Elite overproduction

Elite overproduction is a concept developed by Peter Turchin that describes the condition of a society that has an excess supply of potential elite members relative to its ability to absorb them into the power structure. This, he hypothesizes, is a cause for social instability, as those left out of power feel aggrieved by their relatively low socioeconomic status.

Turchin first described his theory in an article published in 2013. His model cannot foretell precisely how a crisis will unfold; it can only yield probabilities. Turchin likened this to the accumulation of deadwood in a forest over many years, paving the way for a cataclysmic forest fire later on: it is possible to predict a massive conflagration, but not what causes it. The model also does not offer definitive solutions, though it can clarify the trade-offs of various options. For Turchin, history suggests that a non-violent end of elite overproduction is possible, citing the two decades after World War II in the United States, a time of economic redistribution and reversal of upward social mobility.

According to Turchin and Jack Goldstone, periods of political instability have throughout human history been due to the purely self-interested behavior of the elite. When the economy faced an expansion in the workforce, exerting a downward pressure on wages, the elite generally kept much of the wealth generated to themselves, resisting taxation and income redistribution. In the face of intensifying competition, they also sought to restrict upward mobility to preserve their power and status for their descendants. These actions exacerbated inequality, a key driver of sociopolitical turbulence due to the proneness of the relatively well-off to radicalism. In the modern Western world, the popularity of progressive political beliefs among university graduates, for instance, may be due to widespread underemployment rather than from exposure to progressive ideas or experiences during their studies. Turchin has said that elite overproduction explains social disturbances during later years of various Chinese dynasties, the late Roman empire, the French Wars of Religion, and France before the Revolution. Turchin correctly predicted in 2010 that this situation would cause social unrest in the United States during the 2020s.

Turchin's model also explains why polygamous societies tend to be more unstable than monogamous ones: men of high status in a polygamous society tend to have more children, consequently producing more elites.

In an essay, philosopher Francis Bacon warned of the threat of sedition if "more are bred scholars, than preferment can take off." Political economist Joseph Schumpeter asserted that a liberal capitalist society contains the seeds of its own downfall as it breeds a class of intellectuals hostile to both capitalism and liberalism, though without which these intellectuals cannot exist. Before Turchin, political scientist Samuel Huntington had warned that a disconnect between upward social mobility and the ability of the institutions to absorb these new individuals could lead to sociopolitical decay. Historian John Lewis Gaddis observed that while young people have continuously wanted to challenge the norms of society, by investing so much in education, major countries on both sides of the Cold War gave the young the tools to inflict the tumult of the late 1960s to early 1970s upon their homelands.

In Australia, higher education continues to be promoted to young people in the 2020s. However, only half of the wages and salaries of the Group of Eight, the oldest and most prestigious universities in the nation, went to academics via teaching and research; meanwhile, many students find themselves indebted after graduation.

Canada has the highest percentage of workers with higher education in the G7. However, Canada's productivity ranks lower than every other nation's in this group except Japan. One reason, according to the Bank of Canada, is the mismatch between skills learned at school and those demanded by the work place. As a result, many new entrants to the job market find themselves either unemployed despite being highly trained, or stuck in low-wage positions. By August 2024, Canada's youth unemployment rate was 14.5%, the highest seen since 2012. The Bank of Canada refers to this as an economic emergency.

One of the factors that led to the decline and collapse of the Qing dynasty, the last of Imperial China, was the Taiping Rebellion, one of the deadliest civil wars in human history. The Rebellion was triggered by disgruntled well-educated young men, who had studied long and hard for the punishing civil-service examinations only to find themselves unable to seek lucrative government posts. The Taiping Rebellion exacerbated the other problems facing Imperial China at the time, including floods, droughts, famines, and foreign incursions.