DNF files: End Times

/ Alex Good

End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration

By Peter Turchin

Page I bailed on: 52

Verdict: Peter Turchin is a professor of historical social science whose baby is a field he calls cliodynamics. What this basically refers to is the mapping of historical processes by the use of mathematical models, in short a science-based grand theory of history of a kind that has long been popular both among historians and writers of fiction.

Normally I would have eaten a book like this up, as I’m quite fond of theories of historical cycles and evolution, from the Greek kyklos to today’s Big History. Turchin acknowledges this long tradition, but sees cliodynamics as something new mainly in its use of large data sets. It’s Big History meets Big Data, with the latter taking the form of something called Seshat or the Global History Databank.

I’d be on board with this approach if cliodynamics had come up with something really new, but I came away disappointed with its findings. All human societies “experience recurrent waves of political instability,” or alternating integrative and disintegrative phases that usually last around a hundred years. There are various factors that lead to a disintegrative phase or period of crisis and social collapse, including popular immiseration, weakened political legitimacy, high levels of social inequality, and exogenous shocks like climate change. The “most important driver of social and political instability” Turchin identifies though, and the one that has led to his making his mark in this field, is “elite overproduction.” Which means too many people holding an elite rank in society without enough positions of elite power to satisfy them. It’s like a game of musical chairs where the number of chairs stays the same but the number of people keeps growing.

This is a new idea, and one that has taken hold in the broader public discourse, but I think perhaps the main reason for this is that it reflects a contemporary concern. And specifically it feels like the concern of an academic, who no doubt sees a great deal of this sort of thing every day. That is, qualified Ph.D.’s who are unable to find good jobs. Then there’s the way the argument is geared toward explaining our current political climate and the Trump phenomenon in terms of a disintegrative phase. In a term historians like to use, this feels a lot like “presentism.”

I was both unconvinced and not very excited by any of the findings of cliodynamics. I don’t think integrative “golden ages” of internal order are typified by “cultural brilliance” while times of troubles experience “declining high culture.” As Harry Lime famously put it in The Third Man: “In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love – they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

Lime’s speech is celebrated because it gets at a historical truth. To take another example, one of Turchin’s periods of extreme crisis is the lead-up to the American Civil War, but this was also America’s literary Renaissance. Countless other instances could be cited. Revolutionary times tend to be cultural volcanoes.

So cliodynamics paints with a broad brush. But in other ways a brush that isn’t broad enough. Just in the early chapters it seems like Turchin, in his list of factors contributing to social disintegration, was missing a more obvious and more foundational causal explanation: overpopulation. In the historical examples he gives of disintegrative phases the immiseration of the masses is mainly driven by the fact that the masses were growing at a pace that outstripped the economy’s ability to provide for them. And the overproduction of elites could be seen as a function of overpopulation as well. But once you focus on something as basic as this then cliodynamics itself doesn’t seem to be saying anything new.

Maybe in the rest of the book Turchin took all this in some truly groundbreaking directions, but by the time I quit I was pretty sure he was just filling out the old story of things falling apart with some new terminology and lots of numbers, while turning history into a database that wasn’t informed by any depth of understanding about what really happened in the past.

The DNF files

17 thoughts on “DNF files: End Times”

  3. “It’s like a game of musical chairs where the number of chairs stays the same but the number of people keeps growing.

    This is a new idea…”

    Is it? Really? Then I’m way ahead of the curve. Been pointing out for a long time that the stupid conservative idea that people should continually better themselves is moronic on its face in that there are a finite number of “better” (i.e., higher paying) jobs and far too many people to fill them. Therefore the system is inherently unworkable and unfair.

    Also been pointing out since like I was born that nothing is going to change for the better until we admit what we already know. Those of us who weren’t infected by trans ideology have always said “Everyone knows a man can’t become a woman.” Well, this other is a situation where even MORE people know perfectly well this simple fact: people are different. One size definitely does not fit all. And yet we are all morally equal. So it’s an effed up system that says you’re equal but your personality means that you can never really succeed. And by “personality” I really mean personhood, which includes the whole package, including dna and genetics and environment and everything else.

    Also, if this guy thinks Trump is disintegrative, then he’s probably a brainwashed clown. Speaking generally, what you might call the MAGA movement is an integrative reaction to the disintegrative effect of a liberalism that is determined to destroy society as we know it.

    So there. : -)

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    • I think the “elite overproduction” idea is somewhat new. At least it goes against the widely-held view you mention about bettering yourself. But again I had the sense that this was mainly a response to a contemporary issue: too many young people going to university for advanced degrees that there is no longer any demand for. And I’m certainly not just talking about the much-maligned Humanities either. As a historical phenomenon I wasn’t sure I bought it though. There’s only ever been so much room at the top.

      I didn’t read much of what he said about Trump, but I think his point is that Trump is a representative figure of a disintegrative age. I would say the same, as I see him as a “divider” who benefits from chaos and division, but you raise a fair point.

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      • I fail to see how elite overproduction “goes against” the betterment idea. It’s a predictable outcome. Churn out enough Ph.D.s in any field and jobs will dry up. That’s exactly the same as churn out enough people and jobs generally will dry up. Shall we shed more tears for the Ph.D.s than ordinary folks who can’t find decent work? Is it really more dangerous to have a bunch of dissatisfied Ph.D.s running around than an entire populace that is getting screwed? I think the French might have an opinion on that.

        Also elite “overproduction” sounds awfully elitist to me. Hey, there’s too many of you plebes getting Ph.D.s! It’s like Musk encouraging an education in the trades. Gotta keep the people down, though maybe we can allow them to be relatively better off. It all conveniently ignores the real problem, which is identifying a new paradigm for human value and the productive use of our time.

        Cause this all comes back to automation and AI and what people are supposed to do in an automated world.

        As for Trump being a divider, just one example. DOGE. Everyone (once again) agrees with the mission. Trump is carrying out the mission. Democrats are obstructing it at every turn. Who, then, are the dividers? The dividers, it seems to me, are the people defending a bloated and corrupt status quo. Not the ones actually trying to fix the problem.

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      • It goes against it if the claim is that you better yourself by getting an elite education, but that this is a mirage and that it creates a problem of a glut in the market.

        I think the argument Turchin makes is that dissatisfied plebs are, at least individually, less dangerous than dissatisfied elites, who, despite not holding elite positions of power are still figures with wealth and influence.

        I agree about the effects of automation and AI. Don’t agree with what DOGE is up to. Absolutely necessary to reform government in a lot of ways. And like any problem that is left alone for too long, the solution becomes more radical over time. But what DOGE is doing strikes me as reckless at best. But I’m not American so I leave it you guys to decide on that one.

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      • Oh, I get you now. Of course, it’s still the same thing as before: whatever you do to climb any ladder, that ladder is going to narrow to non-existent eventually. Which is, or should be, self-evident.

        And I think you’re right about his argument. We’re seeing the theory in action with the woke nonsense — both sides of it. First the elites brainwash half the people to get their way, then comes the backlash from the other half. Who’s got more power? Too early to tell perhaps. (Yes, I know that’s simplistic, but there’s underlying truth in it.)

        Saw where a senator or congressman said, Gee, of course we want to get rid of waste and fraud, but it ought to be done by Congress. Sorry. That’s a recipe for doing absolutely nothing. As has already been exposed very clearly, the disease is too advanced for timidity. If now isn’t the time for radical action, when would such action be appropriate? When it’s too late — that’s what I’m afraid of.

        And now I can get back to Taken at the Flood. This is a good one! : -)

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