Elite overproduction

According to Turchin and Jack Goldstone, periods of political instability have throughout human history been due to the purely self-interested behavior of the elite. When the economy faced an expansion in the workforce, exerting a downward pressure on wages, the elite generally kept much of the wealth generated to themselves, resisting taxation and income redistribution. In the face of intensifying competition, they also sought to restrict upward mobility to preserve their power and status for their descendants. due to the proneness of the relatively well-off to radicalism. In the twenty-first-century Western countries, the popularity of progressive political beliefs among university graduates, for instance, may be due to widespread underemployment rather than from exposure to progressive ideas or experiences during their studies. Stagnant wages and housing unaffordability make young professionals more likely to view the status quo as a zero-sum rather than a positive-sum game. From their examination of numerous historical societies that have existed in the space of 5,000 years, Turchin and his colleagues have argued that strife among elites helps explain social disturbances during later years of various Chinese dynasties, the late Roman empire, the Aztec Empire before the Spanish conquest, England before the Civil War, the French Wars of Religion, and France before the Revolution. Turchin's model also explains why polygamous societies tend to be more unstable than monogamous ones: men of high status in a polygamous society tend to have more children, consequently producing more elites. In an essay, philosopher Francis Bacon cautioned of the threat of sedition if "more are bred scholars, than preferment can take off." Political economist Joseph Schumpeter asserted that a liberal capitalist society contains the seeds of its own downfall as it breeds a class of intellectuals hostile to both capitalism and liberalism, though without which these intellectuals cannot exist. Before Turchin, political scientist Samuel Huntington had warned that a disconnect between upward social mobility and the ability of the institutions to absorb these new individuals could lead to sociopolitical decay. Historian John Lewis Gaddis observed that while young people have continuously wanted to challenge the norms of society, by investing so much in education, major countries on both sides of the Cold War gave the young the tools to inflict the tumult of the late 1960s to early 1970s upon their homelands. Economist Thomas Sowell noted that many intellectuals are shielded by tenure and the dominant ideologies of their societies and as such may face no consequences for their recommendations, despite wielding great power and influence. During the 2020s, elite overproduction is a problem confronting many Western nations, at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly automating many white-collar jobs. == By country ==

Australia In Australia, growth in higher education has been equated with success. Yet although successive governments have promoted university education to young people, the nation faces stagnant productivity. One reason, according to the Bank of Canada, is the mismatch between skills learned at school and those demanded by the work place. As a result, many new entrants to the job market find themselves either unemployed despite being highly trained, or stuck in low-wage positions. The Bank of Canada refers to this as an economic emergency. By the early 2020s, Chinese youths find themselves struggling with job hunting. University education offers little help. Due to the mismatch between education and the job market, those with university qualifications are more likely to be unemployed. About a quarter of young Chinese prefer to work for the government rather than the private sector, and, in accordance with traditional Confucian belief, do not have a high opinion of manual labor. By June 2023, China's unemployment rate for people aged 16 to 24 was about one in five. In response, the government has recommended that students and their families consider vocational training programs to fill blue-collar positions, but changing public perception has been slow. Egypt In 2011, as part of the Arab Spring, young Egyptians took to the streets to demand "bread, freedom, and social justice." Youth unemployment was a serious problem facing the country at the time, especially among those with at least a bachelor's degree. Young women's unemployment rate was even worse than young men's. This problem has been driven in part by Egypt's population growth. United Kingdom In the Victorian era, elite overproduction was overcome by outward migration, industrialization, and political reforms that gave power to a larger segment of the general public. A 2019 analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests that a fifth of university alumni would have been better off had they not gone to university. Having a master's degree in certain subjects such as languages, English, sociology, history, and health actually incurs a financial loss compared to having only a bachelor's degree, and this trend is worse for men than it is for women. By 1930, this number was 1.1 million (7.2 percent). Policies of economic redistribution were commonplace, and income inequality was low. For Turchin, the golden years of the 1950s mirrored the Era of Good Feelings. Turchin argued that elite overproduction due to the expansion of higher education was a factor behind the turmoil of late 1960s, the 1980s, and the 2010s. Students have been at the vanguard of progressive activism for decades. By the 2010s, it had become clear that the cost of higher education has ballooned faster than inflation over the previous three to four decades, thanks to growing demand. In 2015, some 70 percent of American high-school students were heading to colleges and universities. But about a quarter of American university students failed to graduate within six years in the late 2010s and those who did faced diminishing wage premiums. At the same time, students at elite institutions, such as Harvard, increasingly hold highly left-wing views, putting them at odds with not just their peers at other institutions of higher learning but also the public at large. Progressive activism became par for the course at the nation's top schools during this period. Richard V. Reeves, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in his book Dream Hoarders (2017) that "more than a third of the demonstrators on the May Day 'Occupy' march in 2011 had annual earnings of more than $100,000. But, rather than looking up in envy and resentment, the upper middle class would do well to look at their own position compared to those falling further and further behind." Similarly, the election of Zohran Mamdani, a self-styled "democratic socialist" in 2025 as Mayor of New York City, a hub of global finance and capitalism, was made possible by a large number of upper middle-class residents who were ostensibly doing well financially, but who complained of the financial pressure of living in a city they have gentrified for decades. Political commentator David Brooks identified this "cognitive dissonance" as "the contradiction of the educated class. Virtue is defined by being anti-elite. But today's educated class constitutes the elite, or at least a big part of it." and PhD holders, especially in the humanities and social sciences, for which employment prospects have been dim, even before the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time of such intense intra-elite competition, evidence of corruption, such as the college admissions scandal revealed by Operation Varsity Blues, further fuels public anger and resentment, destabilizing society. According to projections by the U.S. Census Bureau, the share of people in their 20s continued to grow till the end of the 2010s, meaning the youth bulge would likely not fade away before the 2020s. In fact, the American population was aging, making revolutions less likely. And while the polarizing nature of social media can perpetuate a sense of crisis and despair, these platforms are too disjointed for a unifying figure to emerge and seize power. He cautioned, however, that sociopolitical tensions had been rising since the late 1970s, and resolving the crisis would require some major reforms and many years of prosperity. The early 2020s saw many faculty members leaving academia, especially those from the humanities. Turchin noted, however, that the U.S. was also overproducing STEM graduates. During the second presidency of Donald Trump, federal funding for universities and research has been cut. Even before that, the federal government has for years been prioritizing blue-collar jobs in an attempt to re-industrialize the nation. Since the late 2010s, the United States has been facing a shortage of skilled tradespeople while many white-collar positions have been eliminated by artificial intelligence (AI). Large numbers of researchers are considering leaving the U.S. as they now find themselves unable to finance their own research or their students. Graduate students are choosing other countries. At the same time, demand for higher education continues to decline as Americans increasingly question the returns on investment and because of population aging. A growing share of Generation Z is choosing apprenticeships, vocational training, and other alternatives to higher education. == See also ==