Peter Turchin (ROUGH TRANSCRIPT)
In which we discuss Peter's 2010 prediction for 2020, Cliodynamics, and elite overproduction.
The following is a rough transcript of our conversation with Peter Turchin: “The Coming Collapse”
Please note that this is a full, rough, unedited transcript. If you’d like us to polish and edit these transcripts, please consider supporting Uncertain Things as a paid subscriber!
Peter Pre-Amble
Adaam: Hi, Vanessa.
Vanessa: Hi Adaam. How are you doing?
Adaam: Dizzy and stressed. .
Vanessa: Okay. Well that's neither good nor. Wanted, but that Well, that's your, the status of your day.
Adaam: On a more interesting note, today we have Peter Turin, which is, I dunno, I was trying to find a segue. Something to do and stress. Yeah. And looking like our, the future
Vanessa: Put it in the, in the books. For what? One of the worst segues ever. We should have a worst segue, compilation, episode for subscribers.
Adaam: I feel, I feel every intro we compete with ourselves for the worst segues. Absolutely. At least we didn't talk about the weather this time.
Vanessa: Uh, is that a common for us?
Adaam: O oddly enough, i, I, I genuinely like talking about the weather. I don't know where, where I'm getting it.
Vanessa: Me, For me, I know because it's my British.
Adaam: Exactly. I do not have, I do not have that. I do have. Uh, pension for certain types of weather and, uh, a deep hatred of others. And sometimes I just need to have it heard. This has nothing to do with today. I guess it has something to do with it. Oh, here's a, here's a segue because weather is chaotic, predicting whether is chaos,
Vanessa: ah, forecasting weather is actually, uh, uh, very similar to the way that Peter Turin thinks about predicting the future.
Adaam: So tell us Vanessa, who is Peter Turchin?
Vanessa: So Peter Turchin is a historian. He used to be a professor at University of Connecticut, but now he is the project leader at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna.
Used to be a scientist and then made the transition over to history, but brought with him the, all the methodologies and perspectives of a scientist and thus took that lens to history.
Adaam: And I guess his point is one of. Arguments is that there is something wanting in the way that history is studied, where it's entirely examined as part of the humanities. It's not quite a science. It's not something that you can actually put into measurable compounds of data, infer theory from it, and then extrapolate predictions,
Vanessa: and yet that's exactly. Peter does. He is the founder of a field called Cleo Dynamics, which is attempting to bring the kind of more statistical scientific methods and analyses to history and to quantify the things that you may have thought weren't quantifiable, but in fact, there can be.
And he has a whole team of researchers, uh, who have been working with him to essentially go through this exercise of going through historical periods and manuscripts and excavating what could be metrics and compiling them into a great big database that he calls Sa Sa shot or SA shot. Um, and from that, He was able to make the predictions that we talk about in this, in this conversation. I don't wanna
Adaam: or at least begin to talk about
Vanessa: Yes, yes, yes. And he, and he does make the caveat that there's still working on it and there's still room to go. But he, the, the, the evidence so far is compelling enough that he feels, uh, that he can start talking about what are the main drivers of social unrest in across and social collapse and social collapse across societies. And then he kind of takes the lens and puts it on our current society and sees and points out what, which drivers are present here.
Adaam: And guess what,
Vanessa: what Adaam?
Adaam: Things aren't looking great for us.
Vanessa: Not swell. Not swell.
Adaam: Peter Turchin actually came into public attention, uh, recently because in 2010 he was asked among other historians or people who generally dealt with the course of human events to. To write a short essay for Nature Magazine, looking at the next 10 years and estimating where things are going. Most of the other blurbs were more in the vein of Steven Pinker full of optimism, thinking that despite still having some kinks to figure out, we are generally in a trajectory for human betterment and church and said, nah. Yeah, I'm looking at my data here and my methodology and my methodology is saying things are shit. Mm-hmm. . And to be precise, he said that things are gonna come to a head in 2020, wrote that in 2010 and then 10 years later,
Vanessa: low and behold, things were shit. And so it was , , the shit unfurled.
Adaam: So this is gonna be the focus of his upcoming. Which I think is still untitled. He was kind enough to share with us, um, his, his, uh, unpublished manuscript,
Vanessa: which was excellent. I, I'm very much looking forward to having Peter on again when the book is actually out and so people can go run out and buy it
Adaam: and in fact, we will have him on again to discuss the future and his estimates in more depth. But this is, um, I guess the first half of a would be two part conversation and this time we focused more on the question of whether a historian can, should. Deal with predictions and how to go about it.
Vanessa: When we follow up, we'll probably get into more questions around the present moment and maybe even actually get a chance to talk to him about the way other historians think about this.
Adaam: Yes. Open up the controversy. Mm. So we are uncertain things. Yes.
Vishaan Post-Script
Adaam: And if you are interested, we have, as we mentioned last week, or last episode I should say, we started posting a newsletter on our off weeks where we dive into thoughts left undeveloped after our recorded episode.
Vanessa: Mm-hmm. . So the last one, uh, that we published was the kind of post-script of our conversation with Vishaan Chakrabarti, and I pointed out, I, I kind of just added my perspective on some of the things that Han had said. Uh, brought out some of the things that I didn't know before our conversation, which had have stuck with me. Um, and also just shared some really good articles that people should, should read or, or in podcasts that people should listen to if they're, if they were interested in that conversation. Uh, which by the way, we've gotten really good feedback on. I was really happy with that.
Adaam: Oh, yeah. I, I mean, it was a, it was a great conversation. I. I loved it. And I guess I should get started on writing the, uh, the Peter Turchin Yes. Post script. So, um, ooh,
Vanessa: so tweet at Adaam, if something, uh, stuck out at you from this conversation and you want aam to, to noodle on it for the newsletter, can you, you might just see it there
Adaam: and you should also share us with your friends and enemies. And if you wanna support us, give us a five stars review on Apple Podcasts, because that really helps. And, um, yeah, sign up to uncertain.sack.com with that
Vanessa: Peter Turchin
How Cliodynamics Works
Adaam: Oh, actually, first of all, Peter, thank you for joining us.
Peter Turchin: Thank you to have me.
Adaam: Okay. So my first question is somebody who's background is in history, and that's a big chunk of my passions. I remember that most of my education in history focused on trying to remove some of the temptations of turning the discipline into something utilitarian. Um, we. Developed a skepticism towards anybody who looked at history as something to divine the future from, whether that's the politician or the activist who says, Oh, we need to learn from history and that's why you should trust my policies.
Or if it's the, uh, grudging history student who, who wants to feel that their field is a little more useful than just theoretical inquiry into the human condition. In other words, the suspicion was that if somebody was trying to turn history into something a little more practical, they lacked the humility to appreciate history for what it was for, for what it really was.
But then you come in and say, No, no, no, no, no, . You're not being humble because according to you, when we relegate history to the soft sciences, We are being vain about humans as if our behavior can't be modeled within predictable patterns, as if there is something so unique about humanity and societies that it's can't be understood through a prediction yielding science. So make your case. Why were we wrong?
Peter Turchin: Well, I'm not claiming that you are wrong, and certainly I'm not claiming that historians are wrong, but, but, um, let's step back. So I'm not actually a big, um, proponent of using history as utility, right? So what I am, I'm a scientist, so a scientist aims to understand. So why do things happen the way they did?
In fact, historians, uh, when they write narratives, they don't just tell you what happened. They always have some ideas of why people behaved in that way. Why did revolutions happen? Why did, um, some country won in the war with another one? So they, there is always, uh, explanation is always part of it.
Without it, the narrative becomes, um, really boring. And even then, uh, you cannot really, in a book, even in a book, you cannot say everything about, let's say 16th century France. You have to be selective. So when you start selecting things, that means that there is some kind of a theory underlying it.
Underlying it. So what I claim is that, uh, everybody has theories about history, about why things happened the way they did, right? But the problem until recently has been that you could prop pound pretty much any theory. Right. And then you, and then many people would, uh, support their theories with some cherry picked examples.
And then, uh, some, uh, pundits would say that, you know, we have to do this or that, our country has to do this or that. Because, you know, remember 19 40, 19 39, I remember whatever. So, uh, so history is used, uh, in that way. So all that Cleo actually says is, Let's, let's do it in a, the right way, the proper way.
And that means that, uh, let's use it, let's use, uh, the scientific method, right? So in history, you have abundance of foundations. Uh, one German. Historian counted the number of explanations for why the Roman Empire collapsed and he had more than 200 to 40 or so. Right. So the problem is the explanations or theories, hypothesis multiply, but that's, uh, only part of science.
The, uh, very important part of science is, uh, clashing the different hypothesis against each other using the data so that you can find out which hypothesis actually are better and which are worse. Can you
Vanessa: describe what you mean by that? What, what is the clashing process like?
Peter Turchin: Yeah, and that's basically this, the scientific process. So that's the talk about the question of why empires collapse. Let's not talk about just Roman Empire. It's a single example. Let's talk about why do, uh, empires, uh, experience difficulties and then fragment collapse, breakdown.
Vanessa: Very relevant question to today.
Peter Turchin: Yes, yes. It's quite, it's a question which is, which should be on our minds in this days of our own age of this quarter. We wanna talk about that, uh, later, right? So there, there is a number of different theories that, um, explain why empires collapse, and these theories, uh, use different variables to predict. So, while, so Joseph Tainter, for example, says that empires collapse as whole civilizations collapse under the weight of complexity. All right? Other people suggest other variables. So
Adaam: just, I, I, I, I always love this phrase, but can you just explain what does it mean? Collapse under the weight of complexity?
Peter Turchin: Oh. Um, so, uh, I, I'm not the best person to explain, uh, this complexity overhang theory, but according to Joseph Tater societies accumulate complexity, social complexity, many different types of, um, uh, uh, institutions, um, uh, different types of, uh, uh, role, social roles.
Um, and then, uh, somehow he does, he never explains it somehow under the weight of all that unnecessary complexity. The society collapse. I'm, I'm, as I said, I'm the not the best person to explain this theory cause I don't believe it.
Adaam: No, but Right, right, right. But it's interesting the, cuz there is an intuition that, that at least rings through when you look at the United States when you can see the difference between a country that is limb and adaptable and something, one that is tied into the, um, a lot of our conna of institutions, the, and commitments that it has to follow.
And you can see when it's more life, it can change and evolve and resolve its own crises. And when it's not, it finds itself completely incapable of stopping a train, racing towards it. So if the argument and complexity is wrong, At least it's speech with summing of
Peter Turchin: truth. Okay. So this is great. So you have a theory that some people are willing to support. So how do you test this theories against Um, its, um, uh, its rival hypothesis. Okay. Well we go ahead. If we do quantification, So what does it mean to be over complex? We start, for example, we, uh, uh, 25, how many different institutions are, have been accumulated in the United States over the past century or so, or 50 years, whatever, right? And then we go to other societies.
Adaam: I guess it also requires us to define institutions.
Peter Turchin: That's right. So we, we, uh, uh, this is something that we have done, for example, in. Uh, the project, uh, we just call it , the Global History Data Bank. We have quantified a number of governance institutions. All right, so for example, is there a delib council of some kind, or it could be a parliament and, uh, are what, uh, what are the rules of succession, uh, of the chief executive and so on, so forth.
Uh, is there a separation of powers? So there is, uh, in fact, um, there is some standard, uh, standard political science databases that go ahead and. Um, uh, quantify list. Basically, does this society have this or that institution? So, um, if you go ahead and quantify it. And so according to the complexity of Hung Theory, as the number of such institutions increases beyond certain point, we should expect, uh, the collapse.
All right. And there are alternative theories that say, for example, the theory that we have tested in the one I believe in it, uh, it invokes, uh, the process code elite over production. It basically says when there are too many elite aspir vying for a limited number of positions, then that is one of that it's not the only, but that's one of the primary drivers for instability.
So if you go about, and we actually quantify how many people are getting advanced degrees, how, what proportion of them actually gets the job, how many wealthy people are competing for offices, and, uh, and what, uh, a proportion of the Mr frustrated and then maybe becomes, turns into counter elites that is, uh, uh, organizers who are challenging the status quo, right?
So you can see there are two theories. Each of them realize on a different. Explanatory variable or variables typically because there is often involved multiple causes. And so now we go to their historical record and we essentially gather information on both their predictors, right? Uh, as and invoked by different theories.
And we also quantify what do we, what do we mean collapse. So I actually don't like collapse because it's. It's the different people understand different things. So we call it social political stability, and there are ways to quantify that. And so then,
Vanessa: Right, the collapse could be like a certain extreme, but there could be instability that is before collapse or even, yeah.
Quantifying instability
Adaam: But if you actually can give a second to describing how we quantify instability. Yes.
Peter Turchin: So we, uh, quantify instability. First of all, instability. Uh, this is collective violence that is located, um, between individual violence such as crime and between state violence, which is the, um, uh, external warfare. So we're talking about collective violence within states.
So this collective violence takes variety of forms, but usually we use any form that result in people getting killed. So, for example, a uh, violent urban riot in which, uh, 10 people or however many people get killed. That's one, uh, kind of political in, uh, political terrorism. And of course, it all escalates until we get to full blown civil war or a revolution that ends up executing thousands of people as it happened in France.
At the end of the 18th century, so on. So essentially we count the number of such stability events and we also count there and we also measure the severity by how many people are kill. All right. And so that is our response variable, auto speed. Where
Adaam: does state violence against the public fall? Is this part of social instability?
Peter Turchin: Absolutely. So this is, uh, so we have, uh, within states we have some collective actors. One of them is actually the ruling elites, the ruling class, if you will. So they are the ones who control their, uh, cove apparatus. And so when they use corosive apparatus, for example, to, uh, to kill people in a, uh, anti-government demonstration, that certainly counts.
But also when anti government demonstration gets out of hand and people start killing policemen, that also counts. So, uh, the different, um, within the different collective actors within states, When they involve environment conflict with each other, that's how we define, uh, political st.
Adaam: So now that we are quantifying this, is it, is it a question of quantifying frequency? Is it, uh, quantifying the size of incidents? How many people die collectively? Ratio two, Population size?
Peter Turchin: Both actually. So, uh, for example, um, I have, uh, built, uh, United States Political Violence Database and it list both the different incidents, riots, um, um, uh, m lynching, Lynching is another kind of, uh, collective violence.
Um, and also it, it, um, when we have data, or at least estimates how many people are killed, it could be, uh, between say let's say 15 and 25 people, uh, who got killed in this particular, uh, incident. So, uh, the question, how do you deal with both? Hmm, Aspects of instability. The number of incidents or the number of people killed comes at the analysis stage, right? And so different analysts can actually use this data in different ways that, which is fine. . Mm-hmm. .
Vanessa: Okay. So maybe let's get back to, so now you have these two competing hypotheses. You have different variables that you're potentially gonna pull from to prove these hypotheses. What does the process of comparison look like?
Peter Turchin: So the process of comparison is now you have a dynamical model, which, uh, triess to predict what is going to, how the instability is going to wax and wan. And this, the, this, uh, variable response, variable instability is, uh, then, uh, can be driven by different factors and different theories proposed different factors.
And so essentially it is a kind of regression, It's, it's called the A regression because we are dealing with quantities that change with time. But we are trying to find out which of the. Uh, uh, of the proposed drivers actually do the best job predicting whether, uh, in instability and how much it increases and decreases.
So the logic here is that we are using what's known as scientific prediction. We are not, uh, we are actually retro predicting because, you know, you are applying it to the past instances of outbreaks, of, uh, revolution, civil wars, and so on and so forth. But we are judging theories on their ideal to predict the next time step, right?
And so you choose that theory, which, uh, or combination of factors that give you the best, uh, predicted idea.
What if the two hypotheses are are not really on the same? Playing field in terms of how much reliable data they're, they're leading upon. Like what if we just happen to have a lot more data points, uh, for one hypothesis than we do for another?
If we had more data points, perhaps that other hypothesis would, would seem stronger because we'd have more evidence accumulating towards it.
That's, this is a great question. So, um, different theories may propose variables which are harder or easier to quantify, and therefore we, so what we do, uh, is we do the best job we can for each theory, but then we acknowledge that for this theory, our data are not as accurate.
Not as, uh, uh, maybe there are too many missing values, for example, or there's some other problems right? Then um, we say, so our tentative. Is that one theory explains better, uh, or predicts better. And that may be because it is actually getting at the right drivers or because it is, uh, its data are much better.
But in science, any conclusions are tentative and liable to be revised. So, mm-hmm. what you have done, even though it's an imperfect, you have not done maybe a very fair test of those two theories, right? But you have sort, you have still, uh, uh, by the step forward in, uh, uh, in actually calling the attention to this problem.
So now, uh, the theory which was not as well quantified. Now that suggests a great. Focus for historians, archeologists, or other scholars of the past to put their efforts into quantifying that particular variable.
Locating gaps
Vanessa: Mm. Are, are there particular gaps that you are by accumulating the data that you have to, uh, foria to, to make predictions that you've realized are kind of most urgent for historians to address?
Peter Turchin: Exactly. So this is one of the, uh, this is one of the. Products of this whole enterprise. It's not just testing theories, it's also locating gaps. So one gap in particular, it turns out that so far all, all our data collection in C has focused on pilots, which are like states, empires achieved them. So, or even, uh, independent villages, right?
But politics don't exist in isolation. They interact. And so we found, for example, um, that, um, in one analysis, that location and, um, in the network of the trading network seems to be very important. And we have written several proposals trying to persuade agencies to give us money to actually, uh, collect data on trading networks.
So far, we've been unsuccessful, so this is a big gap and that needs to be fueled. So just to come back to your question, uh, uh, identifying gaps is one of the valuable, uh, products, uh, from this whole enterprise. ,
Vanessa: I guess we should probably get into our, our current moment. I mean, we could, I could ask you like 3000 more questions on like, just the methodology, but we do wanna make sure we, we get to today,
Peter Turchin: Oh, wait a second. Wait. Uh, Adam, uh, may I just, I want to add something actually to this conversation.
Adaam: Yeah, yeah, go ahead.
Making predictions
Peter Turchin: Yeah. Uh, okay, so you've been talking about, uh, uh, different types of prediction, right? So scientific prediction's, not really about the future, it's about testing theories against each other, right? Mm-hmm.
There is, then there is, some kind of predictions, which are bad predictions. I don't, in, I don't get involved in them, I call prophecies. Prophecies, is something that a doom is coming. You know, we don't know. The profit doesn't explain why there is complete black box, right? And essentially it's useless because, the profit doesn't even tell you how do we, how do we avoid the doom
right. So the useful, , prediction about the future is actually, forecasting. And you should use it and you should use it like, like in weather for a cast because you cannot pre predict exactly what's going to happen, even if your theory is very correct. Yes, you cannot predict the weather. It be perfectly well understand why hurricanes.
But predicting them is a, uh, is very hard. So you, you have to use statistical approaches to do that. And then, um, we also can use this, first of all, uh, to tell us what, uh, our theory, the best theory you have, tell us about the future. But more importantly, we can now use the model that we have to generate this prediction to investigate what we can do to avoid the, uh, bad futures.
So, for example, for hurricanes, we actually know perfectly well we have to cool the planet a little bit. If you, if you want to avoid those, uh, traumatic, um, hurricanes. And the same thing, you know, we have to lower some social pressure or temperature in order to avoid the calming civil. So that is, uh, this type of, uh, multipath for casting is, uh, an extremely useful tool, which we don't have now, but I completely believe that as our science gets better, we will be able to do that. And the public's, both the public and the policy makers, would be able to use such tools to discuss what should be done to avoid the worst outcomes.
Adaam: I, so I'm putting a pin into something that I hope will remember, and that's the question of in an ideal world, how , Well, I guess it's an ideal world, but in, in a world where we do have these tools and the science is more developed, uh, getting opt in from leaders in the current state of affairs to actually pay attention to it, or even if they pay attention to it, to apply it to me is a whole other, um, problem and requires a different approach to incentives. So I want to get there, but before that, and hopefully, we'll, we'll have time and we'll remember how do you, how do you see the current and, and, and again, I'm, I, I hope we get to have another conversation cause I have so many more methodological questions that I'd love to drill into.
The state of our present-day empire
Adaam: But, but let's get into what you, um, wrote about or hinted at intubated in 2010 and what you're now publishing your uh, uh, upcoming book about, which is basically using your models, using your theory. to look at present day American Empire.
Peter Turchin: Give me a bit more of a question to sync my teeth into .
Adaam: How fucked are we? Yes. No, no. I'll give you, I I'll give you something more if you want, cuz I know you don't wanna talk about doom or not doom, but Okay. You're, you're saying we're, we are trying to avoid, um, doomsday prophecies, but you were, um, you know, famously the 2010 Nature article in a moment where a lot of, of authors and people that were, that were trying to have future looking estimates were more optimistic feeling that there is a, a revivification of American Promise.
As it was recovering from recession and you looked at existing structures and you said, No, there's this thing that you are all ignoring. And that's the fact that we have way too many elites, which is something that, um, you know, the first time I heard the phrase elite over production, I didn't need any explanation.
I knew exactly what you're talking about. You were talking about people who are developing resentment because their degrees in esoteric fields don't lead anywhere because they have a dissonance between the idea of themselves, of where, where they should be in, in the social structure compared to how much money they're making and how much social influence they actually are able to garner.
Many jobs they can get and the jobs they can get with it's rather than jobs, it's prestige, it's influence, it's power status. All these things are lacking and you have more and more people developing a resentment with enough power to create instability. You know, it reminds me of the narrative scheme in 1984 where you have three social, uh, strata.
At the bottom you have the Ariat. Mm-hmm. , they don't get to change anything in their lives. But then you have the middle class and the top class, and the middle class always tries to take over. It's always a tension between the frustrated upstarts that try to climb and claw away their position from the current rating elite.
So where evolution are just a struggle between ruling classes, all that, I think all our listeners can get intuitively. But what are you seeing in terms of, um, first of all, convince me that this is not just, um, something that is, you know, uh, as spacious as the idea of over complexity. Like, cuz cuz both of them sound right.
But convince me that this is the case and then tell me what you think is. Some of the likely possibilities that are gonna happen and what would require what? What needs to happen in order to get to each. Whew. Hopefully that's enough to sink your teeth in.
Peter Turchin: Yeah. Yes, certainly. I, uh, mapped out, uh, a long, uh, answer to, uh, your, uh, prompting question.
Vanessa: Long question.
Peter Turchin: Uh, so let me just first say that in terms of the complexity overhang, I am little bit running ahead of the train here because we are testing this theories, uh, with data that we have already collected, but we are not yet, uh, we have not done all the analysis, but, uh, uh, it is very clear that we will be rejecting this, uh, theory right now.
Let's go back to 2010. So 2010 situation was actually very interesting. This was the time of quite a lot of optimism. So you may remember the book by Steven Pinker, right? So, uh, about white violence, you know, uh, disappeared, which was published I think 2009 or something like that. Max Roser at, uh, Oxford has been, um, Publishing all those, uh, positive, uh, data showing how life is getting better for more and more people.
And so of course, when, um, I issued this forecast, I remember this forecast, it was actually a scientific prediction. I was not, uh, I didn't, didn't necessarily believe it myself. Right. Uh
Vanessa: oh, I was gonna ask you that. How certain were you when you were making this prediction?
Peter Turchin: I, I, I put it forth as explicitly to this theory. So this theory says that this is what's coming. So let's, let's wait a years and find out whether this year is, uh, correct. And so the theory, the alternative theories would be the theories that, uh, that, uh, such as, uh, theories that, um, the, the degree of violence keeps decreasing. And so we should not have those, uh, types of things.
All right. So, uh, uh, so of course, uh, this, uh, prediction was, um, met with quite a lot of disbelief, but that was fine. Um, so now why did I actually make this predict? Um, my personal motive was kind of, uh, interesting because I've been studying already for about 10 years, uh, past societies, and I did not really want to get into the current politics because they're messy, you know, uh, and you, you can get hurt and so on and so forth.
Um, but every time I gave a talk about, you know, the English, Civil War, you know, the, uh, revolutions in, uh, different parts of the world, um, and the people have explained the dynamics, how the drivers for stability, how social pressures increase and cause the social breakdown. And at the end of the talk, people always ask me, So where are we?
And I would tell them, I don't know, because, um, to do this, I have to collect tons of data and, uh, put them into a computational model and run it forward to see. But people kept asking me, So around 2000, uh, six or seven, I decided to go ahead and. And see what is happening with the society in which I leave the United States.
And, about, uh, several months later, I was appalled. Because I didn't realize how bad things were, essentially , so we wore on this, uh, route, uh, since late 1970s, uh, the Immiseration has been preceding a little production has been, uh, an, uh, conflict preceding the state was getting weaker, especially its, um, um, legitimacy, uh, measures and all was pointing to, uh, it was, these were all. Only wording signs of a travel to come. All right. And so, uh, in the previous studies at that point, we had about 15 or so well worth examples. Uh, uh, and
Adaam: just before you get to the examples, just to clarify those three factors that you, uh, listed out. So a lead over production, we said intuitively we understand that you mean of wages of, um, personal prosperity.
Peter Turchin: No more than that. So administration has many aspects. It's economic, uh, aspect is, uh, stagnating or even, um, declining wages in real terms. But it also has a biological and well, a biological health component and a social component. And for many societies, actually a biological, uh, component is a better way of mm-hmm. uh, measuring ration. So for example, you have, uh, good data on people heights. So the average stature of a population you can get it from, if you have lots enough skeletons, for example, you can get it for pretty far back, uh, periods in time. So declining, um, average stature is a very good indicator of declining.
Um, you know, um, uh, Wellbeing essentially. All right. Nutri, nutritional, nutritional wellbeing, not traditional wellbeing, but also it's really a bit more complicated than that. So, but, uh, essentially it's, uh, declining health of the population, which results not just from nutrition, but it could result from too much from over overwork or from moving to very unhealthy occasions, such as stitches and so on. But all of those feed into immiseration.
Adaam: And also I, I suppose, I suppose some degree of, of just emotional lack of wellbeing, depression, and things like that could also affect metabolism.
Peter Turchin: Exactly. Exactly. So that's, uh, social and psychological wellbeing. Uh, it turns out that, uh, just simply asking people, uh, how many days last month you have been depressed or, you know, so on.
It's quite, actually quite good. Uh, and, um, quantitative indicator, especially once you average it over, um, a number of people. And then of course, after I published my, um, prediction, the book on Death of Despair came out that, uh, shows basically the bo this is both psychological and biological people are, uh, committing suicide.
More people are dying from other doses and from, uh, alcoholism and so on and so forth. So that is clearly a much better indicator than real wages. About, uh, about immiseration, and then the last one was trust. The last, the last one is state week state weakness, which we tend to look at two dimensions of it.
First of all, it's the fiscal health. So which we can measure by how much of a state, uh, deficit, uh, a state budget deficit and also how much accumulated state, you know, um, um, uh, debt, uh, is. But, and the second one, which is very important, is the legitimacy of state institutions. All right? So in, uh, in the modern world, we, we have polls, sociological polls, that can tell us about these types of things. In pre water world. We have to use some practice, uh, for that. But, so those three are the main, the main, uh, drivers of, um, of, of looming instability.
The trouble with too many elites
Vanessa: And may I ask a question? Because the way that Adaam phrased elite over production is like, well, duh, obviously, but I, I didn't have that immediate reaction to, to the term elite over production. I, I, I absolutely see what he's saying in terms of I recognize the phenomenon that you're describing. What I don't necessarily intuitively recognize is, Why it's a big deal. Like why does it rise to the level of being one of the three primary factors? And I think part of the reason why I'm not necessarily sold on that is because I don't, I don't necessarily understand who you're referring to as the elites. Is it me and creative class or is it the real, like CEOs making billions? Like who is the elite over production that we're talking about and why do you think it's,
Adaam: can't it be both?
Vanessa: I guess it could be both. And why is it such an important factor ?
Peter Turchin: Sure. This is a great question. So let me, uh, address it in several, in, um, in, in, uh, stages. So first of all, um, how do we know that production is actually the most important factor that comes from historical analysis? At this point? We have, uh, several dozen cases where we studied and it turns out that elite over production, Is ubiquitous feature of all societies that go into this crisis. And, um, and the worst it is, the worst, the outcome. So. Mm-hmm. , this is the empirical part. So now let's talk, Yeah. So now let's talk about,
Vanessa: Oh, I was just gonna ask, is there a specific society that comes to mind when you think of like the , the, the, the true example of when a lead overproduction went really a mark?
Peter Turchin: Sure. So, um, let's look at the Medieval France or England, very similar. So we are talking about the 14th century, uh, France. Let's say the pub that the number of nobles, the elites, there were, uh, the military in administrative class, the nobi. And we now, now, because they were legally distinct from, uh, the rest of the population, uh, we can actually, it's easy to define who they are.
And because their crown has counted them periodically, we can actually find out how many there were. And so what happened was that, uh, that the whole society got top heavy essentially because, uh, by from 13 hundreds that the population of France started to shrink slightly at first because of the famines.
There was a terrible fam in 1315 through 17. Uh, but the elite numbers continued to, uh, increase. And so there were more and more nobles per peasant, so to speak. And of course at uh, uh, and then 1348 come, came and another chunk of the peasant population that was removed and the whole system fell apart because their, uh, nobles did not have their feeding base, so to speak, was greatly ous to, their numbers were huge, and so they started eating each other.
And so the hundred Years War, which is usually thought as the series of wars between England and France, is actually in the, um, uh, in the name of the French historian, uh, Burell. It's a hundred years of hostility, was really internal warfare in which English, uh, basically met out and it was driven by two many numbers of empowered nobles of, Right. So that's a historical example. Now let's talk about the United States today, unless, uh, Adam has another question. No, I was
Adaam: just gonna say that. Much of the violence that we were seeing coming from the left during the summer of 2020. Things that are still ongoing unfolding in, um, in places like Portland. And if you should listen to our conversation with Nancy Ruman, but a lot of that's over was the result of an a frustrated elite that felt that they're not in their rightful
Peter Turchin: place. Yeah. So, uh, so, uh, okay, we'll get to that. But let's first define who we mean by elites and let's use the United States. That's the society that I know from inside. Uh, and so, um, and I have studied it, uh, quantitatively, so, Right. Um, elites are defines. Simply in sociology as, uh, people who viewed a lot of power in, you know, who, who viewed a lot of power. Now, of course, uh, there is, uh, it's not a sharp thing. It's not like, uh, medieval France where, uh, nobles and clergy.
Were the elites. Uh, and uh, the third, the third state were the commanders, right? In the United States, we have to, uh, use, uh, some other ways to, uh, estimate who has power, who doesn't. So, um, what is social power? It's the ability to influence people behavior, all right? And there are, uh, four sources of social power.
That's what sociologists have, are generally agree upon. First of all, it's coercion. I can make you, uh, threaten you to, to do what I want. I can. Second is a . I can pay you to do what I want. The third one is that administrative, because I am the boss, I can actually tell you what to do. And typically people will follow bosses instructions.
And the first one is ideological. I can persuade you to do what I want you to do. So each of these sources of power has their own power holders. All right. And each society tends to have one or two in which, uh, uh, in which the elites, uh, specialize. So, so to speak, even though they try, of course, Uh, the governing elites, they're root class, um, uh, always tries to control all the sources of power.
So in the United States, the most obvious, uh, way to look at elites is to look at wealth, not income, but accumulated wealth, right? And so, uh, you have great data on, um, on the distribution of wealth. And so people who have, uh, huge amount of, uh, wealth, they tend to have a lot of power. Not only because they can, uh, you know, they, uh, often happen to be owners of big, um, income producing corporations, and so they can order thousands of borders around, but also because they all, uh, they tend to own the newspapers and other, uh, mass media.
So think about Washington Post for example, and that's how they control the, um, the. Ideological power. And also they have a lot of control over the administrative, uh, power because they, first of all, they can run for office themselves, uh, or they can, uh, support some candidates, uh, or they can give campaign contributions.
So wealth, um, distribution is the obvious place to start when you're thinking, thinking about the elites. But, um, but when you start analyzing actually, um, who, uh, who roles you find that, uh, wealth holders, uh, they have a huge amount of influence, but they really govern in the coalition with administrative elites, uh, and also the political class basically.
There is a lot of overlap of course, but uh, politicians also have a lot of influence, right? So in order to be, So there are two types, OFTs. One of them is, um, As wealth holders. The other one is how do you get into power? How do you become a tab bureaucrat or how do you get elected? The best way to do it is to get, uh, a law degree or some other degree, so it's credential holders.
So credential holders and, uh, wealth holders, they are the ones who tend to constitute the, and they thoroughly controlled in the United States, both military area like police and, uh, army and, uh, ideological elites. Okay. So, um, now that's, uh, that's the established elite, uh, people who are in power. The next, uh, step in our analysis is to look at, so, so far we look at the structure.
Right now, let's look at dynamics. What happens, How do elites get rid of it? And, uh, new people come in. So that happens because you have elite aspirate. Some elite aspirants are, uh, automatically, uh, become elite because by inheriting, for example, uh, wealth, uh, but, uh, most, uh, elites, uh, who get into the established elite, they either make, uh, um, very well, so like, you know, think about, uh, you know, new billionaire, uh, or they get a, uh, they right credentials and then they work their way up through the administrative ladders or through the political, uh, thing.
And so there's always more elite aspir. Uh, there are more, uh, there are elite positions, positions. There are many more, uh, aspirants for, uh, to be one of the, uh, CEOs of, uh, Fortune 500. Then there are only 500 such positions and there are always more, uh, uh, political, uh, aspirants to become president or senator because that's also fixed.
So, um, so what happens is that when society, society always over produce roots, and that's, uh, healthy, as long as it doesn't get too much out of hand because you obviously want, uh, better people, better, more, um, you know, smarter, hard qualified. Qualified, unquote qualified. Yes. Uh, more intelligent, harder working, whatever.
Right. Uh, to, uh, to uh, to, to be in, at the expense of, uh, less, uh, qualified. Right. Okay, Adam.
Adaam: No, j just say adding the word qfa and, and aspirational. Like, you want people who want to do the hard work. Obviously they do it because they have the carrot dangling in
Peter Turchin: front of them. Exactly, yeah. Right. So, um, so if society starts producing more elite aspirants, right? That, uh, uh, that can be a huge source of, uh, uh, problems because, uh, as, let's just, let's just say that they're 100 positions, you know, it could be senators or whatever. And so if you have, uh, hundred 50 aspir, 50, uh, so one third of them gets frustrated. But if we have, uh, we, we double that, there are 300 applicants now two storage.
Get, uh, frustrated. And so, uh, there is some kind of an nonlinear, uh, blowup effect. The more at least you have, the higher is the proportion who get, uh, frustrated, right? And so those of those, not everybody is going to become a revolutionary or anything, but, uh, some proportion. Is the
Adaam: changing proportion because the more you see other people being frustrated, the more you are already pre, like people preempt their frustration with more frustration. Why? Why is this, uh, compounding effect?
Peter Turchin: Well, just in my America example, you had when you had 150, uh, aspir 50 are frustrated, but you double that, you get 300 right now, 200 are frustrated. Somehow you double the elites, but you co but, but you,
Adaam: Oh, so it's a malian equation where the just the position don't expand exponentially like the elites do.
Peter Turchin: So it's sort of super malian, even because, Okay. Yeah. So, um, so you, you dabble the number of taskers, but you quadruple, uh, the number of frustrated aspirants, right? Uh, and so what happens when you quadruple the number of aspirins? You know, it just gets, it blows. All right. And so, um, some of those people, not everybody, they're going to turn into counter release.
So those are the people who, they're very smart, organized, um, uh, they are, uh, motivated, uh, and uh, they basically start organizing the others to overthrow the unjust social order that results in so many people of people like them and being frustrated, um, from you knowing their life goals. Now, if you add to this mix, now you have a really, really bad situation because now you've got, So, uh, why are it this important that, Let me, uh, go back to Vanessa's question because historically peasant rebellions have, uh, had very little chances of succeeding because, uh, humans succeed by organizing.
If you, uh, you need organizers. And who are the organizers there? Basically, they could be counters. They don't have power now, but they viewed power over the, some kind of social movement or something like that. So that's, uh, why, uh, you really, uh, for a successful rebellion you did, uh, counters.
Vanessa: Okay, so we have established that elite overproduction is a problem,
How to stop an unfolding trainwreck
Vanessa: So where are we today In the United States? We ha are you seeing all in 2010, you were seeing the indicators for, I assume a administration and elite overproduction and decreasing trust. Uh, has that trend continued and how do we pull the brakes if, if at all, if
Peter Turchin: possible? Yes. And that was, it was basically like being on a slowly unfolding train wreck. You know, I'm sitting in the train and I see, you know, the wreck coming up for 10 years. Basically every couple years I would look at the data, say, Oh my God, we are, you think trains are actually getting worse and worse?
Vanessa: And I feel one of the things you wrote in your, in your book too was that, um, that incredulity is one of the the commonalities of all people in pre-crisis eras.
So I'm sure you started off a little incredulous and everyone around you is incredulous and at the same time you're seeing the data conflicting with this like exactly natural inclination to incre.
Peter Turchin: Yeah. So, um, if maybe five years by 2015 or 16, it was clear to me that things were, um, uh, not only developing in the same direction, but that things were blowing up.
Well, by 2016, uh, it was obviously because of the elections. So I published my book, ages of Discord, just two months before the November elections. All right. And then, uh, what followed after. And of course, uh, things, uh, continued to escalate. So, uh, January of, uh, 2020, I guess. Uh, yeah, that's right. Uh, was another, um, huge call, uh, for, um, taking, uh, note of this, uh, developments and so on and so forth.
January, 2021. Yes. 20 20, 21. Thank you. Yeah. So, so now, um, the, first of all, you're coming to midterm election, which already, uh, uh, members from uh, party parties, uh, are saying that they're not going to accept if they lose. And of course, what's gonna happen in 2024 is, um, uh, it could be a major rupture at that point.
Vanessa: So one of the things that I understood from, from reading your book is that it is collapse is not inevitable. There are ways to subvert collapse, and in fact, the United States has a history of doing that In the kind of progressive era around like New Deal era, when the elites kind of took on this how you're calling to reform themselves essentially, is that what needs to happen again?
Does there need to be this kind of cultural so sociocultural shift within elite mindsets to embrace political reform? It would. Is that like what you would isolate as the the way forward to prevent. Civil War, essentially.
Peter Turchin: Yes. I, the United States actually, uh, History United States is, um, uh, great because we have both a peer, uh, an example of collapse or breakdown, which is the Civil War of 1860s.
And, uh, the revolutionary situation of 1920s, which was truly the country, was truly on the brink. People then, uh, really felt that that way did not materialize. No revolution materialized, but it didn't materialize because of the prosocial actions taken by certain segments of the elites. So now this is, uh, we have to repeat essentially, uh, the progressive era, new geo period.
Remember, it took 30 years actually to turn around, uh, that, uh, situ. And so as soon as we get started, uh, as sooner as we get started there sooner, we can actually, um, you know, ensure that we avoid the worst. All right? Of course. Now at this point, uh, there is very little awareness amongst our political idiots, uh, of this.
So we are in a typical situation when the enemy is the other party. Right. So I, so this party could be Optima versus, uh, populars in, uh, ancient Rome, uh, you know, but now it's Democrats versus Republicans. Um, and, uh, or it could be union knows.
Adaam: And for the con for context, the Optima, uh, Popularist were slaughtering each other in the streets. They were not just limited to the ballots.
Peter Turchin: Exactly, exactly. Yes. Or Hugo. And, uh, Catholics, they were also slaughtering each other in the streets. So as one contemporary observer, the cor is relying like pigs and mud in Paris in 1415. So San Bar
Adaam: massacre. Yeah. So, okay, so for context, your, um, like I said, we're, we're now gonna talk about, uh, we, we don't wanna make it too, uh, much of a normative prediction, but your one path that you, you see us on is the path towards the.
Social discord, when you were talking about rupture in 2024, you're imagining this is gonna be, this is gonna see all these forces coming to a for and potentially resulting in violence. We can already imagine some of those scenarios playing out. It's interesting when you think about those disparate elements of immiseration, of elite over production and loss of faith, because they don't see, they don't seem in and of themselves as something that would lead to violence.
Um, maybe immiseration, if you, is what people mostly associate of the reason people riot. But you point out that in the nexus of those, um, trends, you, you know, without even having to explain teleologically why this is happen. You can see historically that it does, when you have these trends over supercharged, you get riots, you get violence, and you get, um, societies collapsing on themselves.
So you don't even need to offer the story. The version of that, that journalist and historians, or I should say pop historians like to deal with, of here is the story of why psychologically we're getting to this point, but rather say this is what happens. This is like, like when you study biology, you don't need to give reasons, um, to, to what, to why molecules behave the way they do, um, or chemistry.
Um, you're just saying the this is a trend, this is, has been observed. You should be aware of that, but because the, your explanation is so. It's called it scientific, um, or, or plays in the field of science. It's almost, I, I, I, I can't, I don't know how to sell that to people to take seriously, and that's a two level problem.
It's selling it to the public to, um, to kind of look at it in a way that will adjust their own behavior and their own choices in terms of who they vote, what they, how they behave, how they treat other people, and, and how they pressure politicians to behave accordingly. But also politicians who might actually be aware of what you're saying because I think some of these conversations are, are pretty much out there, but have no incentive to change their behavior, to tamper things down.
How do you solve these problems? And let's start with politicians. How do you or, or like let the ruling class, how do you, how do we incentivize the ruling class to. Pull us from the
Peter Turchin: brink. But first of all, let me say that I disagree with you. I think that, uh, explaining the mechanisms is very, very important if we want this, uh, theory to be, uh, accepted by, you know, people.
Because after all, we are not molecules. So we understand. We can understand why, uh, you know, Rob sp you know, Le Castro acted the way they did. They were not personally immiserated. They were swimming in the sea of administration. Um, but they themselves were pretty well off. All right? They were driven by other modules, right?
And so we want to understand that. In fact, in my forthcoming book, I have added, uh, some vis where I have, uh, imaginary characters illustrating the kind of psych psychological choices that, uh, that happen to people coming from various strata of the society. So, and also remember that I am a scientist. My, uh, main, main job is understanding and, uh, this is, the prediction is involved because we want to know which theories give us best understanding.
But, uh, that, that's subordinate prediction is subordinate. I am not a politician. I am not a leader of a social movement. So I see my job is to make it clear to other politicians and social, uh, movement leaders what are, what the nature of the problem is. All right. And then, um, provide some tools about figuring out how to do it, uh, what, how to solve, uh, this, uh, problem. Right.
Adaam: So, Right. No, and this is where, this is where I'm coming from. I'm asking as somebody who, who, who is looking at the different paths in the different futures, but also is aware of how these conversations translate. I'm not saying that you should change your language, but I'm saying how somebody like me who is interested in, you know, averting.
Certain types of disasters. I'd rather not see, um, people being slaughtered like pigs in the streets. Um, or even think like several degrees short of that I'd rather not see, um, in, in our lifetime how, like where I am stuck on, on, on my personal, um, vendetta is how do we get people, how do we get politicians?
How do we, how do we change incentives, structural incentives to draw more attention and, and more caution to these, um, And I don't know if that's something that's even, even within your, um, uh, Bailey w to think
Peter Turchin: about. Yeah. So my time is running out. Right. But also, I'm happy to guide, to join you guys maybe half a year time or something like May or next May or something like that.
We can continue this conversation, which also would, which was perfect. Good. Because my book is supposed to come out in June. We would
Adaam: absolutely love that.
Peter Turchin: So, um, so let just say something very, a quick Yes. So the very first thing to do is instead of blaming other people, so deplorables or the, uh, you know, the leftist elites or things like that, uh, we have to understand that it's not this results that, uh, the age of this court we are in.
It was not designed by some evil individuals. It has, uh, come about as a result of impersonal social forces acting on individuals. Right. So that's really the very first realization. The very first, um, uh, thing that we need to do is shift, shift the explanatory frameworks, how to speak, uh, if I may use scientists, uh, to, uh, understanding the, um, the, the structural forces that are pushing after the brink.
Adaam: Peter, this was great and I I really hope that he will join us around May cuz there was so much more I'd love to talk to you about. And I, we really appreciate this. Thank you so much.
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