Elite Overproduction Predicts Civil Wars

America’s ruling class is getting dangerously close to capsizing the system.

Aeon:

“The US elites, similarly, took the smooth functioning of the political-economic system for granted. The only problem, as they saw it, was that they weren’t being adequately compensated for their efforts. Feelings of dissatisfaction ran high during the Bear Market of 1973—82, when capital returns took a particular beating. The high inflation of that decade ate into inherited wealth. A fortune of $2 billion in 1982 was a third smaller, when expressed in inflation-adjusted dollars, than $1 billion in 1962, and only a sixth of $1 billion in 1912. All these factors contributed to the reversal of the late 1970s.

It is no coincidence that the life of Communism (from the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989) coincides almost perfectly with the Great Compression era. The Red Scares of, firstly, 1919—21 and then 1947—57 suggest that US elites took the Soviet threat quite seriously. More generally, the Soviet Union, especially in its early years, aggressively promoted an ideology that was highly threatening to the political-economic system favoured by the US elites. Reforms that ensured an equitable distribution of the fruits of economic growth turned out to be a highly effective counter to the lure of Bolshevism.

Nevertheless, when Communism collapsed, its significance was seriously misread. It’s true that the Soviet economy could not compete with a system based on free markets plus policies and norms that promoted equity. Yet the fall of the Soviet Union was interpreted as a vindication of free markets, period. The triumphalist, heady atmosphere of the 1990s was highly conducive to the spread of Ayn Randism and other individualist ideologies. The unwritten social contract that had emerged during the New Deal and braved the challenges of the Second World War had faded from memory. …”

Bloomberg:

“Increasing inequality leads not only to the growth of top fortunes; it also results in greater numbers of wealth-holders. The “1 percent” becomes “2 percent.” Or even more. There are many more millionaires, multimillionaires and billionaires today compared with 30 years ago, as a proportion of the population.Let’s take households worth $10 million or more (in 1995 dollars). According to the research by economist Edward Wolff, from 1983 to 2010 the number of American households worth at least $10 million grew to 350,000 from 66,000.Rich Americans tend to be more politically active than the rest of the population. They support candidates who share their views and values; they sometimes run for office themselves. Yet the supply of political offices has stayed flat (there are still 100 senators and 435 representatives — the same numbers as in 1970). In technical terms, such a situation is known as “elite overproduction.” …

Elite overproduction generally leads to more intra-elite competition that gradually undermines the spirit of cooperation, which is followed by ideological polarization and fragmentation of the political class. This happens because the more contenders there are, the more of them end up on the losing side. A large class of disgruntled elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable, has been denied access to elite positions. Consider the antebellum U.S. …”

New Yorker:

“In March, Mines was one of several national-security experts whom Foreign Policy asked to evaluate the risks of a second civil war—with percentages. Mines concluded that the United States faces a sixty-per-cent chance of civil war over the next ten to fifteen years. Other experts’ predictions ranged from five per cent to ninety-five per cent. The sobering consensus was thirty-five per cent. And that was five months before Charlottesville. …”

We have too many rich people.

This surplus of bored, arrogant, disaffected wealthy people who are pushing things too far and too rapidly are the leading cause of revolutions, civil wars and state collapse. I can’t stress enough how dangerous this is in a tinderbox like the modern multicultural, multiracial United States with its enormous class, ethnic, religious and ideological divisions. A revitalized vision of civic nationalism isn’t going to hold Humpty Dumpty together when it goes up in flames.

About Hunter Wallace 12379 Articles
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Occidental Dissent

15 Comments

  1. I can only see this leading to war if there is division in the elites. American elites are unified and have no competitors either within the country or outside of the country. How can there be revolution or civil war if there is no intra-elite opposition? Despite the polarization of the population, the elites are generally unified, whether they are overproduced or not, with both “right” and “left” on the same page ideologically. All major corporations, politicians, the bureaucracy, the military brass, journalists, religious leaders, academics, etc. are all in agreement. They are all “antiracist” and “antifascist” (“fascism” defined as regular White people adhering to cultural norms that were standard until a few years ago). What are the factions supposed to be in the war?

    Elites stomping their boots down on the necks of the plebs is just plain old tyranny, but that doesn’t always lead to civil war, especially when the plebs have no organization or champions.

  2. What I think is super funny is the entire country is under attack from the Antifa, Black Racists, and Liberals. Oh but the establishment Conservatives keep talking about the economy and how good it’s gonna be in President Trump’s second term. LOL Yea if our enemies don’t burn all the businesses down. Get with it you ignorant Conservatives and Republicans. Send the National Guard in and arrest all the protesters…peaceful protesters or violent ones. It’s all the same from the left now. Arrest all those scum and look how many jobs will be available for Americans? Deport all the Illegal Immigrants. Boom another giant increase in available jobs for Americans. It’s time for advancement…no more Conservatives on the right wing….just White Nationalists! Deo Vindice !

  3. What is the relevance of that top video besides being unpleasant? It looks like somewhere in eastern europe going by the language (they’re dark but I think they’re just heavily tanned.) Looks like some random child abuse footage that made rounds among conservatards, I don’t know. It really doesn’t belong in this post.

  4. Chuck Palaniuk ‘s novel “Adjustment Day” described “elite overproduction” and the consequences.
    He had some damn good ideas too.
    We need a List.

  5. I notice one of those videos is from the UK. Here is what has been going on there…

    Tommy Robinson talking tough about BLM defacing British statues:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwpSNPOgMHI

    Tommy totally cucking later:

    https://twitter.com/ProtestAccess/status/1274877031583342592

    Black UK twitter is tearing him to shreds. They see Tommy as a cowardly bitch and many think he is a police informer too. White patriots and hooligans in the UK look incredibly weak now. They got their ass kicked and looked bad doing it.

  6. The 1st video posted by twitter user marina finnigan isn’t even in America. Its Brazil or Portugal and looks like a 3 year old video at least.

    I mean its still horrible but what a way to stay relevant to the topic at hand I guess America is heading in Brazils direction of lawlessness tho

  7. This filthy, stinking dumpster-fire of a failed judeo-masonic entity must be destroyed, which is ongoing as I write. Ironically, it’s being encouraged by the Ruling Class. Be careful of what you wish for, piggies!

  8. Seems like the issue was the aspirational elites in the form of the evangelical republican party rather than an actual overproduction of intellectual prowess. I think that the more parsimonious explanation is that there are “great wars” every so often (revolutionary, civil, ww2). Eventually, you run out of war heros and their close friends and you fall back to electing literal randos and the public starts to believe that their crazy ideas can run the country. I think it is clear that we’re running into the eventual limits of this rather lame operating principle.

  9. Peter Turchin who is Jewish is running a bit of a distraction game for his co-tribesman George Soros with this ‘over-production of elite’ theory

    This is definitely NOT a revolt of second-tier elites against top-tier elites

    Soros, the NY Times, and the other top antifa / blm funders & bankers are embodying top-tier, that is clear

    Likewise the top tier could have moved quickly to shut this down if they were worried about a lower tier

    Turchin is part of what is sometimes called the Jewish ‘confuse and conquer’ strategy … distract from the Jewish elites joined with other elites at the top

    There is something to Turchin’s gambit, in that a top 10% suffering declines versus the 1%, will produce many foot-soldiers for the Soros army, hoping they will get top jobs in the new regime

    But this isn’t about all those PhDs and MBAs out there with their diplomas, or some second tier of multi-millionaires who could in fact be squashed like bugs … this is elites against all, and a lot of those elites are Soros and co

    • Yes, brabantian, the second tier and third tier elites naturally align with the .0001% elitest of the elites. They may have conflicts among themselves but all naturally band together against the hoi polloi. The upper middle class identifies with and generally supports the elites, even if they are also being robbed.

      Inter- racial and cultural differences and conflcts are real, but so is systematic USURY which is the greatest evil.

      Re: “a lot of those elites are Soros and co”:

      I think too much is made of George Soros, only one among many influential elites.

  10. Just as our universities are stuffed with people instructed and certified beyond their capacity for wisdom, our economic elite is larded up with people who are clueless how to make wealth a blessing to themselves and instead make it a curse to everyone. In them wealth serves the worst vanity, the vanity that they have transcended the conditions of being and can with impunity violate the duties owed to God, family and nation. As Dostoyevsky and others have noted, in confusing themselves with angels, they instead become devils; only Satan and the other damned would approve of progressive America..

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