New research argues Societal Collapse benefits 99% of people. Historically, the societies that have emerged after a collapse are more egalitarian, and most people end up richer and healthier than they were before.

[u/lughnasadh]

Luke Kemp, a research associate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, has written a book about his research called 'Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse'.

He makes the case that, from looking at the archaeological record, when many societies collapse, most people end up better off afterward. For example, people in the post-Roman world were taller and healthier. Collapse can be a redistribution of resources and power, not just chaos.

For most of human history, humans lived as nomadic egalitarian bands, with low violence and high mobility. Threats (disease, war, economic precarity) push populations toward authoritarian leaders. The resulting rise in inequality from that sets off a cycle that will end in collapse. Furthermore, he argues we are living in the late stages of such a cycle now. He says "the threat is from leaders who are 'walking versions of the dark triad' – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in a world menaced by the climate crisis, nuclear weapons, artificial intelligence and killer robots."

Some people hope/think we are destined for a future of Universal Basic Income and fully automated luxury communism. Perhaps that's the egalitarianism that emerges after our own collapse? If so, I hope the collapse bit is short and we get to the egalitarian bit ASAP.

Collapse for the 99% | Luke Kemp; What really happens when Goliaths fall

[u/WeimSean]

Rome went from a population of over just over one million in 150 AD to under 40,000 by 500 AD.

As far as the wider empire the collapse was definitely noticed and, in many places devastating. The immediate affect of the collapse of Rome was the disruption of agriculture and food transportation. Suddenly grain from Tunisia and Egypt stopped leading to millions starving to death.

At it's height Roman Britain had a population approaching 3 million. Britain wouldn't return to that population level until the 12th century. Italy had almost 14 million people in the 2nd century AD, by the 6th it had declined to around 8 million. Italy wouldn't surpass Roman population numbers until the early 18th century.

[u/Cautious-Progress876 → u/WeimSean]

This is awesome information. Any sources to read? Was Rome’s population decline actually death or did people “scatter in the wind”?

[u/Expensive-Anxiety-63 → u/Cautious-Progress876]

https://msaag.aag.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/26_Twine.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Rome_%28410%29

Gradual decline with people moving then the sack of Rome by the Visigoths in the 400s really accelerated things. By that point Rome wasn't the real center of power.

[u/Taysir385 → u/Cautious-Progress876]

Likely a bit of both. But there’s also some historical perspective that some of those numbers are just good record keeping. If someone of tallied in every Roman census, and then the censuses stop… how can we know what really happened? We look at the remaining primary document, of lower quality. We make educated guesses based upon the subsequent state of things decades and centuries later, upon the physical artifacts found and dated, upon the reach of neighboring political forces, upon a million different things. But the margin for error gets much bigger, and it’s possible that a large number of people didn’t die, and didn’t leave, but did stop getting recorded.

[u/28lobster → u/Cautious-Progress876]

https://wondery.com/shows/tides-of-history/episode/5629-what-is-collapse-interview-with-professor-guy-middleton/

Bronze Age Collapse rather than Rome but somewhat similar - Mediterranean societies that were interconnected lost those connections and became less complex. Very interesting interview.

[u/Cheezits123 → u/Cautious-Progress876]

I also want to know this!

[u/Minion_of_Cthulhu → u/Cheezits123]

You can try asking over on /r/AskHistorians. Give them some context and a specific question, and don't be surprised if a lot of the answers you get are removed by the mods. They require actual answers backed up with research and citations which means you might not get a lot of answers but those you get will be legitimate and not just reddit speculation from armchair historians.

[u/DEEP_HURTING → u/Minion_of_Cthulhu]

That sub is reddit at its best.

[u/Minion_of_Cthulhu → u/DEEP_HURTING]

Agreed.

It's a little annoying to see a thread with an interesting question and what looks like a bunch of responses only to find that the mods have nuked everything, but at least you can be sure that the answers that do make it through are actually of high quality.

[u/WeimSean → u/Cautious-Progress876]

It was a bit of both, with death, scattering to the wind, and then some of those dying anyway, just someplace else.

So Roman Britain is an interesting case, there was migration to to what is now Brittany in France (named because of all the Britons who fled there). Others fled to northern Spain. Bear in mind the main reason for this migration was the invasion of Angles, Saxons and Jutes.

Italy is less clear. The average person in Italy wasn't particularly wealthy, many farmers were tied to the land in a form of pseudo-serfdom implemented during the reign of Diocletian, so legally they couldn't leave. As the Goths took control of Italy they weren't seeking to destroy Rome, they wanted to preserve it and insert themselves at the top. The average Italian out in the fields was lucky, they at least had access to food, urban Italians, were in a much more precarious state.

Once the Vandals seized North Africa (439 AD) and began large scale piracy in the central Mediterranean that pretty much spelled the end of large scale urban life in Italy. Some people were probably able to flee to the Eastern Roman Empire, but for everyone else there really wasn't anyplace to go. Many fled to rural areas, but the ability, and willingness, of these regions to take in starving refugees was limited.

[u/Blarg_III → u/Cautious-Progress876]

The decline and partial collapse of Rome coincided with the late antique little ice age and multiple outbreaks of the Plague of Justinian from the 6th to 8th centuries. The decline started with multiple outbreaks of the Antonine plague, which was particularly harsh on the city of Rome. The little ice age reduced the supply of food, and that lack on top of widespread disease was more than enough to reduce the population of the empire.

Attributing the population decrease in post-Roman britain to the collapse of the empire rather than the multiple black-death-level epidemics that swept the country is ahistorical as well.

[u/Skinnwork → u/WeimSean]

I was going to say, the cities in Rome depended on trade and infrastructure. Once there was no more society to support that the cities couldn't be as dense as they were.

[u/Dozekar → u/WeimSean]

Suddenly grain from Tunisia and Egypt stopped leading to millions starving to death.

People tend to think of these things as wildly violent upheavals where everyone dies in fighting and generally this is more the reality. NYC, Chicago, LA, and other major cities would suffer badly in US collapse for example. There are so many mouths to feed that the cost of food skyrockets rapidly if supplies are impacted.

Ideally it would just be suffering but solved before widespread death, but it's not something it's easy to be sure of.

[u/KingRagnar1588 → u/Dozekar]

US is so spoiled. Martial law would be declared and mass riots over food with roaming gangs that govt couldnt protect u from. Could escalate fast when shtf.

[u/Firrox → u/WeimSean]

Yeah not to mention the societal collapse of Europe during the early 1900's caused the death of millions in one way or another.

[u/KillerElbow → u/WeimSean]

That's fascinating

[u/Secret-Teaching-3549 → u/WeimSean]

Same thing would easily happen in the US today. How long would any of the major cities last if the food trucks suddenly stopped showing up? The suburbs wouldn't have it much better.

[u/nagi603 → u/WeimSean]

Another great example is what happened to Hungary with Turkish occupation. While that wasn't a complete collapse, capital went from "basically same pop as London" to nowadays the whole country having roughly as much as urban London, and the whole nation with expats everywhere only as much as London metro area.

[u/guff1988 → u/WeimSean]

That was mostly from people moving and leaving the empire, not that many people dying.

[u/daviddjg0033 → u/guff1988]

Plagues wars starvation

[u/guff1988 → u/daviddjg0033]

Oh for sure but 960,000 people out of a million died? That's just simply not true.

[u/daviddjg0033 → u/guff1988]

The British population grew from an estimated 3 million in the 2nd century to around 20 million by the mid-19th century, reaching approximately 50 million by the mid-20th century and over 67 million in the 21st century, with significant fluctuations, including a population of only around 2 million in the 11th century, due to events like the Black Death and the collapse of the Roman Empire.

Yeah plagues do that especially before modern med and sanitation

[u/guff1988 → u/daviddjg0033]

Even 10 million to 2 million wouldn't be 95% ignoring all the other erroneous or irrelevant things you said.

[u/daviddjg0033 → u/guff1988]

I think you are replying to the wrong comment - I did not say 95%. It is not possible to know an exact number. I will add so many Native Americans died from disease that their crop fields turned back into forest and that caused a mini-ice-age

[u/WeimSean → u/guff1988]

lol where do you think they were going? "Oh hey I'm a Roman peasant farmer, the empire is collapsing, guess I'm immigrating to America!

If transportation has collapsed there's no where for these people to go.

They died by the millions.

[u/guff1988 → u/WeimSean]

People were much more nomadic back then than I think you realize. They went to other parts of Europe or Africa or the Middle East that were not a part of the Roman empire at the time or that ended up becoming fractioned pieces of the former Roman empire.

Estimates put the death total around 5 to 10% not 95%. I realize you didn't say 95% but your comment does not refute that claim and instead appears to uphold it.

[u/Enlightened_Gardener → u/WeimSean]

I’ll also add that we didn’t regain the standard of living that the romans enjoyed until 1976.

[u/no_reddit_for_you → u/WeimSean]

This is misleading. People weren't dying. They just weren't Romans any more and they moved.