Erratum: Peter Turchin’s Structural-Demographic model includes the fiscal health of the state as one of its key indicators, so I was not strictly correct to say that Dalio’s “long term debt cycle” model is distinct or a “different lens” from Turchin’s. Turchin views Dalio’s focus as one of the components of his SD model.
The idea of mimesis and how its failure leads to civilisational collapse was presented by Arnold Toynbee in "A study of history". It is also, though with an entirely different focus, key to gene-culture co-evolution for which the writings of Robert Boyd are key (also Joe Henrich). Fascinating stuff but difficult. Turchin's theory was in fact created by jack Goldstone in 1992 though restricted to the failure of early modern societies. I look forward to your next pieces.
How do demographic shifts affect the "elite overproduction"? The youngest Baby Boomers are approaching retirement which would suggest the job slots they held will be competed for by fewer people. We are also at the peak of the number of high school graduates (birth rates started falling in 2007) which means fewer people will be applying to university. So aren't we entering a period in which the number of elites will, for demographic reasons, start shrinking?
I think a key turning point in the U.S.'s overconcentration of power among elites was the Citizens United Supreme Course case. Thanks to that case, there is more money than ever backing elections and, for example, one wealthy couple in Michigan can fund primary challenges to anyone who votes in ways they don't like, giving them a very large degree of control over politics and legislation in that state.
Well written essay. But your framework implies a sort of tragic inevitability of all systemic overhauls just degenerate into new forms of elite re-stratification, factionalism, and institutional sclerosis. But there are periods of American history that directly contradicts that absolutism.
The generation 1.0 Democratic Party (the "Jacksonians") didn’t just replace one faction of extractive elites with another, nor did they merely reshuffle the elite seating chart. They executed a root-to-branch restructuring across nearly every societal sphere: banking, credit formation, law, public finance, education, capital allocation, academia, and governance structures. And they did not erect a new highly-cohesive national elite to sit atop it. Instead, they broke up centralized capital monopolies (the Second Bank of the United States being most famous), dismantled interregional financial coordination nexuses, restored state-level monetary sovereignty, initiated the proliferation of smaller-scale banks under state charters (sometimes with state-level insurance funds like New York’s Safety Fund), and enabled widespread diffusion of local capital formation, which directly empowered regional development, independent professional schools, municipal infrastructure projects, and pluralistic civic institutions.
And perhaps more importantly, they established the world's first mass-member political party, which was decentralized and publicly accessible and it was then imitated which led to our politics being dominated by such parties for well over 100 years.
Their design actively limited elite concentration and coordination, producing a far more horizontally distributed power structure with highly plural local policy variability. Decision-making authority shifted to state legislatures, locally controlled systems, civic boards, and other things, each far more directly accountable to their populations. The result was not a simulacrum of democracy but real participatory governance where independent actors across regions, professions, and sectors could compete without being structurally subordinated to centralized rentier elites.
So good news! They achieved what we've been taught is nearly impossible, they implemented systemic redesigns that channeled conflict into pluralistic diffusion rather than simply producing new counter-elites seeking to capture the same narrow apex.
Well there is also the reality of the despicable treatment of native Americans and the solidification of slavery during those years. But hey, they weren’t white and deserved their treatment, right?
Great article. Capitalism eventually creates the seed of its own destruction; nepotism , debt and inequality leaidng to inefficiency and instability. To Dailio's point; historically great powers have challenged thier decline through external conflict. This time I see a new mechanism - self immolation; which might be lesser od two evils for the rest of the world.
Erratum: Peter Turchin’s Structural-Demographic model includes the fiscal health of the state as one of its key indicators, so I was not strictly correct to say that Dalio’s “long term debt cycle” model is distinct or a “different lens” from Turchin’s. Turchin views Dalio’s focus as one of the components of his SD model.
The idea of mimesis and how its failure leads to civilisational collapse was presented by Arnold Toynbee in "A study of history". It is also, though with an entirely different focus, key to gene-culture co-evolution for which the writings of Robert Boyd are key (also Joe Henrich). Fascinating stuff but difficult. Turchin's theory was in fact created by jack Goldstone in 1992 though restricted to the failure of early modern societies. I look forward to your next pieces.
How do demographic shifts affect the "elite overproduction"? The youngest Baby Boomers are approaching retirement which would suggest the job slots they held will be competed for by fewer people. We are also at the peak of the number of high school graduates (birth rates started falling in 2007) which means fewer people will be applying to university. So aren't we entering a period in which the number of elites will, for demographic reasons, start shrinking?
I think a key turning point in the U.S.'s overconcentration of power among elites was the Citizens United Supreme Course case. Thanks to that case, there is more money than ever backing elections and, for example, one wealthy couple in Michigan can fund primary challenges to anyone who votes in ways they don't like, giving them a very large degree of control over politics and legislation in that state.
Great comment. I will incorporate thoughts on this into part 3 especially. Appreciate the input.
Very accurate;
Well written essay. But your framework implies a sort of tragic inevitability of all systemic overhauls just degenerate into new forms of elite re-stratification, factionalism, and institutional sclerosis. But there are periods of American history that directly contradicts that absolutism.
The generation 1.0 Democratic Party (the "Jacksonians") didn’t just replace one faction of extractive elites with another, nor did they merely reshuffle the elite seating chart. They executed a root-to-branch restructuring across nearly every societal sphere: banking, credit formation, law, public finance, education, capital allocation, academia, and governance structures. And they did not erect a new highly-cohesive national elite to sit atop it. Instead, they broke up centralized capital monopolies (the Second Bank of the United States being most famous), dismantled interregional financial coordination nexuses, restored state-level monetary sovereignty, initiated the proliferation of smaller-scale banks under state charters (sometimes with state-level insurance funds like New York’s Safety Fund), and enabled widespread diffusion of local capital formation, which directly empowered regional development, independent professional schools, municipal infrastructure projects, and pluralistic civic institutions.
And perhaps more importantly, they established the world's first mass-member political party, which was decentralized and publicly accessible and it was then imitated which led to our politics being dominated by such parties for well over 100 years.
Their design actively limited elite concentration and coordination, producing a far more horizontally distributed power structure with highly plural local policy variability. Decision-making authority shifted to state legislatures, locally controlled systems, civic boards, and other things, each far more directly accountable to their populations. The result was not a simulacrum of democracy but real participatory governance where independent actors across regions, professions, and sectors could compete without being structurally subordinated to centralized rentier elites.
So good news! They achieved what we've been taught is nearly impossible, they implemented systemic redesigns that channeled conflict into pluralistic diffusion rather than simply producing new counter-elites seeking to capture the same narrow apex.
Re Mike Moschos
Well there is also the reality of the despicable treatment of native Americans and the solidification of slavery during those years. But hey, they weren’t white and deserved their treatment, right?
Great article. Capitalism eventually creates the seed of its own destruction; nepotism , debt and inequality leaidng to inefficiency and instability. To Dailio's point; historically great powers have challenged thier decline through external conflict. This time I see a new mechanism - self immolation; which might be lesser od two evils for the rest of the world.