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One of Tainter's more interesting arguments is that collapse, when it occurs, is a sensible, reasonable response to negative returns on societal complexity. He
by RyanMcGreal 17y ago
One of Tainter's more interesting arguments is that collapse, when it occurs, is a sensible, reasonable response to negative returns on societal complexity. He notes, somewhat famously, that the average nutrition and health of Romans actually improved after the collapse of the Roman empire, presumably because the wealth they generated was no longer being siphoned off to maintain the empire's overhead.
- HistoryInAction 17y agoI'm not sure if I buy this theory, since the collapse of the Roman empire was presaged by the collapse of the taxation system by several generations, especially in Hispania. Regardless, the nutrition and health of Rome in particular was ravaged by the Justinian invasion of Italy and the subsequent Lombard war, which reset the agricultural production of Italy to a significantly lower level for the next 800 years or so until the 1400s and the rise of the Italian city-states.
- run4yourlives 17y agoWell, they call it the dark ages for a reason... Statistics might show improvement because wealth is redistributed, but the total wealth is also a lot less, which isn't always a good thing.
- pradocchia 17y agoIt's an example where greater welfare may be derived from less overall wealth, if a) the marginal benefit of more wealth per member diminishes with each additional unit, generally, and b) the distribution between members improves, such that more members are in the steep part of the slope. Proponents of capitalism usually point to (a) not always being true. That is, at some point, and under the right social conditions, the marginal benefit per unit picks up again, when instances of per-member wealth is great enough to finance capital-intensive production.