The Economic Superorganism by Carey W. King

Author:Carey W. King
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030502959
Publisher: Springer International Publishing

As Tainter points out, “Surplus production has not been common in human history, nor has complexity.” [53] The societal growth of last 200 years is a complete anomaly in the context of human history. The data presented in this book show the economic and material growth during the three decades following World War II are an anomaly within the longer anomaly of the Industrial Age (recall growth rate of energy consumption in Fig. 2.​10). We shouldn’t be surprised that the trends of those three decades did not continue, because we should expect diminishing returns on the energy-complexity spiral. The reason is that certain long-term patterns seem to repeat themselves.

Studies of historical societies show general cyclical patterns, say of population growth and decline, that take several centuries to play out, just as with the Maya and just as with bacteria (as mentioned in Chap. 4). Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov describe a generalized four-phase cycle in their book Secular Cycles [56].44 Here, the word secular is used to mean occurring or persisting over an indefinitely long period. The four phases are expansion (or growth), stagflation (or compression), crisis (or state breakdown), and depression.

First consider the expansion phase. Ecological economists such as Herman Daly characterize this as an “empty world”—empty of us and our stuff but full of natural resources [16]. There is a low but increasing population, and resources are relatively abundant. Wages and equality are high as there are relatively few “elites” in the population exploiting the working “commoners.” Thus, there is high and increasing sociopolitical stability along with support for increasingly centralized governments that can easily coordinate societal functions and order. Grain prices (akin to energy prices in agrarian societies) are low.

After expansion comes the stagflation phase. The word stagflation is a combination of stagnation and inflation. Stagnation describes a slowing of expansion, and inflation describes a rise in prices (e.g., grain) while real wages decline. Population growth slows, and “[a]lthough the majority of commoners experience increasing economic difficulties …, the elites enjoy a golden age, and their numbers and appetites continue to expand” [56, p. 20]. Resentment builds in the population causing increasing sociopolitical instability. However, the elites generally get along with each other.

A crisis phase follows stagflation. It marks a turning point from growth to decline, from stability to instability. Ecological economists characterize this as a world “full” of us and our stuff but empty of natural resources [16]. Sociopolitical instability reaches its peak. Grain prices are high but have high variability. The elites no longer get along with each other. As there is not enough economic surplus to sustain all of them and their lifestyles, they battle to remain part of the shrinking elite class. The overall population declines (in agrarian societies) due to higher death rates and outward migration. Wages become volatile during this phase of rapid change. There is a collapse of centralized state control and society moves toward decentralized governance.

Finally, the depression phase follows during which the population declines to a minimum level. The number of elites declines quickly as their power struggle sorts itself out.

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