Why Civilizations Thrive or Die

What every leader needs to understand about openness, fear, and the courage to innovate

I recently sat down with Johan Norberg, one of Sweden's most internationally recognized thinkers on freedom, openness, and innovation. As we enter a period of rising protectionism and closing borders, our conversation explored a provocative question: What if our instinct to seek safety by closing ourselves off is precisely what destroys the foundation of our prosperity?

While discussing his upcoming book Peak Human, Norberg painted a picture I haven't been able to shake – of how civilizations throughout history have experienced dazzling periods of creativity and prosperity, only to watch them collapse when fear and the desire for control took over.

The implications for business leaders navigating today's turbulent environment are both urgent and profound.

The forgotten recipe for golden ages

What makes a civilization truly flourish? According to Norberg, the answer emerges clearly when you study history's greatest periods of innovation and prosperity.

"What defines these golden ages is a period with a large number of innovations in many different areas simultaneously," he explained. "Science begins to discover new things, technology advances, in art people experiment with new forms and ideas, and in economics you see new expressions of trade and new business models creating great prosperity compared to what came before."

From Athens and the Roman Republic to Song dynasty China and the Dutch Golden Age, these periods all shared something critical: despite their differences, each allowed meaningful "shards of freedom" – spaces where new ideas could emerge and challenge established traditions.

But here's what struck me most in our conversation: innovation isn't just some happy accident that spontaneously emerges. It's fundamentally an act of rebellion.

"Every form of innovation is a rebellion against established tradition and established interests," Norberg noted, quoting economic historian Joel Mokyr. "People are inventive and test new things throughout history, but that doesn't always lead to something new. What's required is a culture of innovation, a culture of optimism that makes people feel it's worth testing new things despite the risk of being ridiculed or, in the worst case, burned at the stake."

Wait a minute – that can't be right. But actually, maybe it is? Maybe innovation isn't primarily about having the right processes or technologies, but about creating environments where people feel it's worth the risk to challenge how things have always been done.

The patterns of decay

Even more fascinating than how golden ages emerge is how predictably they decay. According to Norberg, after periods of openness and innovation, established interests and traditions inevitably reassert control.

"Many of the central figures behind openness eventually met very brutal fates," he observed. "From Socrates in Athens to Cicero in the Roman Republic to Johan de Witt in the Dutch Republic – executed by those who didn't want this transformation of society."

This pattern has repeated with remarkable consistency across history: a society opens up, experiences unprecedented prosperity and innovation, then closes down again when fear takes over. Often the trigger is a period of instability – climate changes affecting harvests, pandemics, wars – creating a strong desire for someone to take control and restore order.

"In certain periods, the feeling of insecurity becomes so great that people just say, 'Hey, someone needs to take control. We need a strong leader who puts their foot down and gives us back this feeling of something safe, calm, and still,'" Norberg explained.

The most poignant example might be China under the Ming dynasty. Once the world's leading civilization, Ming authorities responded to uncertainty by shutting down trade, burning their great ships, and even forcing people to wear clothes from 500 years earlier – desperately trying to return to an imagined "better time." The result? Five centuries of stagnation.

Sound familiar? It should. We're seeing similar impulses emerge across the Western world today.

The freeze response

This historical pattern reveals something profound about human psychology. When faced with uncertainty and change, we tend to respond in one of three ways: fight, flight, or freeze.

As Norberg put it: "I see it as a kind of societal equivalent to our individual fight-or-flight instinct. When we face a major threat – here comes a lion – either we fight or we run away. We do the same as a society. The world is big and really scary, so we either have to arm ourselves to the teeth and fight, or just flee behind tariffs and run back to the cave."

But there's a third response that's equally dangerous: freezing. In uncertain times, both individuals and organizations tend to halt all forward movement. Companies delay investments. Leaders postpone decisions. Everyone waits for clarity that may never come.

This freeze response is particularly dangerous because it looks prudent. Of course we should wait until things settle down, right? The problem is that this defensive crouch prevents exactly the kind of experimentation and adaptation that would actually help navigate through uncertainty.

Resilience through distribution, not concentration

One of the most counterintuitive insights from our conversation concerned resilience. When faced with supply chain disruptions during the pandemic, many companies and countries concluded they needed shorter, more controlled value chains. The assumption was that proximity equals safety.

According to Norberg, history suggests the opposite is true: "The countries and companies that fared best during the pandemic, counterintuitively, were those with long, complex value chains. They had invested in more relationships, they were accustomed to testing and seeing what could be tweaked and what alternatives could be found."

This makes perfect sense when you think about it. Most crises are regional in nature – whether natural disasters, production problems, cyberattacks, or wars. If you concentrate everything in one area, everything disappears the moment crisis strikes that specific region.

"The saying isn't 'put all your eggs in one basket and protect it with tariffs and regulations,'" Norberg noted. "It's extremely important to invest in many different alternatives and consider where - because suddenly a country might disappear from the radar, either as a supplier or a market."

True resilience comes not from concentration and control, but from diversity and optionality. This applies not just to supply chains, but to ideas, talents, and business models.

What this means for leaders today

As I reflect on our conversation, several imperatives for today's business leaders become clear:

First, recognize that openness to new ideas isn't just nice to have – it's existential. In times of uncertainty, the instinct to close ranks and stick with what's familiar grows stronger. Yet that's precisely when organizations need fresh thinking the most.

Second, build resilience through diversification, not concentration. Rather than trying to control every aspect of your operation, invest in multiple pathways and relationships. Your ability to adapt quickly matters more than your ability to predict accurately.

Third, be wary of the freeze response. While appearing prudent in the short term, postponing decisions and investments during uncertainty can be more dangerous than thoughtful experimentation. As Norberg put it: "If you have a bit of nerve, this is actually a fantastic time to find new relationships, because old relationships are disappearing and many are desperately looking for new customers, new suppliers."

Fourth, consider how your information diet affects your decision-making. The constant bombardment of crisis-focused news triggers our threat-detection systems in ways that can lead to poor judgment. "We're programmed to pay attention to the most dramatic and scary things that can happen, because that's what we absolutely need to know for our survival," Norberg observed. Creating space for deeper reflection becomes essential.

Finally, cultivate what Norberg calls a "culture of innovation" – an environment where people feel that trying new approaches is rewarded even when they don't always succeed. In organizations as in civilizations, this culture is the true source of adaptability and long-term prosperity.

The lingering question

As our conversation concluded, I found myself reflecting on a question that feels increasingly urgent: What if the path to security in uncertain times isn't through control, but through openness?

Throughout history, societies have repeatedly mistaken closing themselves off for protection, only to discover they've cut themselves off from the very vitality that made them strong. The impulse is deeply human and understandable – when things feel chaotic, we want to simplify and control.

Yet the historical record suggests this approach has never worked. The societies that thrived weren't those that eliminated risk and uncertainty, but those that created environments where people could respond to challenges with creativity and experimentation.

Perhaps the most valuable perspective business leaders can adopt today is one that runs counter to our basic instincts: to view periods of disruption not primarily as threats to be controlled, but as opportunities to reimagine what's possible.

At minimum, we should recognize the danger in our natural impulse to close ranks and freeze in the face of uncertainty. As Norberg's study of history's golden ages reminds us, the true existential threat isn't change itself – it's our response to it.