Scholarlink

<p>Why do societies erode future viability despite institutional adequacy, material sufficiency, and procedural success? Existing theories—scarcity, collapse, or mismanagement—fail to explain this paradox. We introduce <i>institutionalized futurity loss</i>: a structural process wherein societies deplete future options because of institutional reproduction, not failure. Treating future viability as a finite, exhaustible capacity, we develop a conversion-centered framework that decouples present adequacy from long-term welfare preservation. Through the late Roman polity as a civilizational demonstrator, we trace how temporal externalization, threshold blindness, and institutional delay cumulatively foreclose futures without triggering crisis. This is not collapse—but <i>structured temporal depletion</i> embedded in effective institutions. The paper specifies institutionalized futurity loss as a analytically distinct form of temporal constraint in which future viability is exhausted through the routine reproduction of effective institutions rather than their breakdown.</p>

错误：搜索内容不能为空，请输入英文关键词
错误：关键词超出字数限制，请精简
高级检索

Institutionalized Futurity Loss: How societies destroy future viability despite Adequacy and Capability

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年3月19日

查看全文
  • Sourav Sarkar

摘要

Why do societies erode future viability despite institutional adequacy, material sufficiency, and procedural success? Existing theories—scarcity, collapse, or mismanagement—fail to explain this paradox. We introduce institutionalized futurity loss: a structural process wherein societies deplete future options because of institutional reproduction, not failure. Treating future viability as a finite, exhaustible capacity, we develop a conversion-centered framework that decouples present adequacy from long-term welfare preservation. Through the late Roman polity as a civilizational demonstrator, we trace how temporal externalization, threshold blindness, and institutional delay cumulatively foreclose futures without triggering crisis. This is not collapse—but structured temporal depletion embedded in effective institutions. The paper specifies institutionalized futurity loss as a analytically distinct form of temporal constraint in which future viability is exhausted through the routine reproduction of effective institutions rather than their breakdown.