs are not reflected in economic transactions.
For example, when we transact on resources, we do not consider how much degradation occurred during extraction or how long it would take for the resource to regenerate. When we trade resources for money, we do not consider these factors. This mismatch between prices and actual environmental costs is referred to as a "market failure." We essentially trade away long-term environmental wealth for short-term material gain, which means that we are not properly valuing or protecting the environment for the future.
In other words, trade does not accurately reflect what is happening in the physical world.
In a money-based economy, money is increasingly separated from tangible goods and services. This detachment allows economies to thrive even when they harm the environment. In some cases, societies may resort to practices such as currency debasement or excessive credit in order to maintain economic growth, further separating economic activity from reality. In simple terms, money is just an abstraction and does not represent reality.
Exponential Growth
This factor connects well with the previous one. The primary reason there is ecological exhaustion is that humans are unable to understand the nature of exponential growth.
Ophuls begins this chapter by giving an example of compound interest in money and how, over time, the compounding return becomes massive on its own. He then compares this to a bacteria, which divides in two every ten minutes. After just a few hours, one bacteria can multiply itself a billion times over, which is simply incomprehensible to the human mind, not because they are unaware of the existence of this phenomenon, but because they are only designed to envision the short term, not the long-term effects of it.
In other words, while the first quantities of something may not seem like much, the numbers grow rapidly as they progress and continue to expand, outpacing human intuition and resources.
Moreover, these examples might seem indefensive since they aren’t harmful scenarios. However, the same applies for negative effects. For instance, Ophuls offers the example of a city that has been steadily growing its population. With each doubling of the population, the resource consumption also doubles. So, if a city with 100,000 inhabitants has cut down five forests for fuel in its history, it would need to cut down five more to sustain its growth to 200,000 inhabitants, which is exactly what happens nowadays in our world.
The same is true for a consistent rate of inflation over time, which reduces the value of a currency in the long run due to compounding. Another example is resource extraction scenarios, in which we have abundant resource quantities but as the rate of extraction steadily increases, we exhaust the abundance in a relatively shorter period.
Following this, Ophuls offers another incredible example to explain how human intervention, once realizing the trouble, might not be the solution. The example revolves around a single bacteria placed in a bottle at 11 p.m. This bacteria doubles every minute, making the bottle get full in an hour. If we intervene and make the bottle four times bigger, we wouldn’t help ourselves much. One minute past midnight, the bacteria would be occupying half of the expanded bottle.
The main takeaway here is that starting with a larger bottle is not the solution, and intervening to delay the process is simply jumping into a desperate situation that will not solve the problem. So what can we do? Ophuls claims that the deceptive nature of exponential growth is the issue. We may see a quantity and not be alarmed, but by the time it becomes alarming, it is already too late, and we must move at a faster rate than the expansion rate, which is already exorbitantly large.
Furthermore, Ophuls claims that this human limitation is due to psychological reasons. First and foremost, humans are wired to prioritize immediate and concrete concerns over abstract or long-term trends. This is because humans are designed for hunter-gatherer situations and, in general, a life focused on day-to-day survival, rendering them incapable of comprehending abstraction and long-term consequences. This is why, in my opinion, humans tend to classify, categorize, and quantify everything in order to avoid abstraction to the greatest extent possible.
These Paleolithic roots might seem a thing of the past, after all, we are now more rational. However, our reason continues to serve immediate desires and goals rather than long-term planning. For instance, economists often use discount rates to assess the present value of future outcomes, and at relatively high rates, such as 3.6 percent, the future is heavily discounted. This means that events far in the future are perceived as practically worthless in present terms, which leads to a devaluation of future considerations.
This caveman mentality that works against us serves no purpose, and even when we are aware that something is wrong, society has grown so large and complex that it is nearly impossible to manipulate it. The solution comes from controlling growth before it is too late, rather than delaying the inevitable by allowing technological advancements to keep pushing growth, which has a dark side, as Ophuls discusses in his next chapter.
Expedited Entropy
As said before this book touches on a lot of fields, and this time it touches on thermodynamics and science. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can't be created or destroyed; it just changes from one form to another. The second law is a little trickier. It states that when energy changes forms, entropy increases, implying that energy becomes more dispersed, chaotic, or disordered.
In other words, energy decays into increasingly less useful forms. So, whenever there is a change in energy, the quantity remains constant, but the quality decreases.
With this in mind, civilizations tend to accelerate entropy. Human activities, such as farming, speed up this process. For example, when we farm, we are essentially extracting rich nutrients from the soil. However, in the process, we frequently damage the soil, and the nutrients we extract rarely return to it. Instead, they pollute the waterways. This increases entropy because we gradually reduce the soil and environment of their fertility and health.
In light of these issues, farmers have developed methods to reduce agricultural entropy losses over time, such as crop rotation and terracing. These methods have been proven effective in developing sustainable farming systems. However, given civilizations' tendency to expand in population, demand for agricultural products is bound to rise. Because the land in its natural state cannot meet this increased demand, external energy must be used to artificially boost yields. Thus, entropy increases as the amount of energy consumed per unit of output rises.
Another modern example of entropy is coal. When coal is burned to produce electricity, only about 35 percent of the energy in it is converted into usable electrical energy. The rest is lost as waste heat, gases, chemicals, particulates, and ash. The quality of the energy decreases significantly. This means that while electricity is produced, a lot of undesirable byproducts are also generated. So, for every unit of useful electricity created, two units of less useful or harmful byproducts are produced. What’s more, electricity generated this way doesn't last forever.
There are ways to improve the efficiency of this, but the results are not perfect. A ratio of two units of loss to one unit of gain is generally considered good. However, in some cases, such as industrial agriculture, the loss can be ten-to-one. Improving efficiency beyond a certain point produces diminishing returns. Even if we could achieve near-perfect efficiency (which is impossible due to thermodynamic laws), this would only result in a doubling of efficiency. And, as we've seen, one doubling only buys one minute of exponential time, so it's not a significant improvement.
Following that, Ophuls emphasizes the importance of understanding that technology does not generate energy, and that the more technology we use, the more energy and costs we incur. For example, using automobiles instead of horses increases both embodied energy, that is, energy required for production, and operational energy. Similarly, computers require a lot of embodied and operational energy to function.
According to Ophuls, the notion that technology will enable us to do more with less is a myth. The more we use technology, the faster entropy increases. Technology doesn't generate energy on its own. Instead, it's a tool for using energy or converting one type of energy into another. For example, coal can be turned into gasoline using technology, but this process involves losing a significant amount of energy. This is why Ophuls believes fossil fuels, such as coal, are important. They contain a lot of energy in a small volume. This concentrated energy allows technology to perform amazing feats. In contrast, dispersed energy sources like solar power are less efficient because they're spread out and harder to capture in large amounts.
Lastly, Ophuls main point in this part of the book, is that humanity is trapped into a thermodynamic vicious circle that it's hard to escape from. To escape it, civilization would need to radically transform its economy to mimic the efficiency of natural ecosystems. This would require tight coupling of societal elements and strong checks on human consumption and desire, which may be difficult to achieve.
Complexity
As we can see, complexity has become a part of civilization, and the human brain isn't built to deal with it because it was designed to respond to the demands of immediate survival. Unless an outside force breaks down this complexity, it destroys civilization because it becomes impossible to repair or control it.
Moreover, Ophuls offers a metaphor with a juggler to illustrate why complexity is dangerous. As we know, a juggler can only handle a certain number of balls before losing control. Similarly, a civilization can only manage a certain level of complexity before experiencing breakdowns. As more "balls" are added, it becomes increasingly challenging to keep them all in the air without dropping any.
These “balls” in civilizations are, its size, the diversity and number of its parts, the specialization of social roles, and the mechanisms for organizing these components. Adding more entities or increasing their complexity increases the overall complexity. Ancient societies used to contain no more than a few dozen distinct social personalities, while modern societies have in between 10,000 or even 20,000 unique occupational roles, with some industrial societies reaching more than 1,000,000 different kinds of social personalities.
This is one of the chapters that I find most interesting. Complexity problems can take many different forms. The first one is sheer overload. As we have said before, the exponential nature of growth increases quantities. As civilizations expand, so do the number of balls, and as a result, the balls themselves tend to multiply exponentially.
This leads to what Thomas Homer-Dixon refers to as a "ingenuity gap," which states that the human ability to cope lags the accumulation of problems until the gap between the demand for ingenuity and the supply of it is no longer bridgeable.
In other words, the ability to cope with problems lags behind their accumulation.
However, that is not all. Solving problems increases complexity, which creates new problems to solve. This cycle continues as more complex technologies, institutions, specialists, regulations, and information processing mechanisms emerge and are integrated into society.
In short, civilizations are trapped in a vicious cycle of complexity and must continue to solve every problem that emerges. However, each solution creates new problems, necessitating new solutions, which eventually contribute to even more complexity, making the new problems more difficult to solve while increasing the likelihood of complete failure.
Aside from the new problems that arise while attempting to solve the old ones, another issue that emerges is the unpredictability and uncontrollability of these systems. As the system's complexity increases, so does its unpredictability and uncontrollability. This escalation is typically disproportionate, which means that it is not a linear increase. The system's behavior becomes increasingly impenetrable and unpredictable as a result of numerous nonlinear feedback loops. This results in "chaos," which simply means that instead of having a complex behavior on a system, everything appears random and unpredictable, making it impossible to control. The human mind, Ophuls argues, is linear and sequential, but systems occur simultaneously and overwhelm us intellectually.
Financial crises are an excellent example of the chaotic nature of systems. Despite the presence of highly motivated, talented, and well-capitalized individuals in both the public and private sectors, these crises continue, with booms leading to devastating collapses. This phenomenon continues despite an extensive knowledge of economic history.
Furthermore, decision-makers often grasp the problems that need solving and are committed to finding solutions. However, they frequently miss the mark because the required solutions are counterintuitive, meaning they go against linear thinking. Even when decision-makers accurately identify leverage points, they tend to push for changes in the wrong direction, worsening the problem. For instance, Ophuls points out that farm subsidies, intended to preserve families, actually promoted agribusiness instead.
Following this, as we saw, human beings struggle to comprehend nonlinear systems with their linear minds, leading them to fall into various "system traps." These traps include mistaking symptoms for causes, bounded rationality, engaging in blame games, facing policy resistance, succumbing to the tragedy of the commons, experiencing a drift to low performance, escalating conflicts, engaging in competitive exclusion, fostering addiction, and resorting to rule-beating. One of the most significant traps is fanaticism, where individuals refuse to reconsider the values and goals of the system, even when they become detrimental.
In the end, collapse is largely unpredictable and uncontrollable. Overcomplexity is dangerous, and control is impossible. Ophuls believes that the only way is to reject "immoderate greatness" and advocate for simplicity. Because, in order to avoid the burst, the booms must not occur at all.
However, it is easier said than done. Despite the inherent risks, humans frequently seek complexity and greatness, which makes them reject attempts to limit growth.
Moral Decay
The last two chapters discuss the reasons humans are unable to act wisely. This first chapter on moral decay resembles a lot to Ray Dalio’s The Changing World Order. It discusses the cyclical nature of civilizations and their eventual decline, as observed by various thinkers throughout history.
To begin the chapter, Ophuls claims that it is clear, as observed by thinkers, that the decline of a civilization is caused by the deterioration of its moral core or guiding ideal.
One of these many thinkers, Glubb Pasha, observed that every civilization begins with an Age of Pioneers, then progresses to an Age of Commerce, Affluence, and Intellect, and finally to an Age of Decadence. Every stage establishes the socioeconomic conditions for the following, and so on.
The first stage, the Age of Pioneers, is a stage in which civilizations value exploration, innovation, and conquest, as well as courage, duty, and honor, resulting in political stability and economic growth.
This stage of economic growth eventually brings the Age of Commerce, in which the merchant classes have become very wealthy. In this stage the morals are still high, and the devotion to duty is still at its peak. However, there is also a new growing focus on wealth accumulation, since there is a lot of self-confidence in the nation.
Moreover, because everything must come to an end, this stage of confidence and capital accumulation eventually leads to a stage where people feel comfortable because they are surrounded by wealth and luxury. This period of comfort is known as the Age of Affluence, and it is marked by a decline in traditional values such as duty and service.
This Age of Affluence is a civilization's peak, and I would argue that it is the one that lasts the most. If we include some of the information provided by Ray Dalio in his book, this is the stage at which weaker civilizations are afraid to confront dominant ones that are at their peak, knowing they have the power to control everything through their military power and strong currency.
However, while everything appears to be in order on the outside, this is usually the point at which greed and selfishness have crowded out the ideals of duty and service, causing a society to rot slowly from within. The population begins to become more defensive, prioritizing self-preservation over doing things for duty.
Another symptom of decay is an increased emphasis on welfare. Affluence fosters a sense of entitlement in the population, resulting in the expansion of social welfare programs. These programs, which were originally designed to ensure that no one is left behind, result in an increasing reliance on subsidies as well as a loss of personal responsibility and independence.
Eventually, the Age of Affluence gives way to the Age of Intellect, during which civilizations invest heavily in education and the pursuit of knowledge. This leads to advancements in various fields, particularly natural science. However, the flourishing intellectual climate also brings about challenges, such as excessive debate and argumentation that hinder effective decision-making and action in public affairs.
Moreover, this Age of Intellect is characterized by an excessively rational approach to life. People begin to believe that all problems can be solved through cleverness and intellect alone, without the need for effort, dedication, or sacrifice. However, this mindset often results in simplistic policies that lack political will and are destined to fail.
The increasing number of intellectual arguments leads to polarization, which, rather than fostering agreement, exacerbates divisions, resulting in more internal conflicts and tensions. This stage reflects what is happening in the United States and other countries such as Canada.
Another source of division is the influx of foreigners drawn to the civilization's prosperity. This results in a more diverse population that no longer shares the same ideals, ultimately contributing to societal fragmentation. Furthermore, intellectuals in society contribute to a "value-free" culture in which traditional values and ideals are disregarded, resulting in a loss of civilization's original energy, virtue, and morale.
Finally, the Age of Decadence arrives, with society rotten to the core and on the verge of collapse. At this point, corruption becomes widespread, and the societal structure begins to crumble under the weight of its own excesses. Everything negative becomes apparent; hedonism, cynicism, pessimism, narcissism, consumerism, materialism, nihilism, fatalism, fanaticism, and so on are among the population's negative traits.
Moreover, Glubb and Ophuls argue that there is no way to break free from these cycles. One stage leads to the next, and this process happens over generations. Each new generation grows in different circumstances than the previous and subsequent generations, causing each generation to deviate from the original values and ideals that gave rise to civilization in the first place. In fact, Glubb points out that it takes approximately ten generations for a civilization to complete the cycle, implying that each civilization has a lifespan of about 250 years.
As we can see, civilizations collapse due to a shift in core morals. A constant supply of energy is required for a civilization to become stable and last. As we saw in the previous chapter, matter and energy are governed by entropy, which means they tend to move downhill from concentrated to diffuse states. According to Ophuls, this implies that even social orders are subject to a force that we can call moral entropy.
Another reason it is rough to avoid core morals to decay, is that, as we saw earlier, humans aren’t good at foreseeing future consequences. Those living in the Ages of Commerce or Affluence, will just ignore the ecological and economical consequences of those that will live in the Age of Decadence. The erosion of a civilization's moral core often goes unnoticed until the consequences of decadence and decay become evident, and those who warn of the seeds of decline are often disregarded. The erosion then proceeds silently and stealthily until it is too late to reverse the damage.
Finally, moral entropy does not destroy morale on its own. It is exacerbated at every stage by rulers' inability to respond quickly and effectively to the challenges posed by the increasing complexity of the societies over which they rule.
Practical Failure
This is the final chapter of the book and it mainly ties everything together to make sense of the entire text.
As we saw earlier, the most important reason that civilizations collapse is moral entropy. Complexity tends to become greater with time in civilizations, making them less manageable. Human beings aren’t hardwired to think in non-linear ways, hence the problems caused by complexity end up being “fixed” in ways that postpone dealing with the fundamental issues. The complexity eventually makes these fundamental problems intractable for the human mind. Because humans tend to think in present terms only and complex systems become unpredictable, decisions are never optimal and problems do not get solved. At the beginning of every civilization, systems aren’t as complex, there aren’t thousands of levels of bureaucracy, and morals are at their highest, which makes problems manageable. There is also a high sense of duty, and the population is not in a state of comfort, which contributes to innovation and a sense of responsibility toward society.
In later stages, morale is low and there is already a very complex system with an increased number of problems. Additionally, the society is already polarized and hence solving short term problems becomes urgent. This means that the complexity of the system that carries with it future problematic consequences is a luxury that the society cannot focus on. Civilization then solves, or better said “patches” the issues by taking the path of less resistance, leaving future consequences behind and unattended.
Furthermore, the complexity that comes with large social structures limits a society's freedom of action. These structures adhere to a certain way of thinking that limits freedom of choice; that is, there are so many bureaucratic levels, each with its own set of regulations and laws, that thinking any differently seems impossible. In fact, this couldn't be any different, because institutions are actually designed to be stable in order to contribute to a civilization's overall stability. Unfortunately, this limits the possibility of alternative solutions or radical changes, which may be required to address a society's fundamental underlying problems.
Following this, another common human error is resistance to change. Even scientists often resist changing established theories or paradigms when anomalies arise that contradict them. This resistance comes from the fact that scientific investigation operates within paradigms, which are overarching frameworks guiding research. New paradigms usually gain acceptance not solely based on their merits, but through the efforts of a new generation of researchers who challenge the status quo.
With this in mind, human societies are addicted to their ideals and way of life, so they dislike reformation. They cannot admit error and cut their losses; instead, they prefer to continue. This is prevalent in any institution that refuses to adapt to changing circumstances, resulting in stagnation and eventually collapse. Unlike scientific inquiry, where there are clear criteria for evaluating evidence, the social, economic, and political spheres lack a standard of truth comparable to the scientific method. Participants in the debates for change frequently defend particular interests or ideologies, resulting in a lack of agreement on what constitutes genuine problems that require fundamental reform.
Furthermore, Ophuls sees inflation as an evasion of reality and an attempt to maintain artificial prosperity despite objective conditions that indicate otherwise. As inflation continues, governments confiscate a significant portion of their citizens' wealth. In fact, he claims that they not only confiscate, but they do so arbitrarily; and that impoverishes many, and benefits only a few.
In addition to this, inflation allows governments to artificially prop up economic indicators such as GDP growth and employment rates by injecting more money into the economy. That is, rather than addressing the root causes of economic problems, such as structural imbalances or unsustainable spending, inflationary policies seek to mask these issues, and in fact, not only mask them, but postpone the inevitable consequences of it.
In essence, Ophuls claims that inflation punishes prudence and thrift, while rewarding their opposites. It favors vice over virtue, and it imperils not only the ultimate foundation of a capitalist economy, as Keynes says, but it also corrodes the moral basis of civil society. Because once people realize that their wealth is being secretly and arbitrarily confiscated and their welfare degraded by their rulers, then the social contract breaks, with possible revolutionary consequences.
In a nutshell, for Ophuls, inflation is one of many factors contributing to a decline in societal morale, and it is not a new problem; it has happened in previous civilizations such as the Roman Empire.
In the end, civilizations end up not being able to afford the conditions of their own existence, as claimed by Ophuls. Tainter, an American anthropologist, refers to this as the "entropy trap," which essentially means that a society's available energy and resources can no longer sustain the current level of societal complexity, causing it to consume itself. The very factors that contribute to a civilization's greatness are also responsible for its decline. The civilization can try to avoid decline by borrowing from the future or relying on past successes, but this cannot be sustained indefinitely.
As Machiavelli said: “There is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order, this lukewarmness arising partly from fear of their adversaries, who have the laws in their favour; and partly from the incredulity of mankind, who do not truly believe in anything new until they have had actual experience of it. 24”
As we can see, Tainter and Machiavelli emphasize the difficulty and risk of implementing fundamental reforms in a society on the verge of collapse. Those who benefit from the status quo resist change, while potential supporters of reform may be skeptical or hesitant to embrace something new. Consequently, reform often occurs only when conditions become so dire that there is no other option.
We can conclude this book by saying that moral entropy and practical failure are entirely caused by the human mind. All the prosperity, progress and innovation that comes from the core values of each civilization, eventually contribute to the complexity and moral decay that lead to the inevitable failure of everything they once accomplished.
Sources:
Ophuls, W. (2012). Immoderate Greatness: Why Civilizations Fail. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Dalio, R. (2021). Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail. Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster.
Beyond Thought.
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