In 1981 I visited the Armoury inside the Kremlin. We saw carriages with wooden wheels, bejeweled with emeralds, rubies, and sapphires that the members of the Romanov dynasty and the Russian monarchy, led by Czar Nicholas rode through the streets of Moscow. When the peasants and even the shopkeepers etc saw that, what did they think and feel? It was clear the arrogance was a major factor in precipitating the revolution.
Now we have a potential cabinet with over 10 billionaires and the many more like Marc Andreessen etc. hanging at MaL. How many of them have been to a market to buy eggs lately? I still have cognitive dissonance thinking about how this group is going to help those in the US who are struggling.
Do we need 438 federal agencies and can we cut a lot out of the federal budget. In two words, No and Yes. However it needs to be surgical, not with an axe. Musk and Ramaswamy, have repeatedly said they will cut more than $500 billion from programs like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which received $525 million in appropriations-- a tiny fraction—especially when compared with veterans’ healthcare, which accounts for $119 billion.
Essential initiatives such as healthcare, education, aviation safety, housing assistance, and medical research make up some of the largest portions of the programs on the chopping block.
How effective will they be at what they attempt? How will congress and the courts deal with these initiatives? How much will they help improve the US? Will RFK Jr.'s HHS (if confirmed) improve obesity and health in the US?
No one knows. Time will tell. But it's a good reminder that "May you live in interesting times" is a curse.
New word from different sources. Immiseration: economic impoverishment. Two days ago just started to read Peter Turchin's "End Times". Then here comes Mr Wheal with a richly thoughtful newsletter drilling down on the same word. I hope for a kinder, gentler transition. Keep these moments coming....
This seems a bit partisan. Your analysis leaves out the new money/old money dynamic in favour of a single-dimension of elites vs plebs. This is very important because the old entrenched money has a book of dirty tricks they have developed, and continue to develop, to hang on to their power. This book is becoming exposed, and it seems that what people hate more than inequality is having the game rigged against them (if it's legitimately possible for anyone to become an elite, it's more difficult to begrudge the elites their money). Undoubtedly a new book of tricks will be written in due time by the new money eventually, but in the meantime it gives us the opportunity to reshuffle the deck on the control mechanisms that have been erected, like the censorship industrial complex. This shift in power is not trivial, and could answer the most pressing grievances---the kind that might inspire violence.
You also don't consider that wealth inequality is less pressing when all boats are rising. The gamble the new administration is taking is that an unlock in economic activity will, at least up to a threshold, relieve the economic pressures that are causing the anti-elite sentiment. This is a gamble, though, because the economy the new team is inheriting may absorb all of their creativity and energy just to maintain the status quo. So it could very well fail, and we might see violence nonetheless.
Clinton, Obama, Biden are 100% part of the neoliberal move here. Pointing out MAGA crew cuz they will rule the world for next half decade at least, and b/c they fit Turchin's analysis of counter elite overproduction so perfectly
I am not very familiar with Turchin, so thank you for that. Was his idea that it was elite overproduction simpliciter, or counter-elite overproduction? I had understood the former, from your piece. In any case, don't you think the elite/counter-elite dichotomy serves as a kind of generator function for societal sustainability? That is, when interests become too entrenched and begin to ossify and fester, that the new guard upends the old system? Surely a new system gets erected and we shouldn't be naive about its eventual rot, but then a new generation of wannabe elites tear that up too? Idk, it seems to me that this is actually a beneficial dynamic. But who am I? I haven't studied this like Turchin has. I may be misunderstanding.
I also find it interesting that Turchin's theory seems to be couched in the idea that the elites are the only ones with agency and use the populace merely to fight the entrenched elites. But it seems to me that the populace uses the counter-elites every bit as much, to fight the entrenched interests. I believe that is what we saw during the US election.
That's a really well-written article. I am sympathetic to some of the critiques of Turchin. But I don't want to hitch my wagon to those until the latest data is in. Philosophically, the question about whether we can make predictions about sociopolitical effects is interesting. My gut instinct is that yes, we can generally understand cause and effect in that domain. However, it's also true that the margin of error in prediction is fairly big (and like all complex systems, the farther out in time you try to predict, the more error is likely). How does technology impact the prediction? Does Turchin's analysis hold in a world where scarcity has been overcome by energy production and efficiency? The societies he has surveyed were ones where elites largely inherited their positions and class mobility was minimal. Does the same pattern hold in a different system? For this case, we will see eventually, and I'm open to the education. But I am suspicious about these predictions. It's not that I think things will proceed with unicorns and light, but that a fall will more likely come from factors other than elite overproduction.
Not really... However there are some truths to that position. The first is economic. Many countries, the US included, can't possibly pay their debts under current conditions. The two escape routes are to inflate the debt away, which is extremely painful, or to grow out of it. Growth is preferable. But growth is currently slow and there are bureaucratic reasons for that. I am a believer in a regulated economy (I look at the economy as a simple organism and believe that if we want it to work for us, we need to shape---merely shape, mind you---its evolutionary environment to do so), however there is such a thing as over-regulation, and misregulation (e.g., punitive or lobbiest-inspired). So, at least in principle, DOGE is a good move (what they actually end up accomplishing is anyone's guess).
One thing we do know is that attempts to slow growth work really, really well and historically end in poverty, starvation, and with that comes the "eat the rich" mentality on steroids. One hopes that we can eventually hash out an economic system that is sustainable (obviously the Embedded Growth Obligation is unsustainable past a threshold), but it has to be handled incrementally and gingerly lest it have the opposite social effect than was hoped. Ultimately our moral responsibility is to generations that come after us, and so we must find a balance. But for the moment, stepping on the gas may be the only way to avoid disaster (not guaranteed that it doesn't also end in disaster, but you gotta try, you know?).
Ah…infinite growth on a finite planet, that’s the ticket! GDP and energy use march in lock step. Energy use and global heating and exceeding all the earth’s systems that foster life ditto.
That's fairly alarmist. The time scales we are talking about may allow growth out of even those long-term environmental threats. The climate doomers get in their head some kind of apocalyptic scenario and then imagine it'll happen tomorrow unless we lower the quality of life for billions of people. Time scale is important.
I see this happening in the zeitgeist. It reminds me of this Hopi prophecy:
"This prophecy goes on to say that the time will come when common people will become concerned and frustrated because they no longer can live with their hectic world. They will be particularly against the bloodthirsty policies and the deceitfulness of world leaders. The unrest will be world wide as they foresee that the hope of living in peace has become hopeless. The world over the common man will band together to fight for world peace. They will realize that their leaders have failed in accomplishing peace. People in high places will be hunted down like animals, perhaps through terrorism. In turn leaders will retaliate and begin hunting each other. This condition will gather strength and spread far and wide. It will get out of control the world over. Revolution could erupt on our land."
Mails, Thomas E.. The Hopi Survival Kit: The Prophecies, Instructions and Warnings Revealed by the Last Elders (Compass) (pp. 208-209)
You lay it all out very clearly but somehow miss the part that while all of this chicanery is unfolding ole Ma Nature will be doing her best to level the playing field via drought, wildfires and extreme weather-events that come with climate change. I see everything that’s going on politically as merely a comic backdrop to a very scary future.
I went to Stanford and asked KSR a couple years ago a pointed question about his book. I felt MOF was just more fodder for the techno-socialist toxic optimistic crowd (most COP bureaucrats, democrats, academics, etc) , and just plain hubris that we can "fix" anything as complex as the enmeshed biodiversity/climate/population/consumption crisis.
The question I asked was "yeah, okay, but are the people happy?". Just a glib non-response back. Aka immiseration continues under any regime. Aka - dukkha - dissatisfaction. Ethnocentrism seems to trump in dom-culture, so be it. So do what has always been done - get far from the madding crowd. But do it wisely, and with loving-compassion. I think the Buddha and Christ were the original preppers, but doing it for all of us.
But you should seriously check in for some painful personal growth in your own narcissist dept.
There is real value in clear and concise writing and I actually would be very interested in reading yours. We all are all suffering, no need to go super expressionistic ..
narcissistic expressionistic? Not sure what that means. Just thought I'd map Peter Turchin's research onto our current news cycle for something that's hopefully a bit more thought provoking than most of the hot takes this week. I could detune the jokes and asides and make it less fun/more academic, but this a free substack so, if we're not having a bit of a laugh, honestly, why bother?
Please excuse my assault, I never partake in online conversations and thus overstepped and I am tired, it's late in Europe and your jokes and associations are better appreciated in my second read.
I am flashed to receive a direct answer from you, who I have been following for a while now and whom I deeply respect. I send you my warmest appreciation and apologies.
I wished we could one day have a deeper conversation on Narcissism and why it is so poorly mapped out. But that is a whole different topic. Yet it transcends everything and all of us.
I like your writing style. It always has layers of meaning and is done in good humour (and has a cultural awareness that is refreshing). While I don't always land in the same place as you, I find the food for thought nourishing. Recapture the Rapture was a great read in that respect. I honestly don't know how sufficient the suggestions in the book were, but outlining them in black and white is a great touchstone for further thinking, no matter what the conclusions. Without people offering a perspective, one has very little to play with intellectually. You're offering a valuable service and I thank you for it.
FWIW, I rarely land in the same places as "me." My narrator is almost always 30-90 deg off what I personally think. Utter sincerity is a mortal sin for an Englishman ;)
Well you hit it out of the ball park again, history does tend to repeat itself. Instead of Madame leFarge knitting the names into her scarf, there is a collective record now via social media
Im not sold on total civil unrest or revolution, until something major breaks. When people have to stand in soup lines, things change. The inequality is awful, but the quality of life in poverty today is better than during the depression. Anyone else ever stand in line for USDA surplus food at the 4H building? But its only a matter of time before greed breaks the economy again.
Also-the average IQ of people who hold undergraduate degrees is now the same as the general population. ~100.
Universities became more profit than non, and devalued themselves.
We can learn anything online. For free. But you cant get ivy league connections for free.
I suspect that many institutions are on their way out as a result of the internet democratizing everything.
Understandably, this is a riff on Peter Turchin's framework. It seems like the main point is that if the relative wealth gap is not reduced peacefully, it will eventually be reduced violently.
What are some proposed solutions other than the high taxation of the wealthy?
How can such solutions close the wealth gap without lowering wealth for all (an Atlas Shrugged situation)?
Or is there no solution, and are we doomed to the historical cycle of violence?
well that post prior to this one about Chaos Monkeys and Entropy Agents hinted at that kind of crash/burn/rebuild necessity. Would seem like our only hope to peacefully navigate out of this would be to embrace a deeply dedicated transnational humanism and do it together. But it seems we're burning those boats just as fast as we can build 'em. Doesn't mean there's not a place for radical hope, it 'might' mean its a ways off in coming to fruition. IDK
Thank you for so brilliantly shaping our way forward Jamie. We need such leadership at this time. Please continue to help us make these shifts. We, the left, need a path forward, and go as far left as you see fit. Cause we def need a battle cry, we have little voice right now, it seems. And feel free to say it's not about left or right. But what resonates, resonates, and you have resonated.
Just a quick proofreader double-check: I'm not finding a definition of "populus" that seems to make sense in the context where you use it. Did you actually intend "populace", or am I missing a pun, or ... ?
In 1981 I visited the Armoury inside the Kremlin. We saw carriages with wooden wheels, bejeweled with emeralds, rubies, and sapphires that the members of the Romanov dynasty and the Russian monarchy, led by Czar Nicholas rode through the streets of Moscow. When the peasants and even the shopkeepers etc saw that, what did they think and feel? It was clear the arrogance was a major factor in precipitating the revolution.
Now we have a potential cabinet with over 10 billionaires and the many more like Marc Andreessen etc. hanging at MaL. How many of them have been to a market to buy eggs lately? I still have cognitive dissonance thinking about how this group is going to help those in the US who are struggling.
Do we need 438 federal agencies and can we cut a lot out of the federal budget. In two words, No and Yes. However it needs to be surgical, not with an axe. Musk and Ramaswamy, have repeatedly said they will cut more than $500 billion from programs like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which received $525 million in appropriations-- a tiny fraction—especially when compared with veterans’ healthcare, which accounts for $119 billion.
Essential initiatives such as healthcare, education, aviation safety, housing assistance, and medical research make up some of the largest portions of the programs on the chopping block.
How effective will they be at what they attempt? How will congress and the courts deal with these initiatives? How much will they help improve the US? Will RFK Jr.'s HHS (if confirmed) improve obesity and health in the US?
No one knows. Time will tell. But it's a good reminder that "May you live in interesting times" is a curse.
Jamie, you just hit out of the ball park, again! History does tend to repeat itself
New word from different sources. Immiseration: economic impoverishment. Two days ago just started to read Peter Turchin's "End Times". Then here comes Mr Wheal with a richly thoughtful newsletter drilling down on the same word. I hope for a kinder, gentler transition. Keep these moments coming....
And who are you in this story?
definitely not the cute guy in the hoodie...
But only because you're not wearing a hoodie.
This seems a bit partisan. Your analysis leaves out the new money/old money dynamic in favour of a single-dimension of elites vs plebs. This is very important because the old entrenched money has a book of dirty tricks they have developed, and continue to develop, to hang on to their power. This book is becoming exposed, and it seems that what people hate more than inequality is having the game rigged against them (if it's legitimately possible for anyone to become an elite, it's more difficult to begrudge the elites their money). Undoubtedly a new book of tricks will be written in due time by the new money eventually, but in the meantime it gives us the opportunity to reshuffle the deck on the control mechanisms that have been erected, like the censorship industrial complex. This shift in power is not trivial, and could answer the most pressing grievances---the kind that might inspire violence.
You also don't consider that wealth inequality is less pressing when all boats are rising. The gamble the new administration is taking is that an unlock in economic activity will, at least up to a threshold, relieve the economic pressures that are causing the anti-elite sentiment. This is a gamble, though, because the economy the new team is inheriting may absorb all of their creativity and energy just to maintain the status quo. So it could very well fail, and we might see violence nonetheless.
methinks thou hath drunketh the e/acc kool aid thyself?
Clinton, Obama, Biden are 100% part of the neoliberal move here. Pointing out MAGA crew cuz they will rule the world for next half decade at least, and b/c they fit Turchin's analysis of counter elite overproduction so perfectly
I am not very familiar with Turchin, so thank you for that. Was his idea that it was elite overproduction simpliciter, or counter-elite overproduction? I had understood the former, from your piece. In any case, don't you think the elite/counter-elite dichotomy serves as a kind of generator function for societal sustainability? That is, when interests become too entrenched and begin to ossify and fester, that the new guard upends the old system? Surely a new system gets erected and we shouldn't be naive about its eventual rot, but then a new generation of wannabe elites tear that up too? Idk, it seems to me that this is actually a beneficial dynamic. But who am I? I haven't studied this like Turchin has. I may be misunderstanding.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/can-history-predict-future/616993/?gift=rd4aydqjHOLpQ1fR3F-8zpcvwCBnZp3I5JIOSKyRtjk&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
A little convo with ChatGPT suggests that there is some wiggle room to the prediction. https://chatgpt.com/share/675499cb-9988-800e-97a1-05d529ec9f5c
I also find it interesting that Turchin's theory seems to be couched in the idea that the elites are the only ones with agency and use the populace merely to fight the entrenched elites. But it seems to me that the populace uses the counter-elites every bit as much, to fight the entrenched interests. I believe that is what we saw during the US election.
That's a really well-written article. I am sympathetic to some of the critiques of Turchin. But I don't want to hitch my wagon to those until the latest data is in. Philosophically, the question about whether we can make predictions about sociopolitical effects is interesting. My gut instinct is that yes, we can generally understand cause and effect in that domain. However, it's also true that the margin of error in prediction is fairly big (and like all complex systems, the farther out in time you try to predict, the more error is likely). How does technology impact the prediction? Does Turchin's analysis hold in a world where scarcity has been overcome by energy production and efficiency? The societies he has surveyed were ones where elites largely inherited their positions and class mobility was minimal. Does the same pattern hold in a different system? For this case, we will see eventually, and I'm open to the education. But I am suspicious about these predictions. It's not that I think things will proceed with unicorns and light, but that a fall will more likely come from factors other than elite overproduction.
Not really... However there are some truths to that position. The first is economic. Many countries, the US included, can't possibly pay their debts under current conditions. The two escape routes are to inflate the debt away, which is extremely painful, or to grow out of it. Growth is preferable. But growth is currently slow and there are bureaucratic reasons for that. I am a believer in a regulated economy (I look at the economy as a simple organism and believe that if we want it to work for us, we need to shape---merely shape, mind you---its evolutionary environment to do so), however there is such a thing as over-regulation, and misregulation (e.g., punitive or lobbiest-inspired). So, at least in principle, DOGE is a good move (what they actually end up accomplishing is anyone's guess).
One thing we do know is that attempts to slow growth work really, really well and historically end in poverty, starvation, and with that comes the "eat the rich" mentality on steroids. One hopes that we can eventually hash out an economic system that is sustainable (obviously the Embedded Growth Obligation is unsustainable past a threshold), but it has to be handled incrementally and gingerly lest it have the opposite social effect than was hoped. Ultimately our moral responsibility is to generations that come after us, and so we must find a balance. But for the moment, stepping on the gas may be the only way to avoid disaster (not guaranteed that it doesn't also end in disaster, but you gotta try, you know?).
Ah…infinite growth on a finite planet, that’s the ticket! GDP and energy use march in lock step. Energy use and global heating and exceeding all the earth’s systems that foster life ditto.
That's fairly alarmist. The time scales we are talking about may allow growth out of even those long-term environmental threats. The climate doomers get in their head some kind of apocalyptic scenario and then imagine it'll happen tomorrow unless we lower the quality of life for billions of people. Time scale is important.
I see this happening in the zeitgeist. It reminds me of this Hopi prophecy:
"This prophecy goes on to say that the time will come when common people will become concerned and frustrated because they no longer can live with their hectic world. They will be particularly against the bloodthirsty policies and the deceitfulness of world leaders. The unrest will be world wide as they foresee that the hope of living in peace has become hopeless. The world over the common man will band together to fight for world peace. They will realize that their leaders have failed in accomplishing peace. People in high places will be hunted down like animals, perhaps through terrorism. In turn leaders will retaliate and begin hunting each other. This condition will gather strength and spread far and wide. It will get out of control the world over. Revolution could erupt on our land."
Mails, Thomas E.. The Hopi Survival Kit: The Prophecies, Instructions and Warnings Revealed by the Last Elders (Compass) (pp. 208-209)
You lay it all out very clearly but somehow miss the part that while all of this chicanery is unfolding ole Ma Nature will be doing her best to level the playing field via drought, wildfires and extreme weather-events that come with climate change. I see everything that’s going on politically as merely a comic backdrop to a very scary future.
I went to Stanford and asked KSR a couple years ago a pointed question about his book. I felt MOF was just more fodder for the techno-socialist toxic optimistic crowd (most COP bureaucrats, democrats, academics, etc) , and just plain hubris that we can "fix" anything as complex as the enmeshed biodiversity/climate/population/consumption crisis.
The question I asked was "yeah, okay, but are the people happy?". Just a glib non-response back. Aka immiseration continues under any regime. Aka - dukkha - dissatisfaction. Ethnocentrism seems to trump in dom-culture, so be it. So do what has always been done - get far from the madding crowd. But do it wisely, and with loving-compassion. I think the Buddha and Christ were the original preppers, but doing it for all of us.
I really respected you for stealing fire.
But you should seriously check in for some painful personal growth in your own narcissist dept.
There is real value in clear and concise writing and I actually would be very interested in reading yours. We all are all suffering, no need to go super expressionistic ..
narcissistic expressionistic? Not sure what that means. Just thought I'd map Peter Turchin's research onto our current news cycle for something that's hopefully a bit more thought provoking than most of the hot takes this week. I could detune the jokes and asides and make it less fun/more academic, but this a free substack so, if we're not having a bit of a laugh, honestly, why bother?
Please excuse my assault, I never partake in online conversations and thus overstepped and I am tired, it's late in Europe and your jokes and associations are better appreciated in my second read.
I am flashed to receive a direct answer from you, who I have been following for a while now and whom I deeply respect. I send you my warmest appreciation and apologies.
I wished we could one day have a deeper conversation on Narcissism and why it is so poorly mapped out. But that is a whole different topic. Yet it transcends everything and all of us.
I like your writing style. It always has layers of meaning and is done in good humour (and has a cultural awareness that is refreshing). While I don't always land in the same place as you, I find the food for thought nourishing. Recapture the Rapture was a great read in that respect. I honestly don't know how sufficient the suggestions in the book were, but outlining them in black and white is a great touchstone for further thinking, no matter what the conclusions. Without people offering a perspective, one has very little to play with intellectually. You're offering a valuable service and I thank you for it.
FWIW, I rarely land in the same places as "me." My narrator is almost always 30-90 deg off what I personally think. Utter sincerity is a mortal sin for an Englishman ;)
Lol!
not sure what youre reading to get that sense? the comments here are all playful engaging and overwhelmingly positive.
Excellent. Thank you for this, Jamie!
Well you hit it out of the ball park again, history does tend to repeat itself. Instead of Madame leFarge knitting the names into her scarf, there is a collective record now via social media
Im not sold on total civil unrest or revolution, until something major breaks. When people have to stand in soup lines, things change. The inequality is awful, but the quality of life in poverty today is better than during the depression. Anyone else ever stand in line for USDA surplus food at the 4H building? But its only a matter of time before greed breaks the economy again.
Also-the average IQ of people who hold undergraduate degrees is now the same as the general population. ~100.
Universities became more profit than non, and devalued themselves.
We can learn anything online. For free. But you cant get ivy league connections for free.
I suspect that many institutions are on their way out as a result of the internet democratizing everything.
Thank you for writing about this book again.
Understandably, this is a riff on Peter Turchin's framework. It seems like the main point is that if the relative wealth gap is not reduced peacefully, it will eventually be reduced violently.
What are some proposed solutions other than the high taxation of the wealthy?
How can such solutions close the wealth gap without lowering wealth for all (an Atlas Shrugged situation)?
Or is there no solution, and are we doomed to the historical cycle of violence?
well that post prior to this one about Chaos Monkeys and Entropy Agents hinted at that kind of crash/burn/rebuild necessity. Would seem like our only hope to peacefully navigate out of this would be to embrace a deeply dedicated transnational humanism and do it together. But it seems we're burning those boats just as fast as we can build 'em. Doesn't mean there's not a place for radical hope, it 'might' mean its a ways off in coming to fruition. IDK
Thank you for so brilliantly shaping our way forward Jamie. We need such leadership at this time. Please continue to help us make these shifts. We, the left, need a path forward, and go as far left as you see fit. Cause we def need a battle cry, we have little voice right now, it seems. And feel free to say it's not about left or right. But what resonates, resonates, and you have resonated.
A great piece: thanks for the read.
Just a quick proofreader double-check: I'm not finding a definition of "populus" that seems to make sense in the context where you use it. Did you actually intend "populace", or am I missing a pun, or ... ?