End Times: Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration

by Peter Turchin

But such a gradual, gentle decline assumes that the social system maintains its stability. Analysis of historical cases in CrisisDB indicates that the much more frequent scenario of downward social mobility, which eliminates elite overproduction, is associated with periods of high sociopolitical instability, the “ages of discord.” In such cases, downward mobility is rapid and typically associated with violence. Political instability and internal warfare prune elite numbers in a variety of ways. Some elite individuals are simply killed in civil wars or by way of assassination. Others may be dispossessed of their elite status when their faction loses in a civil war. Finally, general conditions of violence and lack of success discourage many “surplus” elite aspirants from continuing their pursuit of elite status, which leads to acceptance of downward mobility.