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I finished reading Peter Turchin's new book, End Times this past week, which visits many elements of the culture war, including Trump, immigration, 99%ers, even Ukraine. I hadn't read his previous books, but apparently they included more of the data and graphs that he works with for his research. This one is branded more populist, from the name, bright red cover, and relegation of models and graphs to the final third of the book, which is all appendix. He comes across as a moderate Marxist, who's trying not to alienate American conservatives.
The basic argument is that a core part of nation ending turmoil is a cycle of what he calls the wealth pump and overproduction of elites. A society will start out an epoch with a more or less equitable share of power and money between the workers and the elites, but at some point, this is disrupted by the elites ovedrawing resources from the economy, often because they have too many children, or allow more upward mobility than downward. Then popular immiseration sets in, where the workers have decreased access to the kind of resources they need to thrive -- land, capital, opportunities -- and the elites have a "wealth pump," which seems to be his way of talking returns on capital outpacing returns on labor. Also, increased immigration to keep labor costs low, and benefit employers. The wealthy grow, the poor grow, and the middle class shrinks. Elite competition becomes more and more intense, both because there are more people competing for roughly the same number of positions, often simply because population growth outstrips the growth of important positions, and because the alternative of downward mobility looks worse and worse in comparison. So everyone with any money or influence tries extra hard to get their kids a good position at whatever their era's version of the ivy leagues are, so they can benefit from the growth of the top 10%, while desperately fearing falling into the precariat. There are a bunch of young intelligentsia without money or positions, but a lot of education and family investment, ready to become counter elites or revolutionaries. Often they wage wars until enough of them die to relieve the social pressure, and the cycle starts over.
Turchin's main prescription follows the outlines of the New Deal -- high tax rates for the rich, a growing minimum wage, labor unions, low immigration, perhaps public works projects, that kind of thing.
I found the prescription, especially, underwhelming. Turchin doesn't really go into the kinds of jobs workers do, or how that might influence things, and there's no real commentary about going from an agricultural labor base, to industrial manufacturing, to service, and the growth of a suspicion that it isn't just the aspiring elite jobs that are basically useless, but many of the "workers" are as well. A large component of the current malaise seems to be the impression not only that there are too many leaders, not enough followers, but that, increasingly, the followers are all simulated, automated, or passive consumers, not workers at all. It seems like any plan that could hope to stabilize society over the next hundred years would need to incorporate the possibility that most middle class jobs, especially, as well as a decent number of working class ones, will be automated, while higher level positions and things like garbage collection and construction continue to be necessary much longer. Sure, we could probably move to an economy where each person's job is to care for some other person's parent, child, or pet, but that doesn't seem like a great outcome. He does not mention this at all.
Marxism has been tried, over and over again. Always it produces shortages, usually it produces skulls. Why do we have to keep doing it?
Sure, Marxism mostly fails to create good economies. However, the part of Marxism where you drag rich people out of their homes in the middle of the night, shoot them in the back of the head, and toss their still-warm bodies into a ditch is appealing to many people. So what if everything goes to shit afterwards? You still got your revenge on the previous elites, and nothing can ever take that away from you.
The other thing is, command economies are pretty effective if you want to speed-run a society's development from mostly agricultural to mostly industrial and if you want to introduce stuff like public education and women's rights on a mass scale. Many people die in the process, but a few decades later the survivors look back and see that they went from having no prospects except subsistence farming when they were children to now working as factory professionals or bureaucrats.
Can capitalist economies accomplish the same thing? Sure, and probably with less death on average. US-aligned dictatorships murdered over a million civilians during the Cold War, whereas the failures and repressions of communist regimes led to probably an order of magnitude more deaths in communist-controlled countries during the same period. However, this is a rather subtle point and the difference is not so obviously glaring as to immediately cause the average person to throw out Marxism as a clear failure. For most of the history of the competition between capitalism and communism, in most of the world, the average person's choice has not been between modern-style US liberal democracy and communism, it has been between non-communist dictatorship and communist dictatorship.
It's appealing to all people with some absolutely minor editing. Lefties aren't uniquely bloodthirsty and the layer of civilization on people is paper-thin.
What's unique is the acceptance. Someone proposes gassing Jews and they're properly viewed with horror. Someone proposes shooting kulaks and they're given professorships, important positions on NGOs and government advisory committees, and occasionally made Secretary of Labor.
Weren't you the one who was ready to collect commies skulls just yesterday? In self defense assumably, but as they're as evil as Nazis then being given some actual power - are you sure you wouldn't be happy to shoot them just for being evil commies or after something from them will trigger that ancient "it's now you or me" instinct?
There's no "but". Self-defense is different from shooting the kulaks. (And yes, I realize communists and Nazis both will sometimes phrase their murders in the form of self-defense, but at some point you have to get down to the object level and note that they're just lying or at the very best deluded)
So if you're sure that the enemy will kill you if they have an opportunity, will you wait for them to start shooting first?
I understand your point but you're wrong. You're claiming that commies have uniquely wicked METHODS for some reason, and you would never use their wicked methods (killing their enemies), just in self defense. While the methods you would use are exactly the same if you're as convinced in you being right as they are(or just if you're being rational organizing your "self defense", it's very rational to shoot first when you're past some point). It's not the methods which differ you from them, it's the content of your ideology. Methods are the same. You're not more or less bloodthirsty and not more or less "accepting of violence" than commies, look in the mirror.
Not interested in giving you an opening to make the villain speech ("We are alike, you and I"...)
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What do you mean by speed run? China tried all this and floundered hopelessly. It wasn't until they liberalized that they started to industrialize. Russia was already quite heavily industrialized before the revolution and it's not clear that central planning helped at all in the process. Other more liberalized countries like Germany were and continued to be more industrialized.
Countries can develop under central planning sure. The question is does it do better than the alternative and every natural experiment we have shows it doesn't. Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore are richer than China. South Korea richer than North Korea. West Germany even now is richer than East Germany.
Technological growth made everyone better off and assigning this boon to the totalitarian state that happened to take power while the rising tide lifted all boats is an easy mistake to make, but a mistake all the same.
This is not good comparison, esp. the latter two. These cities are population sinks, compare them say, to Shanghai, low TFR higher GDP per capita, in constrast to more inland regions in mainland China.
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Granting that this is true, Park Chung Hee was a much better ruler than Kim Il Sung. Pinochet was a much better ruler than Allende. Etc, etc.
Both killed many people but yeah, I imagine that Kim Il Sung probably killed an order of magnitude more people.
Not sure about this. I have never heard of Allende being responsible for killing anyone, although being a politician he probably was. Pinochet, on the other hand, clearly was responsible for killing many people.
Allende completely cratered the economy of Chile though. If we're talking what's better for the average citizen I would take a good economy plus a medium sized purge over permanent economic ruin under socialism.
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In large part this is because Allende was overthrown before he could transition to actual communism. So perhaps my statement should have been "a much better ruler than Allende would have been".
Allende is set to opposed the threat of a good example. But now Pinochet exists as an example of a bad capitalist.
I have a friend from Chile who is absolutely opposed to the woke (and to a somewhat lesser degree the broader left) but wants to vomit when you bring up Pinochet. His family personally suffered.
I'm going to take a page out of the tankie playbook and say that if your friend's family suffered, it must mean they were commie bastards who deserved it.
What is this comment supposed to achieve? Are you being ironic? Are you literally saying someone whose family personally suffered deserved it? Speak plainly and less inflammatorily.
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Cycle of violence my friend. I'm going to assume with a comment like that that your family ought to be Roman-offed.
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Indeed. So practicing Marxists should be treated approximately similarly to those practicing Nazism, and those merely preaching it should be considered evil by the mere fact of doing so
I wonder what "practicing" Marxists means here. Most of them are just people with an opinion.
Funny how you didn't wonder what "practicing" means in relation to Nazis.
I know it's hilarious right. But yes that too, sure.
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Turchin's opinion of Stalin seemed somewhere between neutral and "he got the job done," and seems basically neutral about piles of skulls in general. Sure, he would prefer not to be shot in a purge, but he's also something of a Tolstoyan -- things happen as they must, because of the forces of history, and sometimes all the cliodynamics professors are sent to the hard labor camps for world historical reasons. He's very Slavic, and not much of an optimist about this.
He seems to like the New Deal era partly because, unlike the Civil War, it did not result in piles of skulls. He also speaks well about British colonialism, because at least it wasn't their empire that was falling apart at the time.
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The progress should "progress" somewhere, right. So what's more obvious way to progress than to make everything more fair? The urge to try something "fairer" is quite understandable i think. I do agree with you that it's not the right way, but it's hard to propose any actual alternative to that. "The universe is inherently unfair so no point trying" isn't convincing many. Stupid dysfunctional species cornered themselves into playing god and constantly failing, obviously.
This is, as usual, only a very modern, liberal and materialist view on the matter.
I submit to you that the universe is perfect, that everyone gets their just desserts, and that attempts at improving on God's design by Man are doomed to the failures all our ancestral tales chronicle for they are nothing but sinful hubris.
There's no alternative to this world, there's choosing life, and choosing death.
Are you forgetting about Plato and his work The Republic where he lays out a rational plan for how an ideal state should be run. Or the religious reforms of Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Mani, Mohmmed, et al. They tend to present themselves as bringing back old wisdom, but they clearly believe that God's designs have gone astray and it is up to humans to change them.
There is definitely an alternative to this world in Buddhism and Christianity. Nirvana through enlightenment in Buddhism; or, the Kingdom of Heaven through Christ in Christianity.
You are confusing the views of a few ancient and medieval sources with what people believed in general. Hell you sound more like you are parroting the views of the early modern philosopher Leibniz then any ancient or medieval person.
Oh I'm not forgetting Plato. I'm accusing people of forgetting Aristotle.
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Those enlightened thoughts aren't convincing everyone as well, "weirdly" enough.
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"Fair" is just an applause light. Marxism doesn't result in "fair". It results in "poor". Try something else.
The urge of the majority of marxism supporters, at least the idealistic ones, is to make the reality more fair. That's why they're trying and trying and will keep trying. You don't need to convince me, but can't you really see how any random fact of perceived unfairness brings people towards trying to make things more "fair" the way the understand it?
As I said "fair" is just an applause light. Brought to the concrete level it just seems to mean they want more for them and theirs and (very important for many Marxists) less for not-them and theirs, which is a common desire but lacks the high-mindedness of "fair". There's always going to be perceived unfairness, and Marxism is always going to be one of the worst ways to attempt to alleviate it.
Sure, so there always will be the way to "progress" things towards. Look, you've asked a very simple question - "Why do we have to keep doing it?", i've explained why. Are you arguing because you think people keep trying marxism for other reasons? Or are you arguing because you think the reason i say is correct, you just don't agree with it?
It's not my fault that young people find marxism or any of it's many versions convincing enough to make the world a more fairer place. There's very little alternative ideas which can in simple words address that "fairness" urge directly. The others are mostly sidestepping the problem - oh, the unfairness is always and eternal, we're in hell and nothing you can do about it, be a good boy and clean your room(sure! thinks 15yo boy whos mother killing herself every day on the heavy job and he sees that, while watching western celebrities on TV), ah, the world is already perfectly fair and harmonious, don't you see? (yup! thinks the father whos son just returned without half of his head from a war over someones bank account) and so on.
Your explanation amounts to the Politician's Fallacy -- "We must do something (to alleviate unfairness). This (Marxism) is something. Therefore we must do it."
We don't have to take Marxism at its word that it makes the world more fair, not when the actual results have been demonstrated over and over again. Nor is it necessary to have an alternate solution in order to reject Marxism.
Arnold Kling has a saying, a sort of right wing spin on this, that, "Markets are unfair. Use markets."
It has the same He Giveth and He Taketh Away result.
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I'm sorry, i have a stupid habit of editing my message a lot, so if you care enough to look at it again - i think i'm trying to explain there that it's not just that the marxism is "something", therefore we must do that. But it's trying to address the problem(real or not, but it's very common perceived problem in our world full of terrors) directly, and it's doing it convincingly enough for many. And the lack of simple enough alternative way towards is helping marxism greatly.
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