The Catabolic Collapse of Capital

As civilizations grow more complex, the amount of capital they have increases. And with that growth in capital, there's also a growth in maintenance costs. John Michael Greer says if a civilization depends on non-renewable resources for essential functions, abandoning some of its capital yields only a brief reprieve from the crisis of maintenance costs. He breaks down how complex societies nearly always result in a system that creates an elite class that thrives and a laboring class that barely gets by.