Ecosocial Collapse

Luis González Reyes 

The collapse of a social order is the breakdown—due largely to factors intrinsic to the system itself—of its political, economic and cultural structures. This process usually spreads for decades, meaning it unfolds rapidly in historical terms, but slowly in the span of a human lifetime. During and after the collapse, an open situation arises in which new social configurations emerge. When the end of the Western Roman Empire is described as a collapse, this refers to a profound shift in the economic order (from slavery to serfdom), the political order (from empire to feudalism) and the cultural order (from the classical worldview to the medieval one). This collapse need not have been total, as there are always elements of continuity between one system and another. For example, in both the classical era and the Middle Ages, the social economy remained agrarian. Thus, the collapse of the current global capitalist system would not necessarily mean the end of the state, but it would entail profound changes to it. 

A key feature of this transformation is that there is a net reduction in social complexity (Tainter, 2009), although this does not preclude the possibility that complexity may increase in certain respects. Moreover, the decline of social orders that degrade the weft of life is often accompanied by an increase in ecosystem complexity. Social complexity can be measured using four indicators (Fernández Durán & González Reyes, 2018): 

• Number of nodes in the system, for example, the number of people. Fewer nodes means less complexity. Thus, the collapse of our society would entail a decline in population. However, this decline could follow a wide variety of trajectories, largely determined by the extent of redistribution and the pace of transition towards agroecological models of food production. It does not necessarily imply genocide or widespread famine. The population decline would be driven by the inability of ecosystems to sustain the current human population in the context of a climate crisis (loss of crop fertility: Ortiz-Bobea et al., 2021), an ecosystem crisis (extinction of pollinators: Diáz et al., 2019), material (limitations on phosphorus availability: Ryszko et al., 2023) and energy crises (agribusiness’s dependence on fossil fuel derivatives: IPES-Food, 2025). 

• Interconnection between nodes. Less interconnection means less complexity. Without the widespread use of oil, economies and societies would be more local and, from that perspective, simpler. This could happen because, at present, there are no alternatives to oil capable of sustaining the massive, rapid and long-distance movement of goods, people and information required by a predominantly urban and globalised way of life (González Reyes and Almazán, 2023) (see Renewable Energy and Degrowth). 

• Level of specialisation of the nodes. Societies in which people are more specialised in their tasks and skills are more complex. A simpler society would be a more generalist one. Fossil fuels have enabled humanity to expend very little effort on obtaining energy (few people work in the hydrocarbon and food sectors). This has enabled the majority of the society to devote themselves to a wide variety of other activities. A society based on renewable energy sources, which provide less net energy (de Castro, 2023), would be unable to sustain the current level of social specialisation. 

• Information flowing through the system. This is the most complex indicator, as it captures the quantity, quality and distribution patterns of that information. It also considers whether or not that information is transformed into knowledge. The vast amounts of information available in our society depend on a technological infrastructure—that of ICT—which is underpinned by significant and specific material and energy requirements (UN, 2024). Even if we were able to preserve all that content, it would require complex societies to interpret it. In other words, even if we were to preserve information relating to quantum physics, it would only be comprehensible within an educated and specialised society. 

When defining a term, it is often more illustrative to indicate what it is not. The following describes several processes that cannot be classified as social collapse: 

1.  A social collapse is not the same as a crisis, which would be a situation in which the system retains its essential characteristics and there is no significant loss of complexity. Thus, the crisis of capitalism in the 1970s, which led to the transition from keynesianism to neoliberalism, was not a collapse, as the social order continued to be shaped by capitalism. 

2.  A social collapse is not a transformation in which society takes a leap forward in complexity by changing some of its essential elements. For example, the transformation from the agricultural metabolism into an industrial one, which began to take shape in the 18th century. 

3. Nor is a collapse alike to the invasion by a foreign power, since in such cases social change was imposed from outside. Thus, when the Aztec and Inca societies, or those of the stateless peoples of the Americas, collapsed as a result of the Spanish and Portuguese conquest, this phenomenon cannot be described as a social collapse. 

4. It is sometimes said about some societies that they have already collapsed or that they live in a constant collapse inside our system. However, this does not constitute the collapse of the industrial global capitalism, but a way in which it functions, requiring the existence of zones of sacrifice. In any case, these territorial degradations and the general collapse are related, as it is these partial socioecological degradations the ones that end up contributing to the unviability of the system as a whole. 

5. Nor does collapse refer to a punctual, homogeneous event—a great conflagration from which everything we have known disappears. The collapse is a process, not an event. A process that is uneven in terms of time, space and society, with some moments and areas of change occurring more rapidly, others more slowly, and even stages of temporary recovery of the former order. Furthermore, there is nothing to prevent certain places and social groups from maintaining high levels of complexity, whilst others experience a significant decline. 

6. Collapse is not a sort of energetic, material or ecologic determinism. A given type and quantity of energy and materials, and a given level of ecosystem health, do not correspond to a single model of social organisation. Still, as every economic process rests on a series of material and energetic requirements, and besides that every society is eco-dependent, the available energy, materials and ecosystem functions delineate the limits of what is possible. Below that boundary, it is us, human beings, who configure our political, economic and cultural organizations. What is more, the trajectory of any collapse is intrinsically unpredictable: complex systems (and any human society, even after a process of collapse, is complex) are inherently uncontrollable (Meadows, 2022). 

In conclusion, the potential collapse of this social order would take the form of severe but gradual deteriorations (likely following a pattern of successive crises) in some of the key elements necessary for the system’s maintenance (the agri-food model, the global energy extraction and distribution network, the financial system, etc.), which would have significant but indeterminate and irregular effects within the context of the profound inequalities that exist today in terms of geography, class, gender, racialisation, etc. These deteriorations would not be confined to the physical and ecological sphere, but would also be shaped by the existing socio-political structures and, consequently, would give rise to processes with highly varied effects and, above all, entirely dependent on the political conflicts and power correlations prevailing at any given time and place. It should also be noted that although the ecological crisis lies at the heart of this system’s unviability, this does not imply that the conflicts that might arise would necessarily place it in the centre of the political dispute. 

We nowadays confront a scenery which presents, on one hand, a strong, global ecological extralimitation of ever achieved dimensions by any other social order (Sakschewski et al., 2025), which suggests a very difficult readjustment. On the other hand, the basis of life in the planet, on which we depend, have suffered a considerable deterioration, being determinant for the loss of biodiversity (Díaz et al., 2019) and climatic chaos (Ripple et al., 2026). 

Given this context, a debate has risen these recent years in the Spanish state, which is also reproduced at the international level, over the use of the term “collapse” (not so much over its definition). On one part, one school of thought contends it is feasible to sustain an urban-industrial society with characteristics similar to the current one by committing to the massive deployment of renewable energy and the electrification of the economy. Renewable energy, they argue, could help us avoid the worst-case climate scenarios and simultaneously replace almost all current uses of fossil fuels. These proposals defend a contrary valuation on the use of the referred term, considering it demobilizing in the social level and not adequate to describe the present moment (Santiago Muiño, 2023). 

On the contrary, another line of argument affirm that the urban-global-industrial capitalism, which inevitably requires sustained growth, is unable to avoid environmental crises and is on a path to collapse. They argue that the majority of renewable energy sources have physical properties that are very different from those of fossil fuels, which means that whilst they allow for a dignified human life, they cannot sustain this system. Another key point in this line of reasoning is that the circular economy – essential on a planet with limited resources – is impossible within an industrial metabolism. For this reason, the term ‘collapse’ is indeed considered appropriate to describe this historical moment. Thus, those who advocate its use agree that the future that would unfold would be tremendously open in political terms, probably far more so than it was in the 20th century. Far from signifying the obsolescence of politics, the collapse of our system would make—and is already making—politics a more central element if possible (González Reyes & Almazán, 2023). 

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