Nasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for 'irreversible collapse'?

A new study partly-sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution. 

Noting that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to "precipitous collapse - often lasting centuries - have been quite common."

The independent research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary 'Human And Nature DYnamical' (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The HANDY model was created using a minor Nasa grant, but the study based on it was conducted independently. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics.

It finds that according to the historical record even advanced, complex civilisations are susceptible to collapse, raising questions about the sustainability of modern civilisation: 

"The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent."

By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy.

These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: "the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity"; and "the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or "Commoners") [poor]" These social phenomena have played "a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse," in all such cases over "the last five thousand years."

Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with "Elites" based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both: 

"... accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels."

The study challenges those who argue that technology will resolve these challenges by increasing efficiency: 

"Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use." 

Productivity increases in agriculture and industry over the last two centuries has come from "increased (rather than decreased) resource throughput," despite dramatic efficiency gains over the same period. 

Modelling a range of different scenarios, Motesharrei and his colleagues conclude that under conditions "closely reflecting the reality of the world today... we find that collapse is difficult to avoid." In the first of these scenarios, civilisation: 

".... appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a collapse of Nature."

Another scenario focuses on the role of continued resource exploitation, finding that "with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites." 

In both scenarios, Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most "detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners", allowing them to "continue 'business as usual' despite the impending catastrophe." The same mechanism, they argue, could explain how "historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases)." 

Applying this lesson to our contemporary predicament, the study warns that: 

"While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing."

However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation. 

The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth: 

"Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."

The NASA-funded HANDY model offers a highly credible wake-up call to governments, corporations and business - and consumers - to recognise that 'business as usual' cannot be sustained, and that policy and structural changes are required immediately. 

Although the study based on HANDY is largely theoretical - a 'thought-experiment' - a number of other more empirically-focused studies - by KPMG and the UK Government Office of Science for instance - have warned that the convergence of food, water and energy crises could create a 'perfect storm' within about fifteen years. But these 'business as usual' forecasts could be very conservative.

The Russian Civil War

The Brest-Litovsk peace agreement between Germany and Communist Russia galvanized significant portions of Russia's population to violently oppose the Bolshevik government. The White armies evolved out of this opposition and became the principal threat to the Bolshevik regime. They were however only one dimension of the Civil War as other groups and nations played important roles. The defeat of the Whites was caused primarily by their failure to enlist mass support for their cause. Geography, internal division and patriotism also contributed to their defeat.

The Whites fought on a variety of fronts against the Reds with the most important being the East, South and North Western. The principal leader for each was Admiral Kolchak, General Denikin and General Iudenich respectively. Kolchak was nominally head of the movement mainly because the allies recognised him as such. In practice the White armies were completely independent. It was also the allies namely Britain, France, Japan and the United States which lent the most support to the Whites. It was this support that allowed the Whites to become the dominant opposition to the Communists. All three armies were reasonably cohesive groups with a clear command and control structure with total numbers peaking at over 250,000 troops. It was this organised nature that made them the Reds most dangerous adversaries. Contributed to this were the White's underlying political motives for fighting. These were to restore the Provisional Government and to return Russia to the old order of the conservative ruling class. The Whites were by far the largest, most organised and best supported organisation committed to the overthrow of the Bolsheviks.

Peasant armies or Greens as they became known fought both sides in the Civil War. The White and Red armies required a large amount of conscripts and supplies for their campaigns. The easiest source for these was from rural Russia but conscription and grain requisitions badly alienated the peasants under their control. Many peasants and villages were pushed towards starvation and responded by killing the requisition squads and other officials. These outbreaks of violence quickly spread into outward rebellions with repressive measures against rebelling villages merely acting to spread the disturbances. There were 344 peasant revolts by mid 1919 and by 1920 the revolts had become widespread. These armies sometimes up to a thousand strong disrupted the supply lines and resource base's of both sides but failed to unite into a cohesive national force. Throughout the Civil War large areas of the two sides territory were engulfed by hundreds of distinct peasant revolts.

No less than eleven countries attacked Russia during the Civil War. On the whole these countries did not coordinate their activities and followed localised objectives. The Czechoslovak legion of ex prisoners of war started the Civil War in Siberia with their Railway War. Instead of allowing themselves to be disarmed the legion conquered a large stretch of territory along the Trans-Siberian railway, an area that became the basis of Kolchak's government in the East. The Czechs lost interest after World War One and minimised their role in the fighting. Britain and France invaded both Murmansk and Archangel and set up a weak White government in the North. Japan and to a lesser extent the United States and Canada invaded Russia in the Pacific. The Japanese also set up a White government under Grigorii Semenov and occupied Vladivostok until October 1922. While the allies did intervene in the Civil War they did so for their own interests and to nurture the White opposition.

Many parts of the former Tsarist Empire attempted to gain independence during the Civil War. The three Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all successfully gained independence, as did Finland and Poland. None could escape the Civil War with all a playing a part. Poland for example waged war against Soviet Russia from 1920-21 over where to draw the border between the two nations. Other border disputes occurred and many of the new State gave limited support to either the Reds or more commonly the Whites. Estonia became embroiled in the North Western battle with both Reds and Whites violating its territory. The independently minded parts of the old Russian Empire could not avoid becoming entangled in the Civil War.

Maori Strategy in the Taranaki War

Maori in the Taranaki War fought a largely defensive war. They did however have an overall strategy which they actively pursued. The British were largely unable to counter this strategy in an effective way.

The Battle of Puketakauere was the most decisive engagement in the Taranaki War. In the battle less than 200 Maori comprehensively defeated 400 British soldiers killing a minium of 30 and wounding 34. The Maori in contrast lost only five men killed. Innovative Maori fortifications were the major cause of the Maori victory. The actual pa was located on Onukukaitara hill and consisted of a small relatively simple stockade. Onukukaitara was essentially a dummy pa that attracted British attention and artillery fire. Rifle pits dug in a deep trench between the pa and the British lines were the real key to the position. The British force was split into groups with the intention of making a two pronged attack on Onukukaitara. The first division was halted a few yards from the rifle pits by a coordinated volley. The second division tried to attack Onukukaitara by way of Puketakauere hill. The British were under the understanding Puketakauere hill was not fortified. The Maori however had so skilfully concealed their entrenchments that the soldiers walked straight into an ambush. Both divisions were either forced to retreat or to flee for their lives.

The defenders of Puketakauere included Kingite soldiers from the Ngati Maniapoto tribe, "Epiha's vanguard." The battle and subsequent victory convinced the King Movement resistance in Taranaki was not futile. This realisation is likely to have been a major factor in the increase in warriors the movement sent to fight in Taranaki alluded to in the exert. The King Movement while among the most agriculturally advanced Maori tribes in the country still relied on a tribal economy to sustain themselves. Enormous strain was placed on tribes when a large percent of their work force were away fighting. The movement overcame this by establishing a shift system. Under the system parties of warriors would fight in Taranaki for a period of around two months then return home to care for their cultivations. Returning parties were replaced by fresh warriors. This helped the movement maintain a minimum of 400 warriors in Taranaki peaking at 800. 

The first aspect of the Maori strategy was to maintain a war on two fronts, to the north and south of New Plymouth. Just as important was the maintenance of a creditable threat on New Plymouth itself. When an expedition was mounted against the south Taranaki tribes, the Te Atiawa and the Waikato made a threat against the town and vice versa. This tactic also had the side effect of causing extreme overcrowding in the town as the perimeter was shrunk to make the town more defendable. Disease from the overcrowding led to a marked increase in the death rate. The second aspect of the strategy was the destruction of settler property. Houses, household goods, stock, crops and agricultural equipment were either commandeered by the Maori or destroyed. Property losses exceeded 200,000 pounds by the end of the war and 200 farms were completely destroyed. The third element of the strategy the modern pa, provided bases for the Maori warriors to carry out their plundering and raiding activities. The easily built and expendable modern pa were constructed in a flexible ring around New Plymouth and other British positions. When the Maori had the upper hand the ring was extended to within kilometres of New Plymouth. From these advanced positions the destruction of the Taranaki province could continue at an increased rate. The Maori in Taranaki had a clear strategic strategy that minimised their weaknesses and protected their fertile cultivations.

The Maori strategy effectively blocked the British from achieving their objectives in the Taranaki War. At all stages during the war the British wanted a decisive victory over the Maori. The Maori strategy effectively prevented the British from even gaining an opportunity to achieve this goal. If the British attacked a weak pa the Maori would simply abandon the pa. If the British attacked a strong pa they had to attack a garrison with intricate knowledge of the battleground entrenched in pre prepared positions.

The settlement of Taranaki had ceased to exist as a viable economic and social district by the end of the war. However the Maori did not win all the battles in the war and the end result was a stalemate. By merely fighting in the aid of another tribe the King Movement gained significant support from around the North Island. The Taranaki War made the British determined to smash the King Movement as it now presented a serious barrier to British law and order in the North Island.

The Zapatista Mexican Rebellion, its Revolutionary Objectives and Tactics

On New Years Day 1994 with ski masks and automatic rifles in hand the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN) descended from the hills of Mexico's impoverished Chiapas province and commenced a unique armed struggle. The EZLN have relied heavily on sympathetic organisations, public relations and the internet to present the group's ideology to Mexicans and to people around the world. In so doing, they successfully circumvented and undermined the propaganda systems that had previously prevented large-scale peaceful movements from expressing essentially the same objectives.

The EZLN is largely an indigenous peasant based movement with some urban intellectual leadership most notably Subcommander Marcos the groups spokesperson. The organisation has its roots in Mexico's most southern and poverty-stricken province, Chiapas. A province dominated by indigenous Indian communities and largely excluded from any capitalist development. Ninety percent of indigenous households in the state are without electricity and running water. 

Democracy, freedom and justice are the EZLN's three central objectives. The democracy they envisage is consensus based, direct and participatory. Their goal of freedom is required to facilitate indigenous autonomy and self-determination. Social and economic justice, a critique of neo-liberal ideology is a key objective considered necessary to gain respect for indigenous culture and alternative ways of life. Combined they cover other more specific demands like improved housing and education and the protection of Indian culture.

Chiapas had long voted for the ruling Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) in relatively larger numbers than any other Mexican state. People were mostly forced by the local landowning elites to vote in this way. This gives some clue as to the all-encompassing grip the PRI maintained on Mexican society in Chiapas. It controlled the mass media, the few schools, the unions and the peasant organisations. The only significant counter balance to the PRI was the Roman Catholic Church. Thus, the rebels combined forces with the church to help organise peasant communities and support their struggles. By working alongside with what are generally the most trusted and revered members in Mexican peasant communities the rebels were able to slowly earn the trust and support of the local peasants. Sharing the hardships and general state of hopelessness with the peasants changed the rebels own perspectives to a point where the two became inseparable. Thus the guerrilla leadership did not take up arms and then call for local support. They consulted widely and thoroughly with local communities first until a consensus in favour of armed struggle was achieved.

The Zapatistas hence practise at every step the local autonomy, democracy and justice they preach. This lack of hypocrisy undeniably helped win over the active support of the people of Chiapas. As well Marcos and other Zapatistas have used the "language of storytelling and poetry rather than political dogma" to communicate their dreams and ideas to the local population and later the world. Thirty percent of people in Chiapas are illiterate and another thirty two percent speak only their native Indian language. Storytelling was thus crucial in ensuring the guerrillas earned the support of the most deprived people in Mexico. Active and widespread participation was crucial as armed resistance has historically led to harsh elite led repression. Military and state backed terror was indeed the PRI's and the Chiapas landed elite's response. Hired guards and other paramilitary groups were entrusted by the state to terrorise the local population into subjugation and submission. The peasants responded by sending their men into the jungle in support of the guerrillas while the women folk did their best to continue their way of life in the face of military occupation. The guerrilla leadership foreseeing this response sought to create national and international support networks with any organisation that shared in part or all of the movement's vision. These networks and the support they produced created an effective shield that prevented the Mexican state following a path of complete repression against the Zapatistas.

Mexico in 1994 was firmly under the one party hegemony of the PRI. Opposition movements were uncoordinated and prone to cooptation, repression or marginalisation. Mexico's mass media were either state controlled or closely watched by the PRI state. Interlinking personal relationships amongst the elite also helped to consolidate party control. In October 1990, the Mexican government hired the largest public relations firm in the world, Burson-Marsteller to gain Mexican acceptance of the North American Free Trade Zone. In the early 1990s the Mexican state had a coordinated and successful propaganda machine at its disposal.

Economic Growth and Democratisation in North East Asia

Economic development is conducive to democratisation but is not sufficient for its achievement. For while economic growth provides people with the spare time and resources to partake in politics and also creates the demand for it, it does not automatically ensure democratisation takes place. North East Asia shows that political and economic elites must also support democratisation and this support depends much on its timing. Nevertheless South Korean, Taiwanese and Japanese democracy has all followed periods of strong economic growth.

The very poor simply do not possess the resources required to take part in a democracy let alone the amount required to successfully pressure a ruling regime to democratise. When your first priority is mere survival it can be difficult to find the time for much else. Spare time brings the opportunity to take part in demonstrations and other political activity or even just keeping up with the day's political events. Uneducated and illiterate peasants have throughout history been able to mobilise and form political movements to further their causes. Localised and easily isolated these movements have however almost always lacked the national scale to achieve their goals.

National movements require modern communication technologies and an educated populace both of which are products only of economic development. Education however exemplifies how loose this relationship can be. Almost all of the North East Asian nations invested heavily in both their own education systems and in sending their students to study in western countries. Yet these educated citizens concerned themselves largely with achieving economic prosperity and not with increasing their political freedoms.

Economic growth leads to a more complex and multi-connected economy. This kind of economy breaks down class barriers by necessitating a country's people to interact more often and in more diverse ways. To support and inform economic decision makers a relatively free mass media needs to develop. This mass media can just as easily spread implicit and explicit pro-democracy messages. An implicit message could simply be reporting on a foreign democratic election. Mass media were however rarely used for explicit independent political reporting preferring to restrict their independence to economic reporting. Thus an educated and linked populace does not automatically bring about democratisation but is an important precondition.

Economic development also changes the social composition of a nation, rapidly expanding the middle class. On the eve of Taiwan's democratisation its middle class had expanded to a third of the total adult population. While arguably the middle class benefits most from economic development and thus has the largest vested interest in its continuation this does not automatically translate into support for democracy. If given the choice between continued economic growth under a mild authoritarian regime and a democratic regime which could not so easily deliver continued growth most would have little hesitation in choosing the former. It is inconclusive that conditions for economic growth are more favourably under an authoritarian regime however as corruption and wasted resources can potentially be lowered by a transparent and accountable democratic regime.

Without exception economic growth has drawn the nations of North East Asia into the world economy. This has exposed them to western ideas of democracy and to western influence. As they have all pursued paths of export led industrialisation no country was in a position to ignore western sensibilities and influence. Whether this influence came in the form of economic sanctions against China after Tiananmen Square or as a condition for economic aid its effect was and is significant. South Korea and Taiwan both made the choice to democratise partly to build distinct national identities and partly to earn the sympathy and thus continuing protection of the world. This protection has been as much economic as military with both nations closely linked to the world economy. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia decreased the ideological threat South Korea and Taiwan faced and thus allowed pro-democracy forces to shape post-authoritarian politics in these nations. International factors play an important role in prodding a nation towards democratisation.

Social mobilisation theory conceptualises this process. It states that economic development increases the desire and capability of people to participate in decision making and that this facilitates a democratic transition. This process occurs because people's orientation towards political objects is changed as their interaction with the state in the economic sphere increases. Once the state is humanised and people realise its economic policy can be influenced it is a small step to believing that it can be influenced politically. Once begun democratisation tends to develop a momentum all of its own.

Comparison of Chinese and North Korean Communism up to the 1980s

China's and North Korea's communist parties came to power at similar times, in nations though distinct with a great deal of shared history and culture. While their specific paths to power were very different the form of communism they implemented during their first two decades of rule bared great resemblances to each other. Both also conducted political experiments and developed personality cults around their leaders in this time. Only in the 1970s did the versions of communism the two practised begin to diverge dramatically.

China and Korea share long and deep rooted histories of Oriental Despotism, Confucianism and Buddhism. This history of centralised rule by an emperor lasted up to the late nineteenth century. It was destroyed in Korea and weakened in China only by foreign conquest. The resultant Japanese domination was complete in Korea and widespread in China and created lasting influences on the countries. Both combined these historical legacies with Marxism-Leninism to develop unique versions of communism. China's health system was often a mix of western medical procedures and ancient Chinese medicines. The two nations shared history of centralised rule and collective effort not only made them susceptible to communism but ensured that when they tailored it to local conditions the resulting regimes and societies were similar in nature.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Korean Workers Party (KWP) had very different though linked paths to power. The origins of both parties can be traced back to the First World War. The CCP was however able to grow much faster and was a significant force in Chinese politics from the mid 1920s. Through a long internal struggle and the allied defeat of the Japanese in World War Two the communists were able to triumph over both the Japanese and their domestic opponents the Chinese nationalists. Conversely the already communist Soviet Union occupied North Korea in the final days of the war and immediately set about developing an indigenous communist regime. Though significant numbers of Korean communists, many fighting in China during the war did exist the North Korean regime initially relied heavily on the Soviet Union and on large numbers of communist Chinese-Koreans and Soviet-Koreans. In comparison the People's Republic of China was not founded until 1949 when their internal victory was almost complete. To achieve this victory the Chinese needed to ally themselves in a united front with many non-communist elements, the petty bourgeoisie and some of the richer peasants. From this start the PRC gradually nationalised industries and collectivised agriculture. Private firms were turned into joint state and private enterprises, taxed heavily and finally bought off by paying fixed interest at increasingly nominal rates to the original owners. This gradualism allowed the Chinese economy to recover rapidly as vital people and methods of work were phased out rather than simply eliminated. Under Soviet military protection North Korea had no such restraints and acted quickly to implement core socialist policies. Due to the extensive Soviet presence these closely resembled the Stalinist practices dominant in the Soviet Union at the time.

Until the 1970s the CCP and the KWP in general espoused a similar general ideology, that of Marxism-Leninism. The communist principle of democratic centralism was applied in the two counties. Economically this meant that the state not only owned the means of production but also centralised economic planning, investment and distribution. Power was concentrated in the hands of the respective parties with all party members and party organisations expected to unconditionally support and carry out the party line. Comparable political structures were also erected in the two countries. The highest organs of state the North Korean People's Assembly and the Chinese National People's Congress were run along the same lines. In principle membership of these organs and almost all party positions were elected. In reality they were anything but as there was usually only one candidate to vote for on the ballot paper. Therefore far from representing the proletariat and peasants the parties became totalitarian regimes run by select groups of people. These groups did not allow other political ideas or ideologies to circulate except for the government line. The struggle for power within the ruling cliché was intense in both parties, resulting in factions developing and clashing. Factionalism died down only when one man in each country held absolute power, Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il Sung in North Korea.

They used this power to implement their own versions of Marxism-Leninism rationalising them as adaptations to suit local conditions. Mao developed his theories collectively termed Maoism largely before the CCP came to power. This meant they were more pragmatic than orthodox Marxism-Leninism. Once securely in power Mao felt free to attempt a number of political experiments with the aim of advancing China closer to communism. These included the Great Leap Forward in agriculture and the Cultural Revolution both extensive attacks on the last bastions of bourgeoisie society in China. Neither policy achieved positive results with economic disaster the most common outcome. Likewise once his power was consolidated Kim too set about putting into practice his theory of Juche or self-reliance. He reasoned that being surrounded by so many major powers each with histories of invading North Korea the country had little choice but to become as internally self sufficient as possible. The logical conclusion of Juche was the almost complete closing of North Korea both economically, political and culturally from the rest of the world.