Another "dark age"

With the decline of the roman empire in western europe the level of urbanization and societal organization declined rapidly.

But the west recovered, new cities sprung up and states again became centralized and advanced. No large-scale decline like this ever happened again, but what if it did? Could a long time of neglect and warfare lead to larger states again collapse in Europe and be replaced by smaller local governments?

Preferably this should happen after the 17th century.
 
Periods of societal collapse are not uncommon across the world -- consider the Crises of the Fourteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, which happened all over Eurasia (and notably affected both Europe and China terribly). What changed was the survivors' capacity to recover from collapse.
 
With the decline of the roman empire in western europe the level of urbanization and societal organization declined rapidly.
Less than previously assumed (it's known that part of peripheral urban zones formery tought to have been abandoned and put on agricultural production were still peri-urbanized in reality) with keeping in mind that most of western Romania cities were limited in size to begin with (an average of 2.000 inhabitants by city in these provinces is a good starting point).

The problem is then not that cities disappeared or declined structurally, it's they did so socially : upper-classes began to move away from western cities from the IVth century onward and while they tended to make back and forth with cities they weren't this far from, this largely stopped with the Vth century. Maybe more importantly the urban middle-class significantly collapsed and while not disappearing outright, doesn't seem to have represented a social force before the XIth century being much more tied to remaining urban and peri-urban elites.

As for societal organisation, it didn't as much declined rapidly (if anything Roman structures remained, albeit weakened, in place until the VIIIth/IXth centuries (while they didn't entierely disappeared afterward, even with the feudal anarchy of the IXth/Xth) than entering an evolution marked by regular crises (rooted in economical or political concerns). It's why the usage is less to talk about a Dark Age (originally, and generally, limited to portions of western Romania we have little historical sources, such as sub-Roman Britain) than Late Antiquity.

But the west recovered, new cities sprung up and states again became centralized and advanced.
State centralization in Europe is a really late occurrence, comparatively : I believe you might rather think of bureaucratization of state appartus. Indeed, while Barbarian kingdoms essentially inherited the late Roman administration, it entered several crisis until disappearing with Carolingians. You'd have to wait the Renaissance of the XIIth century to have something comparable re-emerging.

No large-scale decline like this ever happened again, but what if it did? Could a long time of neglect and warfare lead to larger states again collapse in Europe and be replaced by smaller local governments?
The problem with the collapse of the western Roman state isn't much political balkanisation (which is something more tied up with feudalism from the VIIIth and especially IXth century onward) but an increasing regionalisation of power (more or less variying depending which provinces : Italy being a major case, Gaul being spared most of it). As such, I think we should look rather at a new regionalisation of power and economy, rather than political disintegration into local principalities.

While not technically impossible, it's still going to be hard : Roman state wasn't as strong or pervasive than modern states on many regards, and more vulnerable to important crises. Eventually, more you wait, less likely it's to happen due to sheer reinforcement and unlikeliness to fall to a foreign pressure.
Eventually, you'd rather be looking at regional societal/political decline : maybe much worse Wars of Religions in Europe (basically Thirty Years War everywhere, except on steroids) could lead to deeper effects. IOTL, it lead to political shattering of HRE, and it could arguably be more destructurating with a stronger Ottoman pressure and Germany's neighbors being in even worse shape.
I don't think that would be enough to provoke a D0rk Age comparable to the situation of the Late Antiquity, but I think that's probably the best you could count on without resorting to ASB.

The Black Death was even worse than it was and people abandon cities?
I'm not sure : epidemics generally made people going to cities IOTL.
 
My idea centers on them associating cities and large towns with epidemics
The link was done IOTL (it's not because they were medieval that they were morons to the point ignoring this) and even before the plague, you had attempts at pre-hygienic edicts or features (paved streets, interdiction to pee on public waters, sewerage, interdiction to just hurl your garbage in the street, etc.) which were diversely applied. The situation was arguably chaotic, with people fleeing towns while other tried to search protection or opportunities there.
IOTL, you did have several attempts at avoiding epidemics by fleeing to isolation, but it was neither this important in term, neither really efficient. Eventually, the mortality doesn't seem to have been significantly lower in countryside, and even more destructing in some aspects because it was accompanied of local migrations (places as parts of rural Norfolk saw a decline of population around 80%) and the depopulation wasn't entierely compensated until the XVth century.

Now, maybe that with an earlier societal crisis, you might end up with cities not being seen as much as possible migrations targets. But I'm really unsure it would be enough to really reverse this and make cities depopulated at the same extent than some medieval countrysides.
 
A disease that kills horses, oxen and cattle could do severely damage the transportation and Trade network as well as agriculture.
That could make it happen.
The discovery of the new world would be a point of introduction
 
Perhaps the Mongols dominate huge swathes of Eurasia reaching the Atlantic coast and deep into north Africa. Libraries burn and great seats of learning are destroyed. The collapse of the empire leads to further instabilty, mass war and stagnation of burgeoning state bureaucracy in favour of petty despotism. The Black Death then kills off huge population centres devastating the growing centralisation of nations as an echo of the destructive Plague of Justinian that often signifies the end of Late Antiquity.

There is no Age of Exploration as the seas teem with vast Corsair fleets that plow the Mediterranean and abroad for their Mongol Warlords scourging the coasts for slaves. One by one the Merchant cities fall their trade routes strangled by the shattered Empire. Western equivalents of Kublai Khan build immense Empires and squabble over ruins of the Middle East and Europe.
 
Maybe epidemics that struck the native americans OTL could also attack Europe in this TL, but reversed (some fever for Natives turning into another plague for Europeans)


(Or Inquisition going totally wild)
 
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Some combination of events collapse electronic communications hard. It takes several centuries to restore global communication, and several more to recover lost science.
 
Ban
There was a chance for another "dark age" many times through the past 2 centuries. Hell, there is a good chance we are entering another dark age now as we speak. It's just we aren't aware of it because the process is too slow for the evidence to pile up until it reaches the critical point where we would realise our society is actually breaking up piece by piece. (But it could take a century or two until this collapse materializes, so it would be pretty damn hard to pile up the evidence before it's too late to do anything about it.)

Contrary to what terms most people think in, "Dark Ages" don't happen (generally) because of political or economical factors (I accept the arguments for major disasters outside the control of the government like natural disasters and foreign invasions) but because of the inability of cultures to keep up with the advancement of society they themselves create. And that's a recurring part of history.

Cultures collapse (and therefore trigger what can be named "dark" periods) when the societal superstructure (that keeping people together) and the technological infrastructure (the means by which people control their environment) massively diverge from each other in their respective scopes and goals. When the discord between the two becomes so great they can't support their mutual interactions society falls into a crisis and if the crises continues to worsen it may collapse until it returns back to the point of mutual balance between the 2. This is why societies either develop onto a path of reinforcing social and technological progress or they reach a point of mutual equilibrium between the 2 where they can stay virtually indefinitely (in reality, they sustain this stable state until an outside force-be it natural cataclysm or foreign part-forces them away from it). Man is the only species in Nature who forces its environment to change rather than the vice versa and this carries with itself the responsibility to measure the change mankind brings in Nature with an equal amount of change in the conduct between people themselves. If this amount of change is equal to what people bring into the natural world by their use of technology than society can keep itself connected with its surrounding in mutually reinforcing manner. (In a way man caters to Earth, as she caters to man.) That's what we observe in prehistoric hunter-gatherer or primitive agricultural societies. Man gives and man takes according to fine balance reached over generations between man and Nature. One can argue such society is in a steady state where all effects of its existence in its world are balanced as are the relationships among people themselves. There is no need for any change to occur in such circumstances. However, if man becomes to advance both societally and technologically the invisible net of relationships between the people themselves and their surroundings begins to break as it should be when new elements are introduced to the social system. As in any other stable state system when you introduce new parameters to the equations describing the system, novel behavioural patterns emerge which in turn destabilize it taking it out of its steady state. Than, man is tasked with the need to find new steady states where the system is reorganized in accordance with its new capabilities and if he fails, than, departure of the structure of his society and the infrastructure it's building is rife on its way and when it happens society is bound to collapse until new steady state is reached. This is what you call a "dark age".

(Yeah, I know "my historiography" isn't in accord with what YOU would call historiography but before you start blatantly attacking me for disagreeing with your nice little version of cause and effect in the historical process, can you at least, think about it??? I know this way of thinking isn't what you are supposed to hear when somebody mentions the phrase "dark ages" but can you think for a moment, there might be something your sources couldn't quite managed to figure out and it's possible I shed new light on historical process from a totally different perspective-one you haven't seen before, is it?)

For example, the reason for the "classical" dark ages after the collapse of the Roman empire is the fact Romans get too efficient in constructing roads and building trade networks in general. As the republic, and later the empire, grew they became quite efficient at promoting trade and the crafts. As a consequence of their economic policy cities grew and economy diversified. You can even argue they were at the onset of some form of "proto-capitalism" by the end of the II and the beginning of the III centuries AD. Good roads and extensive shipping were bringing produce and resources throughout the Mediterranean and the empire was on the verge of possibly developing manufacture techniques. However, as the economy developed the political structure of the empire became ever more dominant and centralized excluding the vast masses of the population. The paradox of Rome was that as it expanded its structure became ever more restrictive and aggressive towards the people in the lower strata of society while their economical policy was reliant on increasing productivity to sustain the increase of the state apparatus. During the republican era it was easy to increase the wealth of Rome by capturing slaves and getting them to the central provinces of the empire where their labour can be used to strengthen the economy. But as the empire set in and began promoting increase in wealth by supporting commerce, rather than conquest for slave labour the structure of society had to change drastically to accommodate for this new strategy. But it didn't. This is why you ended up with a Dark Age.

If the Roman economy had continued to rely heavily on slave labour brought by new conquest the centralization of power in the hands of single emperor would probably have been a good thing and resulted in stronger government. But since the II century onward conquest slowed down and an era of peace called Pax Romana set in. It meant for economy to change from slave-based society into one of free people employed by various business for salaries. However, that would in turn have required suitable change in commerce laws and institutions protecting the growth of small businesses into large scale manufacturers and society protecting the liberty of all of its citizens. Only under such conditions could the empire have managed to make safe transition onto an era of free market economy, rather than slave-driven one. But that would have meant the curling up of power from the hands of the emperor and the people around him back into the Senate and gradual restoration of the old republic this time around without the institution of slavery and well-made proprietary laws to protect the right of every citizen to own property and manage his business as he sees fit.

But Roman society has always been corrupted by private interests inferring on the rights of competitors to compete with them on the market and the senate have often been used as a tool of economical extortion as well as political one. With the growth of the empire and the centralization of power into the hands of one emperor and too few senators this tradition was poised to only increase, not decrease. But it meant that contrary to providing the base for the growth of new businesses and the diversification of the economy the end of slave labour was poised to create internal pressure in society of too many too poor people whose voices can't reach the higher ups charged with regulating their society. Thus, the freeing of the slaves didn't proof to be the graceful gesture the Romans have hoped for and their society wasn't capable of building new institutions to accommodate the needs of its lower classes. Instead it was overtaken by corrupt people greedy for wealth who in turn degraded the economy and used the pressure build by the cries of the oppressed to find ways for personal benefit at social expense. Instead of building more lawful and protective society where the voices of the lower classes can be heard the Romans resorted to civil wars and petty rivalry amongst various fractions which ultimately ruined the prosperous economic infrastructure and thus eliminated that which was giving wealth to the empire. Without it there was no reason for pressure to be build and new social norms could occupy the place of the old ones. That's when the role of Christianity grew and when it became the state religion it was possible to reach new societal steady state in the form of feudalism. Under it economic productivity was low enough to keep the lower classes from engaging in activities undermining the upper classes and now the church could exert influence over the warring fractions to keep them from breaking the societal superstructure.

I find this particularly good example of infrastructure outstretching superstructure since if there haven't been the roads and the see faring which the romans themselves created to support their own greed, there wouldn't have been the manpower to fuel the civil wars and rivalry that ultimately destroyed the empire. There have always been civil wars in Roman history but what made them different since the II century onward was the composition of the Roman society. Rome was no longer collection of small villages whose chieftains could be elected as senators and slave labour could be provided to drive the economy. Now the empire was a patchwork of people with various backgrounds but common need for freedom and representation. The new framework of economical activity brought by the sheer size and connectivity of the empire required skilled workforce of people with guaranteed rights and choices of occupation. This was something the central class or Roman bureaucrats could not understand or appreciate. For them representation was am matter of wealth, not of people's adoration and wealth came from extortion, rather than hard work and productivity. The mindset of this people was utterly inadequate for the kind of society their economy was now building and as the wars stopped and the influx of slaves decreased points of fracture appeared between the various fractures of the wealthy. They were unable to grasp the new needs of the people and used their woes to start civil wars annihilating the very society they exploited dooming it collapse. That's what happens when the superstructure of society (ways people conduct to each other) and its infrastructure (the way its technology serves the people) grow apart to each other and no one cares to bring them back in concord.

Thus, if you care to see when another dark age was posed to happen look at historical periods when similar discord between the structure of the society and its technology had happened but this time around remove the policies that saved the day fixing the conduct of people amongst themselves which ultimately alleviated the societal pressure. Here are few examples:

The reformation never happens

Then the Catholic church manages to tighten its grip over society and it creates kind of "iron fist" stopping any form of technology that might make people think critically about the church. The printing press disappears, there is no science, monarchy is absolute and the cities are heavily repressed by their feudal masters. Under this timeline after the New World is discovered centuries of dark conflict between the Europeans and the natives occur but as the natives manage to close the technological gap between their technology and the European one and develop resistance to the new diseases they eventually manage to overthrow the colonialist's grasp and Europe is again sequestered to the status of backdrop province of peasants and feudals. No industrial revolution, no Enlightenment, no liberalism, jut the old feudalism spreading around the globe until everyone reaches similar state of technology and than Europe is again thrown into dark ages by massive rebellions around its colonies and the inability of its technology to keep up with its enemies. New powers arise in Asia and America and eventually the world goes through new faze of civilizational rise and collapse like it happened with the Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

No rise of the bourgeoisie

The nobility tightens its grip on the rising class of wealthy traders and manufacturers by extorting them out of their profits. May be events like the crush of the French revolution and wide scale invasion of the British islands by Catholic forces lead to increased taxes on the bourgeoisie and it can't develop into really organised social group. There are large scale manufactures here and there but as a rule it's so heavily taxed it can't raze the funds to become serious threat to the status quo and technology never progresses beyond the musket and the saleship. There is no industrial revolution, no Enlightenment, no liberalism and there are various Christian sects fighting bloody religious wars about various aspects of doctrine throughout Europe. These wars exhaust the continent and turn it into backwards feudal society once again triggering the rise of opposition in the colonies and eventually the collapse of all European empires. This crises finishes European economy and plunges the continent into anarchy once more. It's possible the Muslims take notice and once more try to conquer Europe or at least the Mediterranean.

No Great Britain

The French revolution never happens but united France and Spain stop British expansion throughout the world so the English are left with small colonial possessions across the globe. There are some lands in North America, few pacific islands and offshoots on the coast of Africa but these lands are surely not enough to feed the empire with enough resources to push its industrialization. Britain never develops the Industrial capital it had IOTL so its industrialization stops midways in the XIX century. It is never capable of conquering India or keeping its possessions in Australia and Africa. There is too much competition from the old empires of Spain and France as well as by the emerging Prussians, Austrians, Dutch, Danes, Swedes and whoever else can get ships out in the ocean. Feeble Britain can't bring the benefits of industrialization to the world and its capitalist economics model is replaced by neo-feudal (all means of production owned by the nobility) and eventually communist ones. Industrialization is too slow and when it finally brings power to its patrons societies are torn apart by communist and anarchist uprisings collapsing the economy in nearly the same fashion as the old Roman empire collapsed from within with the advent of more commerce and wealth. The greed of people for the new-found riches puts them on a path of slaying the goose that lays the golden eggs (industrial capital).

World's communist government brings its own demise

Communism thrives through industrialising Europe torn apart by wars amongst its Great powers. there is no period of relative peace and cooperation like we had after the Napoleonic wars and people turn to the new ideology as means of escape. However, the nationalization of the private property kills off progress and brings forth new type of feudal aristocracy-the members of the ruling party themselves. They eventually declare themselves to be nobles and stop the progress of society. Feudal conflicts erupt among the new nobility and as the continent (and may be the world) is torn by conflicts the care for the infrastructure diminishes to the point where industrial capacity can't be support anymore and only scattered remains of what once was are left (like steam powered ships here and there, some iron mills and canals) but society overall collapses and soon the engineers needed to maintain them die off to be replaced by incompetent heirs. Under the new feudalism the most advanced technologies are the musket, the gun and the iron mill but people continue to live like they did in the Medieval ages.

I can see a number of other scenarios where society collapse because it can no longer maintain the technology it had but the common denominator is one-under certain socio-economical systems it's just impossible to maintain by itself the technological infrastructure of a modern civilization. Society will either collapse into anarchy or degrade to more primitive technology matching its stage of social evolution. The evolution of the mind and the evolution of the tools are mutually related and reinforcing each other. This is why you can never see industrial feudalism and the vice versa-you need strong central government to run this kind of technology. But the reverse is also true-if a society manages to sustain set of high individual values and brake the constraint of factors like birthrights, social norms, caste traditions, religious doctrines, etc. it's inevitably on the path to higher technological progress.

This is how the social superstructure determines the technological infrastructure and vice versa! There is direct and undeniable connection between the two and its breaking is what also breaks society apart. However, it seems too few people can appreciate this connection and all too often they prefer to be in denial of it for the sake of their personal benefit.

Sad, but true!
 
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Perhaps the Mongols dominate huge swathes of Eurasia reaching the Atlantic coast and deep into north Africa. Libraries burn and great seats of learning are destroyed.

Well, somehow China did not end up as a huge territory of the smoking ruins so the outcome probably would not be as tragic as you are assuming. Besides, with the general Mongolian policy regarding religion and religious institutions, it is probably reasonable to assume that quite a few of these libraries would be spared, being in the monasteries (if you are talking about Europe). Not that they had some genetic hate toward the educated people: their usefulness in administration and military technology was obvious and they had been employed, sometimes in the very high positions, starting from Genghis' reign.

Of course, there is a complete impossibility of the Mongols extending direct occupation all the way to the Atlantic coast which means that even if they manage to achieve a formal submission of these "huge swathes", the territories in question would be just Mongolian vassals retaining their culture, administration, etc.

Then, there are 2 additional factors:

(a) If anything, the Mongols were not creating an administrative havoc routinely associated with the Dark Ages (an idiotic term invented by Petrarch to show his attitude toward the people and cultures not well versed in Latin). If anything, it was rather other way around: centralized uniform administration of the hugely different territories.

(b) The Mongolian empire provided easy communications between the territories that were only marginally aware of each other. Which means that the knowledge could be spread more easily.

Then, of course, OTL disintegration of the Mongolian Empire did not result in the cataclysms you described and there is no reason to assume anything of the kind.
 
With the decline of the roman empire in western europe the level of urbanization and societal organization declined rapidly.

But the west recovered, new cities sprung up and states again became centralized and advanced. No large-scale decline like this ever happened again, but what if it did? Could a long time of neglect and warfare lead to larger states again collapse in Europe and be replaced by smaller local governments?

Preferably this should happen after the 17th century.
Maybe the Thirty Year War takes an even darker turn ? In the East there had been also a parallel massive war in the 17th Century.
 
Maybe the Thirty Year War takes an even darker turn ? In the East there had been also a parallel massive war in the 17th Century.

The 30YW probably could be even worse (but I doubt that it could be much worse) but this would not achieve the intended goal because the big parts of the Western Europe did not suffer too much from it: France, England, the Netherlands, Italy (as a region), Sweden. Even Spain, while being bankrupt and defeated, did not suffer destruction of its administrative structure.

War in the East, if you are talking about the Time of Troubles in Tsardom, also was almost as bad as it gets but the state did not disintegrate and in 4 - 5 decades regained most of its losses and gained a considerable new territory.
 
There was a chance for another "dark age" many times through the past 2 centuries. Hell, there is a good chance we are entering another dark age now as we speak. It's just we aren't aware of it because the process is too slow for the evidence to pile up until it reaches the critical point where we would realise our society is actually breaking up piece by piece. (But it could take a century or two until this collapse materializes, so it would be pretty damn hard to pile up the evidence before it's too late to do anything about it.)

Contrary to what terms most people think in, "Dark Ages" don't happen (generally) because of political or economical factors (I accept the arguments for major disasters outside the control of the government like natural disasters and foreign invasions) but because of the inability of cultures to keep up with the advancement of society they themselves create. And that's a recurring part of history.
Come on dude. You made the same mistake in your thread that got locked. Political and Economic factors are not separate from culture and technology.

Cultures collapse (and therefore trigger what can be named "dark" periods) when the societal superstructure (that keeping people together) and the technological infrastructure (the means by which people control their environment) massively diverge from each other in their respective scopes and goals. When the discord between the two becomes so great they can't support their mutual interactions society falls into a crisis and if the crises continues to worsen it may collapse until it returns back to the point of mutual balance between the 2. This is why societies either develop onto a path of reinforcing social and technological progress or they reach a point of mutual equilibrium between the 2 where they can stay virtually indefinitely (in reality, they sustain this stable state until an outside force-be it natural cataclysm or foreign part-forces them away from it).
That is just bogus.
Not only are those outside forces completely political and economic, but collapse due to advances in technology vs culture don't generally produce dark ages at all. It's not like the USSR fell into a dark age when the Tsarist system fell, or Austria when it abandoned feudalism. I think it would be harder to point to an example of such events leading to a dark age than it would the opposite.
Man is the only species in Nature who forces its environment to change rather than the vice versa and this carries with itself the responsibility to measure the change mankind brings in Nature with an equal amount of change in the conduct between people themselves. If this amount of change is equal to what people bring into the natural world by their use of technology than society can keep itself connected with its surrounding in mutually reinforcing manner. (In a way man caters to Earth, as she caters to man.) That's what we observe in prehistoric hunter-gatherer or primitive agricultural societies. Man gives and man takes according to fine balance reached over generations between man and Nature. One can argue such society is in a steady state where all effects of its existence in its world are balanced as are the relationships among people themselves. There is no need for any change to occur in such circumstances. However, if man becomes to advance both societally and technologically the invisible net of relationships between the people themselves and their surroundings begins to break as it should be when new elements are introduced to the social system. As in any other stable state system when you introduce new parameters to the equations describing the system, novel behavioural patterns emerge which in turn destabilize it taking it out of its steady state. Than, man is tasked with the need to find new steady states where the system is reorganized in accordance with its new capabilities and if he fails, than, departure of the structure of his society and the infrastructure it's building is rife on its way and when it happens society is bound to collapse until new steady state is reached. This is what you call a "dark age".
First of all, the adoption of agriculture is a cultural change adopted through economics. In short, whilst agricultural life is in many ways more labor intensive and interestingly enough less fun (sort of an aside but there is a lot of fun anthropology suggesting long periods of musical behavior by pre-agricultural humans) because having a more reliable source of food grants you a greater chance that your offspring and community will live.
2nd of all, that is a weird standard for a dark age, as that would mean that every major social upheaval that changes society would be a dark age, which is a weird way to describe the agricultural revolution for example.

(Yeah, I know "my historiography" isn't in accord with what YOU would call historiography but before you start blatantly attacking me for disagreeing with your nice little version of cause and effect in the historical process, can you at least, think about it??? I know this way of thinking isn't what you are supposed to hear when somebody mentions the phrase "dark ages" but can you think for a moment, there might be something your sources couldn't quite managed to figure out and it's possible I shed new light on historical process from a totally different perspective-one you haven't seen before, is it?)
Your not shedding new light or giving us a new perspective on anything. It's not that people reading your posts are not "thinking", but that you don't seem to understand historical processes well in a way which is clear to people reading your posts. It's sort of like seeing an anti-vax post on facebook, it doesn't take much thought to know that the person involved doesn't well understand science and would rather impose how they want to view science as opposed to the reality of it.

For example, the reason for the "classical" dark ages after the collapse of the Roman empire is the fact Romans get too efficient in constructing roads and building trade networks in general.
...que?
As the republic, and later the empire, grew they became quite efficient at promoting trade and the crafts. As a consequence of their economic policy cities grew and economy diversified. You can even argue they were at the onset of some form of "proto-capitalism" by the end of the II and the beginning of the III centuries AD. Good roads and extensive shipping were bringing produce and resources throughout the Mediterranean and the empire was on the verge of possibly developing manufacture techniques. However, as the economy developed the political structure of the empire became ever more dominant and centralized excluding the vast masses of the population. The paradox of Rome was that as it expanded its structure became ever more restrictive and aggressive towards the people in the lower strata of society while their economical policy was reliant on increasing productivity to sustain the increase of the state apparatus. During the republican era it was easy to increase the wealth of Rome by capturing slaves and getting them to the central provinces of the empire where their labour can be used to strengthen the economy. But as the empire set in and began promoting increase in wealth by supporting commerce, rather than conquest for slave labour the structure of society had to change drastically to accommodate for this new strategy. But it didn't. This is why you ended up with a Dark Age.

If the Roman economy had continued to rely heavily on slave labour brought by new conquest the centralization of power in the hands of single emperor would probably have been a good thing and resulted in stronger government. But since the II century onward conquest slowed down and an era of peace called Pax Romana set in. It meant for economy to change from slave-based society into one of free people employed by various business for salaries. However, that would in turn have required suitable change in commerce laws and institutions protecting the growth of small businesses into large scale manufacturers and society protecting the liberty of all of its citizens. Only under such conditions could the empire have managed to make safe transition onto an era of free market economy, rather than slave-driven one. But that would have meant the curling up of power from the hands of the emperor and the people around him back into the Senate and gradual restoration of the old republic this time around without the institution of slavery and well-made proprietary laws to protect the right of every citizen to own property and manage his business as he sees fit.

But Roman society has always been corrupted by private interests inferring on the rights of competitors to compete with them on the market and the senate have often been used as a tool of economical extortion as well as political one. With the growth of the empire and the centralization of power into the hands of one emperor and too few senators this tradition was poised to only increase, not decrease. But it meant that contrary to providing the base for the growth of new businesses and the diversification of the economy the end of slave labour was poised to create internal pressure in society of too many too poor people whose voices can't reach the higher ups charged with regulating their society. Thus, the freeing of the slaves didn't proof to be the graceful gesture the Romans have hoped for and their society wasn't capable of building new institutions to accommodate the needs of its lower classes. Instead it was overtaken by corrupt people greedy for wealth who in turn degraded the economy and used the pressure build by the cries of the oppressed to find ways for personal benefit at social expense. Instead of building more lawful and protective society where the voices of the lower classes can be heard the Romans resorted to civil wars and petty rivalry amongst various fractions which ultimately ruined the prosperous economic infrastructure and thus eliminated that which was giving wealth to the empire. Without it there was no reason for pressure to be build and new social norms could occupy the place of the old ones. That's when the role of Christianity grew and when it became the state religion it was possible to reach new societal steady state in the form of feudalism. Under it economic productivity was low enough to keep the lower classes from engaging in activities undermining the upper classes and now the church could exert influence over the warring fractions to keep them from breaking the societal superstructure.
This might sound a bit strange, but are you a Stefan Molyneux fan? This strikes uncomfortably close to his lectures on Roman economics.

I find this particularly good example of infrastructure outstretching superstructure since if there haven't been the roads and the see faring which the romans themselves created to support their own greed, there wouldn't have been the manpower to fuel the civil wars and rivalry that ultimately destroyed the empire. There have always been civil wars in Roman history but what made them different since the II century onward was the composition of the Roman society. Rome was no longer collection of small villages whose chieftains could be elected as senators and slave labour could be provided to drive the economy. Now the empire was a patchwork of people with various backgrounds but common need for freedom and representation. The new framework of economical activity brought by the sheer size and connectivity of the empire required skilled workforce of people with guaranteed rights and choices of occupation. This was something the central class or Roman bureaucrats could not understand or appreciate. For them representation was am matter of wealth, not of people's adoration and wealth came from extortion, rather than hard work and productivity. The mindset of this people was utterly inadequate for the kind of society their economy was now building and as the wars stopped and the influx of slaves decreased points of fracture appeared between the various fractures of the wealthy. They were unable to grasp the new needs of the people and used their woes to start civil wars annihilating the very society they exploited dooming it collapse. That's what happens when the superstructure of society (ways people conduct to each other) and its infrastructure (the way its technology serves the people) grow apart to each other and no one cares to bring them back in concord.
For not having anything to do with politics and economics, your primary example is exclusively politics and economics. I was of a mind to highlight the areas that were about the two, including for the prior paragraphs, but it became pointless when there was only one or two sentences not directly about them (and even then if we are being favorable).

Thus, if you care to see when another dark age was posed to happen look at historical periods when similar discord between the structure of the society and its technology had happened but this time around remove the policies that saved the day fixing the conduct of people amongst themselves which ultimately alleviated the societal pressure. Here are few examples:

The reformation never happens

Then the Catholic church manages to tighten its grip over society and it creates kind of "iron fist" stopping any form of technology that might make people think critically about the church. The printing press disappears, there is no science, monarchy is absolute and the cities are heavily repressed by their feudal masters. Under this timeline after the New World is discovered centuries of dark conflict between the Europeans and the natives occur but as the natives manage to close the technological gap between their technology and the European one and develop resistance to the new diseases they eventually manage to overthrow the colonialist's grasp and Europe is again sequestered to the status of backdrop province of peasants and feudals. No industrial revolution, no Enlightenment, no liberalism, jut the old feudalism spreading around the globe until everyone reaches similar state of technology and than Europe is again thrown into dark ages by massive rebellions around its colonies and the inability of its technology to keep up with its enemies. New powers arise in Asia and America and eventually the world goes through new faze of civilizational rise and collapse like it happened with the Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
Why do you seem to think that the catholic church and society was anti-technology? Even in your hyper idealized version of GB, Catholic innovators were not a rare thing, and non catholic innovators would more often than not be in contact with their contemporaries on the continent.

No rise of the bourgeoisie

The nobility tightens its grip on the rising class of wealthy traders and manufacturers by extorting them out of their profits. May be events like the crush of the French revolution and wide scale invasion of the British islands by Catholic forces lead to increased taxes on the bourgeoisie and it can't develop into really organised social group. There are large scale manufactures here and there but as a rule it's so heavily taxed it can't raze the funds to become serious threat to the status quo and technology never progresses beyond the musket and the saleship. There is no industrial revolution, no Enlightenment, no liberalism and there are various Christian sects fighting bloody religious wars about various aspects of doctrine throughout Europe. These wars exhaust the continent and turn it into backwards feudal society once again triggering the rise of opposition in the colonies and eventually the collapse of all European empires. This crises finishes European economy and plunges the continent into anarchy once more. It's possible the Muslims take notice and once more try to conquer Europe or at least the Mediterranean.
No.
Not only was there no degree of Catholic unity to take over the British Isles, but the French Revolution is waaaay to late to stop the rise of the bourgeoisie who already have existed for several centuries by this point (and originated in Catholic France, shock horror!), but they were already entrenched as a class across Europe. That is just bogus history.

No Great Britain

The French revolution never happens but united France and Spain stop British expansion throughout the world so the English are left with small colonial possessions across the globe. There are some lands in North America, few pacific islands and offshoots on the coast of Africa but these lands are surely not enough to feed the empire with enough resources to push its industrialization. Britain never develops the Industrial capital it had IOTL so its industrialization stops midways in the XIX century. It is never capable of conquering India or keeping its possessions in Australia and Africa. There is too much competition from the old empires of Spain and France as well as by the emerging Prussians, Austrians, Dutch, Danes, Swedes and whoever else can get ships out in the ocean. Feeble Britain can't bring the benefits of industrialization to the world and its capitalist economics model is replaced by neo-feudal (all means of production owned by the nobility) and eventually communist ones. Industrialization is too slow and when it finally brings power to its patrons societies are torn apart by communist and anarchist uprisings collapsing the economy in nearly the same fashion as the old Roman empire collapsed from within with the advent of more commerce and wealth. The greed of people for the new-found riches puts them on a path of slaying the goose that lays the golden eggs (industrial capital).
As I and other pointed out to you in the other thread, Britain did not become a focal point for the industrial revolution (a term again first used by the Catholic French! Gadzooks!) in isolation. Whilst I have no idea why the POD you discuss makes GB stop existing, I also have no idea why Feudalism suddenly comes back because Britain has a weaker economy (which... is just really strange) and even less of a clue why the revolutionaries against such a system are communists and anarchists when Europe as a whole is filled with Republicans...

World's communist government brings its own demise

Communism thrives through industrialising Europe torn apart by wars amongst its Great powers. there is no period of relative peace and cooperation like we had after the Napoleonic wars and people turn to the new ideology as means of escape. However, the nationalization of the private property kills off progress and brings forth new type of feudal aristocracy-the members of the ruling party themselves. They eventually declare themselves to be nobles and stop the progress of society. Feudal conflicts erupt among the new nobility and as the continent (and may be the world) is torn by conflicts the care for the infrastructure diminishes to the point where industrial capacity can't be support anymore and only scattered remains of what once was are left (like steam powered ships here and there, some iron mills and canals) but society overall collapses and soon the engineers needed to maintain them die off to be replaced by incompetent heirs. Under the new feudalism the most advanced technologies are the musket, the gun and the iron mill but people continue to live like they did in the Medieval ages.
Holy crap I just realized that the scenarios are meant to be linked. Remember what I said in the last thread about catastrophic thinking? This is pretty much the poster boy for it.

Also, communism otl didn't produce aristocrats or stop progress. The USSR was the first into space, and modern Russia is a hyper-capitalist republic, not feudal. Whilst this makes for a fun ASB scenario, it is again your imposing how you want history to be over the actual realities of history.

I can see a number of other scenarios where society collapse because it can no longer maintain the technology it had but the common denominator is one-under certain socio-economical systems it's just impossible to maintain by itself the technological infrastructure of a modern civilization. Society will either collapse into anarchy or degrade to more primitive technology matching its stage of social evolution. The evolution of the mind and the evolution of the tools are mutually related and reinforcing each other. This is why you can never see industrial feudalism and the vice versa-you need strong central government to run this kind of technology. But the reverse is also true-if a society manages to sustain set of high individual values and brake the constraint of factors like birthrights, social norms, caste traditions, religious doctrines, etc. it's inevitably on the path to higher technological progress.

This is how the social superstructure determines the technological infrastructure and vice versa! There is direct and undeniable connection between the two and its breaking is what also breaks society apart. However, it seems too few people can appreciate this connection and all too often they prefer to be in denial of it for the sake of their personal benefit.

Sad, but true!
DJT, what are you doing on AH.com?
 
Perhaps the Mongols dominate huge swathes of Eurasia reaching the Atlantic coast and deep into north Africa. Libraries burn and great seats of learning are destroyed.
The major case people talk about that was Baghdad, but by that point the information of Baghdad was redistributed, because the Mongols were pretty awesome for that. Putting the best minds of European, Islamic, Chinese and Indian civilization together was one of the major strengths of the mongol empire, drastically increasing the global knowledge both directly and as a side effect of making the silk road united. This lead to stuff like...

The collapse of the empire leads to further instabilty, mass war and stagnation of burgeoning state bureaucracy in favour of petty despotism. The Black Death then kills off huge population centres devastating the growing centralisation of nations as an echo of the destructive Plague of Justinian that often signifies the end of Late Antiquity.
This isn't what happened when the Mongol Empire collapsed.
The collapse of the Mongol empire brought about the rise of the great Gunpowder Empires, which were the most advanced nations of their day early on and multiple survived into the near historical era (with the Ottomans of course surviving until the end of WW1).

There is no Age of Exploration as the seas teem with vast Corsair fleets that plow the Mediterranean and abroad for their Mongol Warlords scourging the coasts for slaves. One by one the Merchant cities fall their trade routes strangled by the shattered Empire. Western equivalents of Kublai Khan build immense Empires and squabble over ruins of the Middle East and Europe.
This ignores that the age of Exploration was for the most part fueled by a strong desire to reestablish contact with china in the face of the mongol collapse. Like, that is literally how Columbus sold his expedition and of course I don't think I need to say much about the voyages of Marco Polo.
 
There was a chance for another "dark age" many times through the past 2 centuries. Hell, there is a good chance we are entering another dark age now as we speak.

You should probably start with a clear definition of what you are talking about because the "Dark Ages" as defined by Petrarch simply meant that post-Roman period of the European history (of which he most probably was not well aware outside Italy) was "dark" comparing to the classic Antiquity (as imagined by Petrarch) and a later definition by Caesar Baronius (in 1602) was applied to the X - XI centuries as period of "intellectual darkness" which at that time simply meant that the people had been developing culture and attitudes different from those of Antiquity. Of course, in both cases we are talking about pure intellectual snobbery (and perhaps a healthy dosage of the Italian nationalism) because it is rather hard to agree that without rediscovery of the Cicero letters there would be no progress, that there were no reasonably well organized states, literature (well, AFAIK, Petrarch despised everything not written in Latin), scientific development, etc.

In other words, unless used in a very creative way, the term is not applicable to the modern events.
 
You should probably start with a clear definition of what you are talking about because the "Dark Ages" as defined by Petrarch simply meant that post-Roman period of the European history (of which he most probably was not well aware outside Italy) was "dark" comparing to the classic Antiquity (as imagined by Petrarch) and a later definition by Caesar Baronius (in 1602) was applied to the X - XI centuries as period of "intellectual darkness" which at that time simply meant that the people had been developing culture and attitudes different from those of Antiquity. Of course, in both cases we are talking about pure intellectual snobbery (and perhaps a healthy dosage of the Italian nationalism) because it is rather hard to agree that without rediscovery of the Cicero letters there would be no progress, that there were no reasonably well organized states, literature (well, AFAIK, Petrarch despised everything not written in Latin), scientific development, etc.

In other words, unless used in a very creative way, the term is not applicable to the modern events.
He does go on to define it, but in a very unorthodox and problematic way whilst casually insulting people who dont agree for not thinking.
 
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