Collapse is a frightening subject. The question of why collapse occurs is something I have pieced together over many years of study from a number of different sources, which I will attempt to explain in this post. Collapse doesn’t happen instantaneously; it happens many years after an economy first begins outgrowing its resource base. In fact, the resource base likely declines at the same time from multiple causes, such as soil erosion, deforestation and oil depletion. Before collapse occurs, there seem to be warning signs, including: Too much wage disparity Riots and protests by people unhappy with low wages Prices of commodities that are too low for producers that need to recover their costs of production and governments that require tax revenue to fund programs for their citizens An overstretched financial system; conditions ripe for debt defaults Susceptibility to epidemics Many people have the misimpression that our most important […]