Elites at Cross Purposes
Turchin argues that empires decline when asabiyah-driven imperial conquest brings wealth, security, and power. High asabiyah societies have strong vertical and horizontal cohesion and cooperation between elite and non-elite and within elite and non-elite, reenforced by moralists among elite and non-elite. Much of this asabiyah formation is driven by pressure from external attack. Imperial conquest removes the immediate threat of external attacks. This lack of immediate external threat saps asabiyah as elite and non-elite pursue increasingly divergent agendas. This further saps the influence of moralists. This leads to elites divide that opens opportunities for internal non-elite and external actors. This frequently pushes elite over the edge into atomized oblivion.
But losing your elite doesn’t have to be a net loss. Rotating elites is usually required to reinvigorate a society. However, getting there is frequently unpleasant for elite and non-elite alike and unpleasantness is a powerful source of asabiyah cultivation.
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zen:
July 15th, 2013 at 5:28 am
Excellent post!
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Ibn Khaldun likewise also argues that asabiyah can very quickly decay when the harsh conditions that spawned it no longer exist and luxury and vice erode values (notably honor and self-pride) until the elite faced with an enemy are more cowardly “than women on their backs”. The ruler must then perforce hire mercenaries to stave off the collapse at least a little while
T. Greer:
July 15th, 2013 at 5:51 am
“Ibn Khaldun likewise also argues…”
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Khaldun is one of Turchin’s biggest sources of inspiration. Turchin’s ideas was to see if Khaldun’s theory could hold up to rigorous analysis and then mathematically modeled.
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Turns out he could
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Turchin is currently working on a book that applies these models to American history. He wrote a summary article for Aeon Magazine a few months ago: http://www.aeonmagazine.com/living-together/peter-turchin-wealth-poverty/
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He also runs an excellent blog (with particularly good comment threads) called the Social Evolution Forum: http://socialevolutionforum.com/
Scott:
July 15th, 2013 at 1:00 pm
Acemoglu and Robinson touch on this in Why Nations Fail. They posit that institutions make the difference in whether a nation succeeds or not. Small differences can lead to large variances in outcomes. This is both vertical – how powerful the public is versus the elite – and horizontal – in that a non-unified elite is easier to overthrow and thus change things from an extractive economy to an inclusive one.
As for Turchin, his ideas are intriguing. Adam Elkus led me to him previously, and whether or not his models are useful remain, I think, to be seen.
larrydunbar:
July 15th, 2013 at 2:56 pm
“Results of some of these experiments seem to reveal the presence of three classes of people within any human group: knaves, saints, and moralists.”
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By “within and human group” must mean within any horizontal group. Vertical represents energy, in which force and distance destroys classes.
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Horizontal represents power, which is energy over time.
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Over time everything gets judged, and it is this ability to judge, over time instead of distance, that creates the three classes of people.
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With distance we tend to forget and we tend to go vertical even against our own best interests.
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With time we observe near strength and far strength, near weakness and far weakness–with distance we observe advantages and orient ourselves according to what we perceive as strength and weakness.
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What an elite perceives as a strength a non-elite may see as a weakness, while what a non-elite perceives as a strength a elite may see as a weakness.
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But the energy perceived vertically can only be judged horizontally over time and with power, because force is a vector, which mass (elite + non-elite) doesn’t have to follow. Mass only moves where it is to where it is able, which doesn’t take force, only displacement.
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Which means to me that elite don’t feed off of non-elite, they get their energy from them (an increase in force). The elite feed off of other elite, and as they feed they grow (displace).
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Conversely, the non-elite displace vertically as their force is increased horizontally (a position opens up vertically).
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So basically if this is true, the difference between the elite and non-elite is in their structure, not in the content of their character. The difference in their structure is in the way their structures handle friction.
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The elite have what is called in physics a vertical normalizing force that controls the friction between the horizontal non-elite.
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OTOH, the non-elite is self controlled. This is what the elites fear most (and it is probably this “self-control”, or lack there of, that destroyed Rome).
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The non-elite’s structure doesn’t have a normalizing force. All friction is handled locally, even as “locally” is displaced outward.
Mr. X:
July 15th, 2013 at 11:41 pm
“The real threat is conflict within elites between elites.” Yep, and that seems to be exactly what’s going on inside Washington now, not between Democrats and Republicans, liberals or conservatives, but people who still view themselves as having some semblance of loyalty to the country and transnational corporatists.
I should also add there has been a purge of the upper level officer corps though it hasn’t yet been pervasive enough to compare to what Erdogan’s AKP government did trying to root out the ‘deep state’ secularists from the armed forces in Turkey.
Nonetheless, if Gordon Chang is correct about Snowden having had helpers for the data he’s compiled, I would daresay someone either at the FISA Court or inside the NSA had finally had enough of this turning into America’s Stasi crap. Having stiff armed all serious inquiries from Congress, nothing seems to terrify the Obama Administration more than genuine leaks bringing down their criminal house of cards. Look at the zeal with which they’ve attacked it, from Homeland Security videos reinforcing you may only report problems within your chain of command at the Border Patrol to the ‘Insider Threats’ program to the Holder judge shopping for warrants against Fox News Rosen and the AP.
Mr. X:
July 15th, 2013 at 11:44 pm
Heck my personal theory is…even the Schrecklichkeit (frightfulness) of the Dept. of Homeland Security stockpiling bullets, armored vehicles, and inviting in Russian troops is intentionally produced to identitfy and root out Christians, conservatives, and Constitutionalists in the ranks.
It’s not that BigSis ever intended to institute martial law. But the DHS put out stuff like that deliberately as disinformatziya to see who would become leakers like Doug Hagmann’s ‘DHS source’ ‘Rosebud’. In other words, create some horrific but fake policy at the highest levels, let it trickle down, and see who talks to the press and the alternative media.
Mr. X:
July 15th, 2013 at 11:44 pm
It’s not that BigSis ever intended to institute martial law [sic] before the 2012 election…
larrydunbar:
July 16th, 2013 at 8:14 pm
“but people who still view themselves as having some semblance of loyalty to the country and transnational corporatists”
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So the conflict isn’t between elites dividing what is left of the hollowed-out structure that was once the USA, the conflict is between the elites who still hold “some semblance of locality to the country” and those who are transnational corporatist?
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I mean they are elites and represent the vanguard to power in the USA. And the power in today’s America is with the transnational corporations. I would like to see a picture so rare that it shows an elite that is not also a transnational corporatist.
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So you are talking a fight between a majority and a small minority.
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Strength wise, not really a fair fight far or near, imagined or otherwise.
carl:
July 18th, 2013 at 3:11 am
If there are ‘moralists’ who will seek to punish the knaves in the US, they aren’t individuals, nor are the knaves. Those roles will be or are perhaps filled by the states, or by more rural areas vs. some of the big cities. The Upper Peninsula probably has little love for Detroit and may be pleased to see the city crumble. Oklahoma may be quite reluctant help bail out Illinois one of these days. State govs have been the critical players in past American history.
My flyover person opinion anyway.
carl:
July 21st, 2013 at 4:44 pm
Mr. Turchen’s Aeon Magazine article (link provided by T. Greer above) was very good. It contained the following ” As the Congressional Budget Office concluded in 2011: ‘the precise reasons for the rapid growth in income at the top are not well understood’.” If the CBO can’t figure it out, they are willfully blind, for the reasons are obvious.
The first is the collapse of the family and the rise of the single, never wed mother. This has resulted in utter disaster for the black community and the rest of America isn’t far behind. Except, as Charles Murray noted, in the upper classes. So it is little wonder that the uppers are getting more given that the lowers are disintegrating. That’s cultural and again like Mr. Murray, I haven’t clue what to do about it. But for the CBO to say they can’t see that…they see it and are lying when they say they don’t.
As for other reasons, they are in most every single area of endeavor you care to look in. Entertainment: Elvis Presley’s estate marches on, decades after his death. It continues to enrich the administrators, rich to a man. Every time the radio plays “I can’t get no satisfaction” Mick Jagger gets more money for something he did going on 50 years ago. And his estate may march on forever. That didn’t happen in the olden days.
The financial regulators act more like crooked street cops than real cops. Every week you read about how some big bank gets fined for illegal practice are engaged in sharp practice, electricity markets and commodities are the two latest. The institutions get fined, shifting the cost to the shareholder but for the actual perps, nothing. All that shifts money from the pocket of the little guy into the capacious pockets of the big guy. The regulators just insist on getting their cut, like a cop on the take. You could go on and on and on with the abuses of Wall Street being ignored or abetted by the regulators, from the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act to high speed trading and beyond. All having the effect of making the rich, richer.
The list could go on ad-nauseum, from education to farm policy to energy policy to the sinful treatment of somebody who has no insurance when they enter a hospital. All of it has the effect of increasing the gap between the rich and the poor. Jim Cramer of CNBC said something wise about this when referring to the war on coal fired power plants by the fed gov. This costs people money. The rich don’t feel it much but if you make $12 an hour you feel it a lot. Mr. Cramer said this was an example of the sensibilities of the rich being more important than the actual real, you can count it, physical needs of the poor. That is a cultural thing and it increases that gap again. I wish I knew how to change it.
larrydunbar:
July 22nd, 2013 at 2:50 pm
“The first is the collapse of the family and the rise of the single, never wed mother.”
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But as it being a “reason”, I think it would have to be factored out, simply because the family is apparently collapsing from both ends. At least I haven’t seen any data that suggests that, in this regards, the affluent families are doing that much better. While it may hurt the poor families worst, because the resources are not there, I don’t believe neither end of the society is immune to collapse.
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So I am not so sure that the collapse of family, nor most of what you list, can be considered a cause, but more an effect of the classes moving further apart.
Grurray:
July 22nd, 2013 at 5:51 pm
Here’s another game with moral implications, the prisoner’s dilemma
It was finally tested on actual prisoners:
http://www.businessinsider.com/prisoners-dilemma-in-real-life-2013-7
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The game always gets better cooperation than “rational” model behavior would predict.
Always higher asabiyah even though the players don’t know what each other is doing.
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“The vast cultural differences between cultures bestride a frontier produce asabiyah by their clashes more effectively “
The clashes are hardening groups to be closer and to act. Innovation
However, the big lift-off is what comes next. Optimization and self-organization.
The interaction of such different systems is combining to build something new and stronger. Information flows were previously well-coordinated and organized and thus vulnerable to friction and entropy and disruption. The new configuration, more net-centric than vertical or horizontal, is resilient precisely because information is unencumbered by rationalizing homogeneity.
carl:
July 22nd, 2013 at 5:59 pm
larrydunbar: The family is collapsing at the bottom, not the top, at least according to Charles Murray.
The repeal of the Glass-Steagal Act may be an effect of the zips acquisition of inordinate political power, but it is a cause of the gap between the rich and poor increasing. Same thing with the other things I cited.
T. Greer:
July 25th, 2013 at 3:37 am
The collapse of the family plays an important part in keeping the under class in poverty. It does not explain why inequality has increased at the top. Assortative marriage among the richest plays a far larger role. I wrote an essay that touched on this topic earlier this month:
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T. Greer. “How Economies of Scale Killed the American Dream.” The Scholar’s Stage. 1 July 2013.
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There are congruities between Turchin’s analysis and the broader trends discussed in my article. Hope to discuss them with more depth at a later time.
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