Eventually the return on investment tapers to nothing, and then further effort would actually COST energy, blood and treasure.and critically, you can't go back. The idea of diminishing returns (well explored) meaning that more fertilizer, internet, railroads and regulations produce more food per man-hour invested, but only to a point. Tainter says diminishing returns eventually trap civilization in a no-win situation. This is a historical analysis, with applicability to our age that's noted only lightly along the way: it's not a political position paper, though it could be. It's a little ponderous to read, because it is documented and reasoned like a thesis. How could it be otherwise with a title like that? Yet, it lives up to the title: aiming and broadly succeeding to argue the causes for collapse. Tainter says diminishing returns eventually trap civilization in a no-win s Ok, done! He then develops a new and far-reaching theory that accounts for collapse among diverse kinds of societies, evaluating his model and clarifying the processes of disintegration by detailed studies of the Roman, Mayan and Chacoan collapses.more Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. Any explanation of societal collapse carries lessons not just for the study of ancient societies, but for the members of all such societies in both the present and future. The Collapse of Complex Societies, though written by an archaeologist, will therefore strike a chord throughout the social sciences. Political disintegration is a persistent feature of world history.
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