Russia’s Plight: A Cautionary Tale About the Need to Relocalize

Resource Insights – Recent mention in the media of more than a decade of population decline in Russia elicited little more than a yawn from the somnolent public. The usual explanations link that decline to events in Russia which seem specific to that country: a high rate of alcoholism, a poor public health system, widespread denial about a raging AIDS epidemic, and economic hard times. No doubt there are many things uniquely Russian about the sad state of Russian society. But is Russia’s decline really only about Russia? Can we safely ignore the bad news and assume nothing like it can happen to us?

Perhaps if Joseph Tainter, author of The Collapse of Complex Societies, had published his book today instead of in 1988, he might not have had to reach back so far in history for an example of a complex society in collapse.
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