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Comment by wjnc | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps you know since you’ve read the book: Does the book _really_ decide on declining marginal returns to complexity as an ultimate factor? Or is that the interpretation by the reviewer? The bridging of sociology, history and economics was somewhat rare back in the 80s and before. (Douglas North a notable exception, obviously not alone.) If the author does, now I’m wondering why I missed this book & going to read.

First thing as a counterpoint that comes to mind is biological complexity. There are marginal diminishing returns to complexity in biology as well, but not a rise / collapse rhythm in biological complexity outside of external events that I know of.

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On the bridging of economics and sociology, I'd strongly recommend Charles Perrow's Complex Organizations: A Critical Essay (1986), which is a tour de force survey of the literature.

Notably, Herbert Simon spanned multiple domains (economics, psychology, sociology, organisational behaviour, AI, mathematics, ...), though comes off somewhat poorly in the text.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/complex-organizations-a-criti...

On Tainter, he specifically assesses eleven factors: resource depletion, new resources, catastrophes, insufficient response to circumstances, other complex societies (e.g., warfare/invasion), intruders, conflict / contradictions / mismanagement, social dysfunction, mystical factors, chance concatenation of events, and economic explanations.

Chapters 4 & 5 specifically address marginal productivity. They are titled "Understanding collapse: th emarginal productivity of sociopolitical change" and "Evaluation: compelxity and marginal returns in collapsing societies".

Yes, declining marginal returns to complexity is Tainter's principle thesis.

This is a great point of comparison. I feel that societal systems (and associated complexities) are more rigid than biological systems in the sense that a biological systems evolve efficient solutions in response to changing internal and external stimuli while societal systems cannot/will not due to man-made laws, norms, expectations etc. The latter (biological systems) shows first order adaptation while the former (societal) shows, at best second and third order adaptations, if it even adapts.

> The bridging of sociology, history and economics was somewhat rare back in the 80s and before. (Douglas North a notable exception, obviously not alone.)

So Karl Marx and Max Weber are just chopped liver?

Ah true point. Perhaps the addition /in the modern scientific era/ would be in place. Begging the question when that starts of course. Let’s say that economics was earlier embracing quantitative techniques in the 20th century and that there was a rift between the fields especially when sociology was young that nowadays is less pronounced. It’s all interpretation.

I would have said that the 1960s and part of the 1970s were filled with attempts to synthesize, among other things the fields you've mentioned. It wound down with Reagan and Thatcher's elections, which may or may not be proximate cause - the new right at that time were certainly not fond of the humanities in any way.

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