What is societal collapse? Lessons from the past can help us understand our future, but only to a point

Researchers often define collapse as a social simplification in which hierarchies are flattened or governance systems break up. But with this definition it’s not clear what is inherently “bad” about collapse. After all, the disintegration of colonial empires in the mid-20th century was a collapse by this definition — and a development which most would celebrate.

We argue that the demise of a social hierarchy need not entail societal collapse, what matters is how events impact human welfare. Therefore, it is necessary to pin down what exactly is harmful about collapse before trying to generalize from past examples. After all, the purpose of learning from history should be to prevent wrongs, not protect contemporary inequalities.