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Resources and Cultural Complexity: Implications for Sustainability Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences,30:24–34,2011 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 0735-2689 print / 1549-7836 online DOI: 10.1080/07352689.2011.553539 Resources and Cultural Complexity: Implications for Sustainability Joseph A. Tainter Department of Environment and Society, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322, USA Table of Contents I. RESOURCES AND CULTURAL COMPLEXITY ..............................................................................................24 II. CHALLENGING THE PROGRESSIVIST VIEW ...............................................................................................25 III. CASE STUDIES IN ENERGY AND COMPLEXITY ..........................................................................................27 A. Collapse of the Western Roman Empire ...........................................................................................................28 B. Collapse and Recovery of the Byzantine Empire ...............................................................................................29 IV. DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................................................30 V. C O N C L U D I N G R E M A R K S ...............................................................................................................................33 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................................................33 I. RESOURCES AND CULTURAL COMPLEXITY In the cosmology of Western industrial societies, “progress” re- Few questions of the social sciences have been more en- sults from human creativity enacted in facilitating circumstances. during than how today’s complex societies evolved from the In human history, creativity leading to progress was supposedly en- small foraging bands of our ancestors. While this question abled by the development of agriculture, which provided surplus energy and freed people from needing to spend full time in sub- might seem to be of narrow academic interest, it has in fact sistence pursuits. Applying this belief to the matter of sustainabil- implications of the highest importance for anticipating our fu- ity today leads to the supposition that we can voluntarily reduce ture. Our understanding of sustainability and the human fu- resource use by choosing a simpler way of life with lower con- ture depends to a surprising degree on our understanding of sumption. Recent research suggests that these beliefs are deeply the human past. The emphasis of this essay is to show that Downloaded by [Kungliga Tekniska Hogskola] at 06:11 30 March 2016 inaccurate. Humans develop complex behaviors and institutions to solve problems. Complexity and problem solving carry costs some of the conventional understandings of cultural evolution and require resources. Rather than emerging from surplus energy, are untenable, as are assumptions about sustainability that fol- cultural complexity often precedes the availability of energy and low from them. A new framework is presented that will more compels increases in its production. This suggests that, with major realistically delineate the future connection of resources to problems converging in coming decades, voluntary reductions in sustainability. resource consumption may not be feasible. Future sustainability will require continued high levels of energy consumption. Complexity is a popular topic today, and there are various conceptions of it. One can find, in various literatures, references Keywords collapse, complexity, cultural evolution, resources, sus- to physical complexity, ecological complexity, algorithmic tainability complexity, computational complexity, social complexity, and probably other varieties as well. Complexity can be specified, Address correspondence to Joseph A. Tainter, Department of Envi- irreducible, or unruly. Complexity can occur within a system, or ronment and Society, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322, USA. E-mail: [email protected] by embedding different levels of systems. The concept used Referee: Prof. T. F. H. Allen, Department of Botany, University of here derives from Anthropology, and specifically from this Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA. discipline’s focus on the ancestry of today’s complex society. 24 RESOURCES AND CULTURAL COMPLEXITY 25 The focus is cultural complexity, encompassing all of the so- is intentional, that it emerged merely through the inventiveness cial, ideological, behavioral, economic, and technological el- of our ancestors, the outcome constituting progress. Progres- ements that comprise a cultural system. Cultural complexity sivism is the dominant ideology of free-market societies today. consists of differentiation in structure and variation in organi- But inventiveness is not a sufficient explanation for cultural zation. As human societies have evolved they have developed complexity. It is not a constant in human history. Rather, in- more differentiated structures. Julian Steward, for example, once ventiveness must be enacted in facilitating circumstances. What noted the difference between the 3,000 to 6,000 cultural ele- were those circumstances? Prehistorians once thought they had ments early anthropologists documented for native populations the answer: The discovery of agriculture gave our ancestors of western North America, and the more than 500,000 artifact surplus food and, comcomitantly, free time to invent urbanism types that U.S. military forces landed at Casablanca in World and the things that comprise “civilization” (e.g., Childe, 1944). War II (1955). Similarly, hunter-gatherer societies incorporate Through the mechanism of agriculture, plants figure centrally no more than a few dozen distinct social personalities, while in the progressivist view of cultural evolution. Vere Gordon modern European censuses recognize 10,000 to 20,000 unique Childe may be the prehistorian most influential in propagating occupational roles, and industrial societies may contain over- this argument. He wrote: all more than 1,000,000 different kinds of social personalities (McGuire, 1983). On the basis of the neolithic economy further advances could be made...in that farmers produced more than was needed for domestic But structural differentiation alone does not equal complex- consumption to support new classes...in secondary industry, trade, ity. The behavior of structural elements (such as roles and in- administration or the worship of gods (1944). stitutions) must be constrained for the elements to function as asystem.Thisconstraintisprovidedthroughorganization.Or- Eventually, in this line of reasoning, progress facilitated by agri- ganization limits and channels behavior, making the activities cultural surpluses led to the emergence of cities, artisans, priest- of behavioral elements predictable. Organization gives a system hoods, kings, aristocracies, and all of the other features of what coherence. For example, although the materiel´ that U.S. forces are called archaic states (Childe, 1944). took to Casablanca was highly differentiated (500,000 artifact- At first glance Childe’s argument appears plausible. Its seem- types, as noted by Steward), it was not fully a complex system. ing reasonableness, though, stems from its logical consistency The materiel´ was loaded on the transport ships in a haphaz- with the progressivist ideology of industrial societies. Give ard fashion (Atkinson, 2002). The results were predictable. As humans the resources to invent cultural complexity and ax- Atkinson describes, “Guns arrived on the beach with no gun- iomatically, it is believed, they will. Prehistorians, after all, sights; guns arrived with no ammunition; guns arrived with no are themselves socialized members of industrial societies. They gunners” (2002). About 260,000 tons of materiel,´ enough for are raised to believe the values and ideologies of their soci- 1.5 months of fighting, simply disappeared in Britain. There was eties, so it is natural that they internalize a progressivist view. aclearlackoforganization,whichiswhatdifferentiatedstruc- This unsurprisingly influences their interpretations of the past. tures require to form a system. Without organization (normally Archaeology emerged as a pastime of the middle and upper provided by “combat loading”), the impressive lot of materiel´ classes, and early frameworks for arranging the past—ages of was merely an assemblage. In human history, complex societies stone, bronze, and iron, for example—reflect a belief in mate- evolved through increasingly differentiated structures that were rial progress. Consider the implied progressivism of the titles of integrated by increasing organization. some prominent books: Cultural complexity is deeply embedded in our contempo- Man Makes Himself (Childe, 1951), rary self-image, although colloquially we do not know it by • Man’s Rise to Civilization: The Cultural Ascent of the Downloaded by [Kungliga Tekniska Hogskola] at 06:11 30 March 2016 that term. Rather, cultural complexity is known in popular dis- • Indians of North America (Farb, 1978), course by the more common term “civilization,” which we be- The Ascent of Man (Bronowski, 1973). lieve our ancestors achieved through the phenomenon called • “progress.” The concepts of civilization and progress have a sta- While these are older works, the progressivist view persists tus in the cosmology of industrial societies that
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