To retaliate this crisis the civilization would need to find a suitable amount of resources to balance the economy returning the civilization to a stable state, but if the consumption of resources is greater than the income of the resources the civilization will fall under a depletion crisis which has “amplified” certain features t maintenance crisis according to Mr. Greer. These are the crisis’s that have caused certain historical civilizations to crash and burn such as the Western Roman Empire. Greer said that the fall of Rome “was a catabolic collapse driven by a combined maintenance and resource crisis. While the ancient Mediterranean world, like imperial China, was primarily dependent on readily replenished resources, the Empire itself was the product of an anabolic cycle fueled by easily depleted resources and driven by Roman military superiority.” (Greer page 8) As Greer has shown the fall of the roman empire was due to lack of maintenance and available resources because rome was an empire that thrived upon the taking over of other countries but rome encountered powerful tribes in the north that did not have much valuable resources so it was using more energy than resources it was receiving causing it to have a lack of resources and maintenance in …show more content…
Tainter also writes near the end how it possible that not all civilizations are doomed if the civilizations can overcome the possibility to lower their complexity which he talks about being a possible way to prevent collapse. Although Tainter does signafy that this would be very difficult if not