Sustainable Societies in History

A sustainable society is one that has survived for at least 300 years. It also has to have had some success in that it is economically sound, is socially stable and is culturally complex in that it has arts, religion, etc.

Hypothesis

There are many factors that influence why a society is successful or collapses. Many societies in the past have been successful for periods of time but then collapsed due to many different reasons, some that could’ve been prevented, and some that couldn’t have been prevented. I have come up with three main factors that influence if a society is sustainable. They are:

• Defence of Society
• Decision Making
• Environmental and resource management

There are also many sub-factors that go under these headings and some that could fit under another heading as well.

Defence of society

This factor is important to a society being successful. Many societies in the past have collapsed because of this. The society has to be able to defend itself, not just from its neighbours but from its own people, since many societies have collapsed because of rebellions. An example of this is the Tang Dynasty. This dynasty collapsed because of rebellions by the people against the government which caused the dynasty to collapse.

However, not all societies can afford to have a strong military (the society might not have the money to fund it or not enough people to run it). If this is the case, then it is important for them to have good relations with other countries, particularly its neighbours and other influential countries around the world.

Australia

Although Australia’s military and defence system isn’t small, it wants to be sure that  if something happens, it will have the support of others/ This is a major reason why Australia considers it to be important that it maintains good relationships with influential countries like the US and China. Although it has neglected Asia in the past because of its differences, it has now recognised that it is more important to have close relationships with countries like Indonesia over its relations with Britain which used to be considered more important than the need to maintain good relations with its close neighbours.

USA

The US has one of the biggest defence forces in the world. The technology that they use is also far more advanced than that of any other countries military. For 2007, the US government set aside US$439.3 billion for the military. This doesn’t include things like nuclear weapons research and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which would cost many more billions of dollars. From this alone, it is clear that the US government views the defence of its country very highly and one of the more important factors in it being a sustainable society.