Excellent analysis

Peter Turchin has a view around Elite Overproduction - where too many people are competing for elite positions.

He said that as the economy and the state fail and shrink, the failing institutions lose their “buffer” ability.

Its worth thinking about what he means by that.

My interpretation is that what he’s saying is that when there are not enough elite positions available, the elites who don’t have a place in the system still play the game up to some point, like the idea of getting a seat one day still keeps them invested.

However, as the state itself starts shrinking, these elites stop holding an ambition to join the ranks and they become a radicalized faction no longer supporting the institutions.

However, what he says is that the Elites are trained in system dynamics, economics, etc, and when they turn away from these institutions, they become a powerful radical class of dissidents and seek to undermine the institutions. They are ready to take a wrecking ball to all of it.

I feel that in many ways the Trump presidency made a move in the USA that was to bring in an entire new slate of elites (who had been left out), and they used that to claim power. Basically formed a tribe of outsiders and found it had a lot of supporters. And for many official non supporters, they still gained from the shake up. Trump was a wrecking ball and this created a wave of opportunity.

I think that they are taking their band on the road now.

There has always been a game of politicians wanting to arrange who could have a place at the money trough. And politicians can arrange their own positions or the positions of politicians from other countries.

In many ways you can see the Trump plan as a blueprint for how to build or maintain the elite share within decline. This is perhaps unsustainable but for the present moment you can see how it would attract some. The plan is to extract economic rent without creating anything of value.