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“ Collapse is not a future event. It’s a process we’re already inside ”
Critical Collapsology
“Traditional collapsology,” which has studied past societal breakdowns fails in several ways: it lacks a political account of collapse, an adequate theory of why societies cohere, and an analysis relevant to capitalism, which uniquely thrives on crises.
It also neglects “applied collapsology”: the deliberate destruction of societies through colonisation, war, and genocide that has underpinned the modern world.
Collapse is also a political phenomenon: its anticipation already shapes geopolitics through militarisation, border fortification, and authoritarian responses, while its fear can be weaponised to justify violence. A “politics of collapse” is already with us.
Critical Collapsology refuses to treat collapse as an external accident or merely technical failure; instead, they it sees it as inseparable from the institutional and political logics of imperial modernity itself.
Core Concepts of Critical Collapsology
Civilisational Collapse: In this context, collapse is defined not as a singular apocalyptic event, but as a rapid, significant loss of sociopolitical complexity. It is a process of involuntary simplification where a civilization loses the capacity to maintain its established structures (law, economy, centralized infrastructure), forcing a return to lower energy consumption and more localized, less stratified forms of organization.
Disaster Capitalism: Popularized by Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine), this concept describes how private interests and neoliberal governments exploit large-scale crises—such as wars, natural disasters, or pandemics—to push through unpopular free-market policies. While the population is in a state of collective shock and confusion, public assets are privatized and regulations dismantled, effectively turning societal collapse into a profitable frontier for corporate accumulation.
World-Risk Society: Coined by sociologist Ulrich Beck, this suggests that modernity has transitioned from distributing "goods" (wealth) to distributing "bads" (risks). We now face manufactured, de-localized risks—such as nuclear fallout, climate change, or global financial contagion—that transcend national borders and class lines. In this stage, the primary mandate of the state shifts from "progress" to "security," often justifying authoritarian measures to manage these uncontainable threats.
Critical World-Systems Theory
Critical Systems Failure: This refers to a specific failure mode in tightly coupled, complex networks where the malfunction of a single component triggers a cascading chain reaction, causing the entire system to halt. In a societal context, it highlights the fragility of optimized, just-in-time global systems (like food supply chains or energy grids), where a localized disruption is not dampened by redundancy but amplified by connectivity, leading to total systemic paralysis.
Critical Systems Theory (Critical Theory + Complex/General Systems Theory): An interdisciplinary framework that fuses the mechanical analysis of Systems Theory with the power analysis of Critical Theory. It rejects the idea that systems are neutral or objective; instead, it interrogates how systemic structures (feedback loops, boundaries, incentives) are historically designed to serve specific dominant interests. It asks not just "how does the system function to maintain equilibrium?" but "who does this equilibrium serve, and whom does it oppress?"
Critical Theory: Originating from the Frankfurt School, this is a philosophical approach focused on the reflective assessment and critique of society and culture. Unlike traditional theory, which seeks only to understand or explain the world as it is, Critical Theory aims to change it. It operates by revealing and challenging the hidden power structures, ideologies, and forms of domination (such as capitalism or patriarchy) that underpin the status quo.
Systems Theory: An interdisciplinary study of systems as cohesive wholes rather than isolated parts. It focuses on the interactions, feedback loops, and dependencies between components (whether in biology, cybernetics, or society). It posits that the behavior of a system cannot be understood by analyzing its parts in isolation, as the "whole" possesses emergent properties that arise solely from the relationships between the parts.
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