If you haven't read it, I do highly recommend Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies as a worthy attempt to quantify the process of collapse as a function

If you haven't read it, I do highly recommend Tainter's The Collapse of Complex Societies as a worthy attempt to quantify the process of collapse as a function of diminishing returns on added complexity. I recall it being damned expensive to buy, but you should be able to borrow it from a well-appointed library.