On Turchin; Elite Overproduction and Plutocracy.
Peter Turchin’s (2023) End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites and the Path of Political Disintegration (Allen Lane/Penguin) is a math-free introduction to cliodynamics and derives “useful lessons from history” (p. 32) of its underlying models. That history can provide lessons was out of fashion during the nineteenth and twentieth century and is — we might say — a regression back to the proper function of history. Turchin’s hero is Ibn-Khaldun for good reason (p. 46 & p. 262).
End Times was published between Trump I and Trump II. And the book is framed by Turchin’s prediction that the 2020s will be an age of significant political turmoil and that we already have entered a period of crisis, possibly civil war. (Turchin seems to have made these predictions more than a decade ago (pp. 252-3).)
Turchin was trained in theoretical biology but has applied his models to social history. Despite the title of the book, Turchin’s argument is not just centered on elite over-production and intra-elite conflict. The other main social force that drives the argument is what he calls the ‘wealth pump,’ which redistributes wealth upwards. In fact, End Times is the first non-Marxist work I have read that is enamored by the term ‘immiseration’ (which is sadly not listed in the otherwise splendid index). Popular immiseration generates the potential for “mass mobilization.” (p. 30)
Elite-over production and immiseration generate the conditions for social conflicts and would-be cadres to lead them. But a crucial third feature is what one may call the ‘generational memory’ of collective violence which induces subsequent elites to cooperate in “cycles” of “two generations” or about fifty years. (p. 30) Grandparents’ mistakes are repeated once not part of living memory.
In fact, careful reflection on Turchin’s argument suggests that elite overproduction is neither necessary nor sufficient for the general arguments he makes. What he is really after is the conditions of elite cohesion or elite defection. (Turchin does not seem to realize he is basically returning to Plato (recall Republic (545D)). Elite over-production is just one aspect of this.
For, the underlying message of End Times is a plea for responsible elites that embrace and self-enforce a kind of “social contract” (p. 151 & p. 229), howsoever imperfect, to ensure that all boats are lifted (and the ratio of elites/wealth and non-elites/poor are in relative equilibrium) (p. 236). If I understand Turchin’s argument correctly, such collective prudence or enlightened self-interest from elites is mostly the effect of either a shared foreign threat or shared experience of implosion (or both); defeat in war, for example, both risks revolution (1917) and prepares the mind for painful reform (1855). Sometimes such prudence is the effect of wise leadership (e.g., Alexander II (pp. 228-232) or [I am not joking] Stalin (pp. 164-165), which itself may be the effect of judicious reading (e.g., p. 231).
So much for summary.
One of the more interesting features of End Times is that representative democracy is treated as especially vulnerable to plutocracy (p. 236ff). Plutocracy is a nice word for oligarchy. And plutocracy is, on his view, rare and by implication fragile (p. 119; pp. 155-158). The reason why plutocracy is treated as fragile is not wholly spelled out, but we’re given two reasons along the way: first, financial rivals find it difficult to coordinate. Second, rich people have a tendency to underestimate other sources of power (p. 177). Plato would approve.
As an aside, let’s grant that plutocracy was relatively rare (although I suspect that a database of city-states of the ancient Mediterranean would show them to predominate). Turchin lists four examples of plutocratic states: Venice, Genoa, the Dutch Republic, and the United States. The former two are treated as “merchant republics.” However, it is worth noting that while independent, Venice was unusually durable lasting for close to a thousand years (and as an aristocratic republic for about half of that).
Be that as it may, according to Turchin the reason that liberal democracies have a tendency toward plutocracy is that in it, money can be more easily converted into “ideology” and, thus, “power” over the medium and long term (p. 238). I have to admit that I was surprised to see the causal significance placed on ideology (which is not listed in the index at all). For, earlier ideology was treated as an epiphenomenal effect (p. 96).
In fact, while drawing on well-known social science (Piketty; Gilens, etc.) the book closes with a comparative analysis that suggests that the US much more than other liberal democracies today has already succumbed to plutocracy (pp. 238-241). Somewhat frustratingly, Turchin shows no interest in explaining such variance.
The previous two paragraphs convey my frustration with the book (which I would happily give to a teenager hungry for provocative and big ideas). But this may just be the effect of it being a popularization. I would have to look at the underlying models before I criticize actually existing cliodynamics.
Let me wrap up.
One amusing feature of End Times is its humorous self-effacement. When in the first appendix, confronting Asimov’s suggestion that the psychohistorians’ “predictions must be kept hidden from the people,” Turchin suggests that “most people couldn’t care less about what some eggheaded scientist predicts.” (p. 252) Turchin suggests lack of concern over self-undermining or self-fulfilling features of social modeling.
But the key word there is “most.” For, earlier Turchin had noted that reading Tocqueville on the French revolution had prepared the Czar and the royal family for a reform path (p 231).* So, while Turchin explicitly rejects the great-man theory (pp. 262-263), as “anti-cliodynamic,” (p. 262) his work is, in fact, aimed at would-be-prudent leadership.
See also tomorrow’s post: “On Elite Over-production and Student Anxiety”
https://open.substack.com/pub/digressionsimpressions/p/on-elite-over-production-and-anxiety
*In fact, I bet Turchin is a sober and astute reader of Tocqueville on America.