Inside the Business of Entertainment How Corporate Events Thrive in the USA

Such issues are currently prevalent throughout the Western world and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Political and social conflicts surrounding them make headlines practically every day in every major democracy. The recent political enervation in the United Kingdom, France's pressure cooker mentality, and actual warfare in Ukraine all contribute to an already bleak outlook. However, nowhere are modern challenges more serious than in the United States. America has been on the verge before, and it has successfully retreated, of course. However, the case for doom is stronger now than it has been in the previous 50 years, and Peter Turchin is here to explain why.Turchin's argument in his new book End Times goes as follows. Throughout the twentieth century, average American wages increased substantially faster than inflation. However, this trend came to an end in the 1970s, when median salaries began to stagnate overall. Even when they have risen in absolute terms (which they have in some circumstances), their purchasing power has decreased. The price of labor has stayed artificially low, thanks to a large increase in labor market participation during the 1950s, as well as low-skilled immigration in recent years. As a result of all of this, wealth has shifted dramatically from the middle and working classes to the ultra-rich. But things get worse. In 1976, the average yearly cost of attending a public institution was $617; in 2016, it was $8,804, and it has risen since then. So, a typical worker earning the median wage in 1976 would require 150 work hours to pay for a year of education, while now you would need 500. Similarly, a median-wage worker must now work nearly 40% more hours to purchase a typical home.

The non-economic situation is no better

Turchin suggests that height is a good predictor of total well-being. If an archaeologist discovered that skeletons in consecutive strata of a digging site became taller, he or she may fairly assume improved living conditions, a better food, and relative stability. Height in America peaked in the 1960s and has since declined. In other prosperous democracies, however, they have continued to climb. Similarly, American life expectancy began to plummet in the 2010s, and the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the decline.Among all this "popular immiseration," Turchin observes a massive expansion of the American elite, or "elite overproduction," as he terms it. This can be assessed by the number of people with advanced degrees as well as the growth in the top 10% of incomes—a situation aggravated by falling median salaries, more labor-force participation, and an expanding economy. In other words, elite classes become wealthier and more numerous as more people attempt to leave the middle class and join them. The difficulty is that the number of high-status roles in government and elite professions has remained largely unchanged. There are far too many elites, or aspiring elites, and not enough work to go around.Previous experience indicates that elite overproduction is extremely risky. Turchin reminds us of the revolutionary impulses of dissatisfied elites, rather than the impoverished populace as is commonly assumed. Consider the unhappy lawyers of 18th-century France, or the Taiping Rebellion in China (1850-1864), which was a massive revolt against the governing Qing headed by a group of malcontents who had frequently failed the civil service exam. Turchin, on the other hand, goes over a number of more cases. 

The revolution is not yet here, he observes

but intra-elite rivalry for a small number of high-status positions is growing increasingly violent and nasty. One of the primary weapons in this conflict is the so-called cancel culture, which allows rivals to be publicly ridiculed and banned from employment. This strategy was once limited to politics, when several candidates competed for a single position: exposing gaffes, faux pas, or other actual or imagined errors was the simplest way to advance. Now, the technique has expanded to the higher professions. Similarly, the expansion of diversity and inclusion bureaucrats, compliance officers, and so on can be interpreted as an attempt to create new high-status posts for elites. But I wouldn't call it really successful thus far.Turchin's observations have profound ramifications. American elites have made numerous mistakes that have garnered them widespread criticism. But, more broadly, they have failed to preserve any relationship to, or basic respect for, the vast majority of Americans. In this regard, elite contempt is exemplified by Obama's dismissal of the impoverished working class of the Rust Belt who "cling to guns and religion"; Mitt Romney's ignoring of the "47 percent of the people" who are "dependent on government" and "believe they are victims"; and Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorable" remark. These are just three of the most visible examples of elite scorn for ordinary people who have failed to find a new home in a globalised economy. 

Other examples include right-wing attacks 

on blue-collar unions, corporate America's adoption of identity politics, and advertising efforts that appear to undermine or parody regular people's values.This is how Turchin summarizes the problem:The American ruling elite today finds itself in a situation that has occurred thousands of times throughout human history. Many ordinary Americans have abandoned their allegiance for the ruling class. They raised "a throbbing middle finger in the face of America's ruling class." Large tracts of degree holders, dissatisfied in their search for elite jobs, provide fertile ground for counter-elites who aspire to overturn the current administration. Most wealthy individuals are hesitant to give up any personal gain in order to maintain the status quo. The precise phrase for this is "revolutionary situation." For the ruling class, there are two ways out of a revolutionary crisis. One leads to the overthrow. The alternative is to implement a series of reforms that will rebalance the social order, correcting the trends of widespread poverty and elite overproduction.