Why Do Societies Collapse?

"History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse." ~ Eric Alterman

"At the crash of economic collapse of which the rumblings can already be heard, the sleeping soldiers of the proletariat will awake as at the fanfare of the Last Judgment and the corpses of the victims of the struggle will arise and demand an accounting from those who are loaded down with curses." ~ Karl Liebknecht

"The worst thing that will probably happen-in fact is already well underway-is not energy depletion, economic collapse, conventional war, or the expansion of totalitarian governments. As terrible as these catastrophes would be for us, they can be repaired in a few generations. The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats. This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us." ~ E. O. Wilson

Societies can collapse for a variety of complex reasons, often driven by multiple interrelated factors.

In the past 20 years we haven't seen a society that has collapsed due to environmental damage. Most societies are undergoing environmental degradation. However, it can be a contributing factor to the weakening of a Nation-State.

Most of the societies in the past 20 years and over the decades and centuries have seen an extreme economic inequality that has destabilized their societies, creating unrest and weakening social economic cohesion creating social chaos, leading to social strife.

Whenever there is a society that has extreme wealth gaps, there tends to be some type of economic mismanagement in fiscal policies. When there's extreme hyper inflation and individual and societal debt, such governments can no longer pay for or maintain infrastructure or provide essential Services.

A prime example would be United States diverting essential infrastructure funds, billions of dollars, to pay for the military which happens every year for the past 30+ years. We can see in most American cities and rural of transportation networks are becoming more eroded over time having no tax base for local, state, or federal funds upkeep erosion of the transportation networks. There's huge swaths of economic downturn which use to be vibrant economic manufacturing belts of jobs and careers, now ghost towns, with high unemployment, violence, crime, and illegal drug use.

Such a society that has economic fragility, especially if it's essential networks are disrupted, imported food, fuel, and other essential resources may collapse trade networks due to war.

Many societies that have collapsed in the past 30 years have also experienced political corruption. Poor leadership compounded with failure to address the economic needs of the population can cause civil unrest and eventual collapse.

Many these societies that have political mismanagement undergo internal power struggles that destabilize and weaken areas of society, and in fact many of these societies undergo factionalism and even civil War.

Whenever there is social divisions due to ethnic, racial, religious or class-based differences, there's less trust in institutions and a deeper resentment of certain groups of haves and have nots.

Many collapse societies have been victims of military defeat due to being invaded by stronger cohesive and focused societies. Weakened societies that eventually collapse tend to experience waves of economic and military pressure that seems like it is facing multiple invasions upon a society, weakening a society to the point of collapse. Such societies on the brink of collapse tend to spend huge amounts of national GDP on military, hoping that will stabilize their social, political and economic networks.

Another prime example of societies that collapse is due to its technological stagnation in research and development in all areas of society not only its military. China and Russia have developed hypersonic torpedoes and missiles that the USA, are slowly trying to catch up and are behind in any type of defense of such weapons. Whenever societies are facing resistance to modernizing their technological advancements with research and development, such stagnation contributes to collapse.

The Roman Empire and many other empires that have collapsed, faced a loss of shared cultural and societal values and beliefs. These ancient empires were not unified in a shared purpose or identity as a focused society, which eventually caused fragmentation, extremism, which destabilized their societies causing intolerance, division, and violence within its Empire.

When a society has these waves of crises, internally and externally caused by internal strife or external factors such as intelligence agencies or organizations of other nation-states in the attempt destabilize a society, such a society is more vulnerable to collapse.

Many of these collapse societies have highly concentrated power structures and deep state elite policy influencers, that make these societies more fragile and less resilient due to the power dynamics within the whole society when relating to the socioeconomic and political fluctuations and needs of society.

These powerful individuals within the political and military establishments and lobby groups are usually focused on military and they believe their influence over other societies can benefit they're self-serving own society, creating animosity and hatred from large populations of other nation-states throughout the world. The typical mindset of an Empire in decline.

We live in a globalized, socio-political and economic world, highly interconnected through technology, finance, and trade of resources to survive. We require food from other parts of the world and for transportation of goods and services, especially with the almighty petrol — oil and gas needed to run a healthy, vibrant economy and a powerful military.

Any type of major regional war within the Middle East can possibly disrupt global financial and trade mechanisms, causing havoc on economies and may cause internal strife in many countries to collapse.

As mentioned, collapse is a multi-prong process, often starts with environmental degradation and economic decline, then political fragility, loss of social cohesion, and external socioeconomic and political and military pressures.

Societies on the fringe of collapse, fragment internally, with elites and factions seizing power and the state apparatus simply becomes too weak to function effectively.