Joseph Tainter

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Joseph Anthony Tainter (born December 8, 1949 ) is an American anthropologist and historian .

Life

Tainter studied anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley and Northwestern University , where he graduated with a Ph.D. completed.

He then carried out various research projects on the history of the indigenous peoples of the southwestern USA and Mexico and was assistant professor of anthropology at the University of New Mexico . Most recently, he was a professor in the Department of Environment and Society at Utah State University .

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In his most famous work, The Collapse of Complex Societies , Tainter examined the collapse of the Mayan and Chaco Canyon cultures in New Mexico and the Western Roman Empire . He integrated aspects of network theory , energy economics and the theory of complex systems . Tainter argues that the ability of primitive societies to address problems such as B. to solve the scarcity of resources simply through migration (ie through "horizontal" expansion), which does not exist in developed and complex societies. A “vertical” solution has to be found here by increasing hierarchical controls and central problem-solving institutions. The collapse of entire societies can result from the inefficiency and failure of these problem-solving institutions and mechanisms, if collective investment in them and the energy supplies needed to maintain them increase, but result in falling marginal returns . He defines such a “collapse” as a sudden, involuntary breakdown of complexity ( a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity ).

He uses a similar point of view when analyzing American society, which is dependent on energy subsidies in the form of oil imports, in which increasing energy demand and social complexity have intensified over the decades until oil became more expensive due to offshore production and the conflicts in the Middle East, while at the same time the costs of national and international problem-solving mechanisms rose.

Tainter thus further developed ideas from Leopold Kohr , who recognized the increase in complexity caused solely by the sheer size of a nation as a cause of critical developments. According to Tainter, with the availability or development of new, cheaper (e.g. decentralized) energy sources, the advantage of complex organizational units decreases, while their complexity and control costs become prohibitive. According to Tainter, the falling marginal productivity of their problem-solving institutions and mechanisms is the ultimate cause of the collapse of cultures, even if external influences or catastrophes are added as a trigger. According to Morris Berman , it is already an indication of falling marginal productivity and thus a symptom of crisis when collective (state, etc.) investments in problem-solving systems, e.g. B. in services of general interest like the pension system, can be replaced by private investments.

Marginal productivity can, however, be increased at least temporarily through new energy sources or technologies to increase energy efficiency . Also, unlike the isolated Mayan and US Southwest cultures, neighboring complex cultures can now absorb the remnants of decaying cultures. According to Tainter, all collapses always had and still have beneficiaries, such as the peoples on the edge of the Roman Empire who usurped its remains.

criticism

Despite his training as an anthropologist, Tainter is an extreme determinist, notes an anonymous reviewer. He neglects the fact that in modern societies problem-solving processes function without the consumption of additional energy and without additional complexity. Collapses like the one he presented could only happen in situations of isolation in a power vacuum.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tainters CV on sustainabilityintl.com ; Utah State University: Joseph Tainters homepage
  2. ^ Evolving Complexity and Environmental Risk in the Prehistoric Southwest in: Santa Fe Institute Proceedings , 24 (1998), edited with Bonnie Bagley Tainter.
  3. ^ Joseph A. Tainter: The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge UP, 1990 (first edition 1988).
  4. ↑ Tainter 1990, p. 128 ff.
  5. ^ Joseph Tainter: Problem Solving: Complexity, History, Sustainability. In: Population & Environment , 22 (2000) 1, pp. 3-41.
  6. ↑ Joseph Tainter, Tadeusz Patzek: Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma. Copernicus, 2011.
  7. ^ Leopold Kohr: The Breakdown of Nations , Routledge and Kegan, London 1957 and EP Dutton, New York 1978.
  8. ^ Morris Berman: Culture Before Collapse. Frankfurt am Main / Vienna / Zurich 2002, p. 36. ISBN 3-7632-5177-4 .
  9. ^ Review of The Collapse of Complex Societies (Joseph A. Tainter) in: The Worthy House , January 24, 2014.
personal data
SURNAME Tainter, Joseph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tainter, Joseph Anthony (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American anthropologist and historian
DATE OF BIRTH December 8, 1949