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

Written by:
Peter Turchin
Narrated by:
Robin Mcalpine

Unabridged Audiobook

Ratings
Book
2
Narrator
2
Release Date
June 2023
Duration
10 hours 4 minutes
Summary
“Peter Turchin brings science to history. Some like it and some prefer their history plain. But everyone needs to pay attention to the well-informed, convincing and terrifying analysis in this book.” —Angus Deaton, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics

From the pioneering co-founder of cliodynamics, the groundbreaking new interdisciplinary science of history, a big-picture explanation for America's civil strife and its possible endgames

Peter Turchin, one of the most interesting social scientists of our age, has infused the study of history with approaches and insights from other fields for more than a quarter century. End Times is the culmination of his work to understand what causes political communities to cohere and what causes them to fall apart, as applied to the current turmoil within the United States. 

Back in 2010, when Nature magazine asked leading scientists to provide a ten-year forecast, Turchin used his models to predict that America was in a spiral of social disintegration that would lead to a breakdown in the political order circa 2020. The years since have proved his prediction more and more accurate, and End Times reveals why.

The lessons of world history are clear, Turchin argues: When the equilibrium between ruling elites and the majority tips too far in favor of elites, political instability is all but inevitable. As income inequality surges and prosperity flows disproportionately into the hands of the elites, the common people suffer, and society-wide efforts to become an elite grow ever more frenzied. He calls this process the wealth pump; it’s a world of the damned and the saved. And since the number of such positions remains relatively fixed, the overproduction of elites inevitably leads to frustrated elite aspirants, who harness popular resentment to turn against the established order. Turchin’s models show that when this state has been reached, societies become locked in a death spiral it's very hard to exit.

In America, the wealth pump has been operating full blast for two generations. As cliodynamics shows us, our current cycle of elite overproduction and popular immiseration is far along the path to violent political rupture.  That is only one possible end time, and the choice is up to us, but the hour grows late.
Reviews
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wjmackin

Very interesting in parts but very disappointing in other parts. Turchin seems to be able to accurately assess premodern crises like the civil war (it was not about slavery) but then accepts most mainstream interpretations of modern society. He does not give his personal political opinions outright but he makes a few statements that led me to make a few inferences about what they are and his ideal solution for our current crisis: last century’s progressivism was awesome and everything was great until the Reagan Revolution started messing it up. Clinton’s moving the Democratic Party to the right cemented the decay and put the move to crisis in high gear. We will be saved if the Democratic Party goes back to pre-Clinton liberalism of high taxes, labor unions, regularly raising the minimum wage, and sensible immigration. Also, not every trump voter is a racist right wing extremist but they can be if a competent right winger gains power. That competent right winger is Tucker Carlson. No joke…

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Henrik M.

Peter Tuchins model for the future is interesting and well documented.

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