Why do civilisations collapse? Is our civilisation in danger?

All civilizations eventually will collapse into nothingness. Age might wither some. Customs may eventually make the bravest among us go stale. Perhaps, fate and fickle fortune could conspire a witch's brew of hedonism, hubris, and happenstance ensnaring unwitting societies. Or, the wrath of Nature could, Pompeii-like, entomb an entire population. The story of humanity is, in some ways, simply the litany of civilizations that have been buried among the ruins of time. While hindsight is crystal clear even for the visually impaired, the intellectual and logistical challenge for societies is in identifying forthcoming storms and sidestepping them. Unfortunately, rather than sidestepping disaster, societies goose-step headlong into oblivion, fueled by foolishness and catalyzed by fate. History, famously, repeats itself. Today’s Sisyphean struggle is to break free from these morbid habits and inculcate good practices for our collective good.

Civilizations are simply an agglomeration of people. Therefore, they perish in all the ways that people do. Economics, environment, wars, famine, and internecine squabbles all detract from societal health — just as they do for any individual. Analyzing these general traits provides invaluable lessons for planners and thinkers of current society to model sustainable behaviors.

Not just any “man,” but no civilization is an island. The delicate balance between people and nature — the local ecosystem emblemizing the larger environment —  is crucial. However advanced one might be, basic needs like water, favorable climate, cultivable land, etc. can never be ignored. The Mayans created “first world” cities, domesticated crops and wildlife, explored space, and had advanced technology in multiple fields spanning astronomy, civil engineering, and supposedly even rubber (three thousand years before Charles Goodyear).1 And yet, they were brought low by persistent drought. Another totemic example of “ecocide” is Easter Island — a small but once thriving island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. That society, scientists and anthropologists opine, literally ran out of environmental resources because they cut down too many trees and tilled too much land.

Consider the legendary Indus Valley Civilization — the precursor to the entire Indian subcontinent. The residents of this ancient culture epitomized human ingenuity, achievement, and success. Their two biggest cities — Harappa and Mohenjo Daro (in today’s Pakistan) — were akin to what New York and London are today: diverse, multi-faceted, and dominant cultural and commercial centers.2 Around 1700 BCE, catastrophic climate changes — especially lack or rain and resulting famine — severely damaged their societal edifices. Their very heft — what was hitherto their strength (population over five million) now worked against them. They literally could not feed the masses. And so, some four thousand years ago, they began to disperse and migrate, and soon, all traces of them were gone. For their age, Harappans had conquered art, architecture, science, and technology. And yet, like Ozymandias, all we have today is a vast stretch of sand where their works used to be. We don’t even have, as the Poet Shelley intoned, trunkless legs of stone.

Sitting in suburban New Jersey — or in an apartment overlooking Hangzhou Bay in Shanghai, it is easy to distance ourselves from the miseries of the Mayas and the eastern civilization in the Indus Valley. That would be a calamitous mistake, ignoring what’s right in front of our eyes.

Consider India, home to a fifth of humanity.3 For all the talk of Bengaluru being the back-office for the world, Chennai being the new Detroit with its car factories and Apple starting new iPhone plants, the country has a mere 4% of the world’s potable water.4 In early 2024, when the rains failed, the entire megalopolis of Bengaluru was parched.5 On the flip-side, torrential rains deluged Chennai in December 2023.6 And because inveterate builders had overdeveloped farmlands and (dry) lake beds, the water could not run off. Between feast and famine, India is teetering. And no amount of iPhones and electric cars can salvage something so basic as … water.

Another looming planetary disaster is being seeded, ironically, by the deforestation in the Amazon. Compared to the 1960s, the Brazilian rainforests have shrunk (conservatively) by 20%.7 Thousands of botanical and zoological species fell victim to human greed and became extinct. Overlogging for timber to state the uniquely American desire to build giant homes is feeding a ferocious pipeline from the Rio to Miami and beyond.8 While deforestation is the destruction of the Earth from above the ground, humans continue to damage the planet from under the ground as well. Whether it is drilling for oil in ANWR or “raping” the Earth for Lithium mining to power mobile phones and electric cars, the willful and wanton destruction of our collective tomorrows for momentary happiness and quarterly corporate earnings continues apace. Clearly, the planet is being hollowed out from the inside and out. Unless we change course, and soon, history will repeat itself, this time on steroids.

Environment and economics are fraternal twins. These siblings are the yin and yang of communal well-being. Often, environmental health is sacrificed (murdered?) at the altar of economics. Equally, economic growth is frequently bedeviled by a morass of onerous regulations supposedly protecting the environment. Both approaches are wrong, and most often, hide ulterior motives benefitting politicians.

To paraphrase Napoleon Bonaparte, a society marches on its stomach. Until and unless people get their basic needs sated — and that costs money — societies cannot survive. This is where the rubber of the wealth gap hits the road of human health. (In)famously, 90% of the world subsists on less than $2 a day (per the UN).9 In the 1970s, the average American CEO made about 25 times the average wage of a regular employee. Today, the “salary” alone is over 350 times, not including the real kickers — stock options, in-kind benefits, and golden parachutes.10 The recent pandemic highlighted the bruising inequalities foaming under the surface, leading to a fuming public clamor for reform.

In Europe, the average child-to-woman ratio is 1.46 (the replacement rate is 2.1).11 In almost every European country (without liberal migration policies), the local population is declining.12 Women are steadfastly refusing to have children, primarily for economic reasons. Despite governments bribing families with increasingly generous maternal and paternal leave policies, the numbers are stalling.13 Western Europe is looking at a demographic disaster of our own making. In contrast to the wealthy west, the poor in Africa and elsewhere — continue to procreate above replacement levels leading to further strain on local economic welfare.14 Governments everywhere are bereft of ideas. The irony is that where there are opportunities, there are no people. And where there are people, there are no opportunities. This, ultimately, is the reason why people migrate legally and “illegally” — be it from Latin America to the US, from India to Australia, or from Syria to Germany. This is akin to the human body sending more blood and nutrients when a particular body part is injured. However, immigration is not so simple for a variety of logical, emotional, and, unfortunately, racist reasons. A synchronized, fair, global immigration policy can alleviate many of the Earth’s ills. One can only dream.

Like a virus, economic travails are a global contagion. The 1929 stock market crash, collapse of the Soviet Union, the 2008 financial crisis, the Argentine devaluations of the 1990s, etc. all left deep gashes in global wealth — and health. For example, the 2008 financial crisis, triggered by the collapse of the housing bubble in the United States, had far-reaching effects, demonstrating how vulnerabilities in one part of the world can ripple through the global economy.15 Arguably, that economic virus (2008 crisis) caused as much, if not more global financial damage than the actual Covid virus. And yet, the poobahs of today persist with the same timeworn and shopworn approaches that doomed the Romans two millennia ago.

Our sad and scary reality is that our yesterday is our tomorrow. Our past is not just our prologue, but also. seemingly, our epitaph. Once again, humanity is staring at the abyss globally. We continue to walk in the well-trodden path strewn with the carcasses of the Mayans and the Harappans, the Easter Islanders and their ilk. One unique attribute of the financially juiced, technology-driven progress over the last 40 years is that the benefits have seldom “trickled down.” The rich are drunk on privilege (like the Romans were) and the poor are drowning in despair (like the populaces conquered by the Romans). We are unjustifiably sanguine, believing that science can always be a salve and that hope is a winning strategy. Just like America built Phoenix and Las Vegas from a literal desert, people naively believe we will always find a new home somewhere, somehow. That area should still be a forsaken wasteland right now. However, technological advances allowed us to overcome nature.

Today, ruin lurks at the corner; the rot is real. Just as Rome was not built in a day, decay also is not foreseen in a day. Casually, many blame poverty as a consequence of personal choices and ignore actual causal concerns. Phoenix, Vegas and such miracles have given unjustified hopes that we will always manage to find a way to circumvent suboptimal conditions via technology and effort. We need to re-evaluate our views and recalibrate our expectations. We still cannot resolve traffic issues in Mumbai or LA. And yet, we believe that if Earth is uninhabitable, we will simply colonize Mars. Therefore, learning from historical collapses are pivotal to implementing sustainable practices to prevent our civilization from experiencing a similar fate to the fallen civilizations. Our ability to adapt and innovate will determine whether we can overcome these environmental challenges and secure a stable future.

It is not cynical or conspiratorial to believe that, left untended, Malthusian consequences are imminent on a global scale. Thanos might have been misguided and wrong, but ultimately, nature itself could become Thanos-ian and avenge the inequities and malevolent actions done unto it. But such fear should not petrify us; rather, motivate us to do better collectively.

The next generation is the first in several centuries (likely ever!) to have a lower life expectancy than the previous. This includes the times comprising such disasters like the bubonic plague and the world wars. And, we have done this to ourselves. To see the enemy, all one needs is a mirror. The funerary verse in the Book of Common Prayer notes that we all come from ashes and end up as ashes; that we go from “dust to dust.”16 But it is the interim that matters. True, all the good habits and proper behavior does not grant anyone an iota of immortality. Death does come to us all. But not all dust is mere dust. Astronomers advise that the universe came from cosmic “dust.” Such inconspicuous dust is the atomic root of all civilization — the building blocks of health, longevity.

Poet Shelley, ever the realist, mocks hubris and says nothing lasts forever. 

“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

— Ozymandias, Shelley17

But another Englishman, John Keats, directionally challenged Shelley:

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness.”

— Endymion, John Keats18

That beauty should be our inspiration. While humanity may, at best, asymptotically approach what nature can, we know we can be sensible, prudent, and timely. We have done this in the past. The city was called “Phoenix,” because it rose from the ashes, like the mythological bird.19 In the debris of yesterday, from among the embers of the frayed hopes and frittered dreams, we should, hopefully, strive to step back from the abyss and soar. We can. We should. We must. We have no other choice, and, realistically, no other home.