Cliff Notes version: -Tainter's model of collapse - that of society reducing itself in complexity when it reaches some level that is too complex to sustain - i

Cliff Notes version: -Tainter's model of collapse - that of society reducing itself in complexity when it reaches some level that is too complex to sustain - is flawed. Evidence given in the form of several civilizations for which the decay took place over centuries rather than decades as the argument would suggest. -The critical aspects of a civilization are modelled by Resources (R), Capital (C), Waste (W). These are simplifications because there are many forms of each category. All of these are combined for the sake of simplicity of the model. Additionally, there is a process of production that generates capital from resources and other capital that produces waste as a byproduct. Waste is also generated over time and is some function of the Capital. The sum of all waste generated by the civilization is called Maintenance (M). Additionally, resources are consumed but regenerate at some rate dR -A civilization is in equilibrium when its production of capital matches its maintenance cost. When its production exceeds maintenance, it is in a state of expansion. Some examples are provided. -At some point the production of capital may fall below its maintenance costs. There are two cases: Case 1: Consumption of resources is below the rate of regeneration, dR. Capital is lost, but production can be maintained because of the availability of resources - the civilization stabilizes around some lower level of capital. Case 2: Consumption of resources exceeds the rate of regeneration. Capital falls - and as capital falls, production falls as well. This case is different from 1 in that resources are not available to support production in the absence of capital. (Though the article uses dR, perhaps this is also an issue of R reaching 0). As a result, with the loss of capital, both M and production decrease, so that stability is not reached. This is catabolic collapse. -The article gives examples of civilizations that match these cases. -The model is compared to the idea of succession, "the process by which an area not yet occupied by living things is colonized by a variety of biotic assemblages, called seres, each replacing a prior sere and then being replaced by a later, until the process concludes with a stable, self-perpetuating climax community"