The word “collapse” usually conjures images of sudden catastrophe: cities abandoned, empires falling overnight, institutions crumbling in chaos. But collapse can also look much slower — a gradual unraveling where the signs are everywhere but hard to pin to a single moment. More and more scholars are beginning to argue that this is where we are today: global society is in the midst of collapse.
This doesn’t mean the world will end tomorrow. It means that the institutions and economic logics that sustained industrial modernity — capitalism, liberal democracy, and even state socialism — are increasingly unable to cope with the world they have helped create.
The Case for Collapse
The idea that we are living through collapse is not new, but it has gained momentum. In The Epochal Crisis of Global Capitalism (2024), William Robinson describes a multidimensional breakdown: economic stagnation, political disillusionment, deepening inequality, ecological tipping points, and rising geopolitical conflict. For Robinson, this is not just another downturn — it’s an epochal crisis, one that capitalism cannot resolve within its own logic.
Earlier, Giovanni Arrighi and Beverly Silver (2001) saw capitalism entering a period of systemic turbulence. Historically, capitalism reinvented itself through cycles: expansion into new territories, technological revolutions, or the rise of new hegemonic powers. But those options are running out. The system has become too global, too integrated, too complex to stabilize.
Even the once-optimistic theories of a “post-industrial” society have soured. Daniel Bell’s vision of a knowledge-driven utopia has given way to precarious work, weakened institutions, and deepening social divides. Critics like Vogt (2016) and Zakaria & Buaben (2021) argue that the promise of post-industrial progress has curdled into a narrative of crisis.
Varieties of Collapse
So what do scholars mean when they talk about collapse? It depends on where you look.
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Some, like Joseph Tainter (1988), see collapse as the cost of complexity: societies become so elaborate and bureaucratic that the benefits no longer outweigh the costs.
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Others focus on ecological overshoot. Our industrial civilization has pushed planetary systems beyond their limits, and shifting energy sources may not be enough to prevent systemic breakdown (Solé, 2023; Tales, 2023).
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Political and cultural theorists point to institutional fragility. Civilizations often fall not just because of external shocks but because elites overreach, institutions lose legitimacy, and cultures fail to adapt (Butzer, 2012; Winter, 2024).
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Finally, integrated models see collapse as an emergent property of complex socio-ecological systems, driven by feedback loops that spiral beyond control (Abel, Cumming & Anderies, 2006).
Each mechanism highlights a piece of the puzzle. Taken together, they suggest that collapse is rarely the result of a single cause — it’s the outcome of interacting crises that reinforce each other.
Complexity: Collapse from Within
If there’s a common thread, it’s complexity. Complexity is not just an external pressure; it’s something we generate ourselves.
Digital technology is the clearest example. It has made our lives more interconnected than ever, expanding the scale and speed of human interaction. But as scholars like Buzan & Lawson (2014) and Robinson (2024) point out, digital capitalism also makes the system more fragile. Information technologies create new possibilities for collaboration and innovation, but they also multiply interdependencies, making societies harder to govern.
In theory, complexity should make systems more adaptable. But as Malaina (2014) warns, capitalism has appropriated the language of “complex adaptive systems” to present itself as resilient, when in fact digital complexity is driving it closer to the edge. The very networks that promised resilience may be generating fragility.
New Forms Emerging in the Cracks
Yet collapse is not only about endings. It can also be about beginnings.
Scholars like Yochai Benkler and Michel Bauwens have observed something remarkable: the digital world has given rise to commons-based, peer-to-peer forms of production. Think of Wikipedia, open-source software, or community-driven projects where valuables are created collaboratively rather than through markets or states.
Benkler (2006) calls this commons-based peer production — a logic of cooperation that operates outside capitalist property relations. Bauwens (2020) frames it as part of a transition to post-capitalism, where distributed networks and shared resources become the backbone of a new order. Others, like Schismenos, Niaros & Lemos (2020), propose cosmolocalism: producing locally while sharing knowledge globally, combining resilience with cooperation.
What makes these models promising is that they seem better suited to a world of complexity. Rather than concentrating power in rigid hierarchies, they distribute coordination across networks. They are more adaptive, more participatory, and potentially more sustainable.
Conclusion: Living in the Interregnum
The Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci once wrote: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born. Now is the time of monsters.” That line captures our moment well.
The signs of collapse are all around us: ecological breakdown, political polarization, economic fragility, technological disruption. But at the same time, new forms are struggling to emerge. Commons, peer production, and networked collaboration may not yet be dominant, but they reveal that alternatives to both capitalism and socialism are possible.
If industrial-era institutions are collapsing under the weight of complexity, then the question is no longer whether collapse will happen — but what comes after. And in that sense, the experiments happening in digital commons and peer-to-peer networks may offer more than just interesting curiosities. They may be early blueprints for the societies capable of surviving — and thriving — in the ruins of the old.
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Sensorica is implementing its OVN model for material peer production. You can donate to support the amazing people who have sacrificed for the past 15 years to refine peer production.
NOTE: This post has been produced with the help of AI, encapsulating Sensorica's 15 years of uninterrupted experience with material peer production, embracing complexity, leveraging emergence.
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