MAIN IDEA:

This book presents a new scientific approach to history and to the prediction of future developments of society called Cliodynamics. This approach includes the development of a massive database of information about crises of many societies in the past and the outcomes of these crises. Here is the main point of the analysis of the collected data:” Our analysis points to four structural drivers of instability: popular immiseration leading to mass mobilization potential; elite overproduction resulting in intraelite conflict; failing fiscal health and weakened legitimacy of the state; and geopolitical factors. The most important driver is intraelite competition and conflict, which is a reliable predictor of the looming crisis”.

The application of this result to current events in American Society leads to the conclusion that it is on the brink of revolutionary events that would include massive, organized violence and may result in the breakdown of this society. Despite the generally pessimistic mood of the book, the conclusion is this:” The final thought with which I want to end this book is that humanity has come a long way since our species appeared some two hundred thousand years ago. The last ten thousand years have seen a particularly rapid evolution. Despotic elites who oppressed common people repeatedly arose and were repeatedly overthrown. We are now again in the disintegrative phase of this cycle, but while we live through our own age of discord, it’s worth remembering that humanity has learned from previous such debacles. Cumulative cultural evolution equipped us with remarkable technologies, including social technologies—institutions—that enable our societies to deliver an unprecedentedly high—and broadly based—quality of life. Yes, this capacity is often not fully realized—there is great variation between different states in providing well-being for their citizens. But in the longer term, such variation is necessary for continuing cultural evolution. If societies don’t experiment in trying for better social arrangements, evolution will stop. Even more importantly, when selfish ruling classes run their societies into the ground, it is good to have alternatives—success stories.”

MY TAKE ON IT:

It is not the first and not the last book that predicts cataclysmic events for American society in the near future. Unlike the previous 30+ years of my life in this country, this time it looks like quite a reasonable probability. It is not caused by just the overproduction of the elite, the immiseration of the masses, and the rise of authoritarian powers bent on world domination. I see the most important underlying cause in the global process of elimination of human beings from the process of production of goods and services. Initially, this process liberated most of the population from the necessity to work all the time just to survive, as was the case until very recently when something like 90% of the population had to work in agriculture to produce enough food to avoid famines. From this point just a few hundred years ago humanity moved to a situation where 2% of the population easily produced enough food for everybody, even for everybody with poor control over appetite to be obese. The existing forms of society, either autocracies based on massive suppression and slavery (traditional monarchies or contemporary communist dictatorships) or democratic ones based on mass ownership of private property (material, like land, or intellectual, like professional skills), would no longer work. This is because autocrats will not need slaves and businesses will not need workers of any level of skills. This situation will cause mass restructuring of societies, quite possibly violent, everywhere in the world, America included. The result could be a new structure of society based either on mass bureaucratization when everybody will have a place within the bureaucracy doing some meaningless job, suffering psychological stress from control from above while causing similar stress to individuals below.  Alternatively, it could be a society based on mass possession of private property not only material or intellectual but also as a share of the common inheritance of humanity that provides sufficient returns to do whatever one wants to do with his or her life in pursuit of happiness.

I am pretty sure that eventually, a second outcome will occur, and a society of freedom based on property will eventually be established. However, it will not happen without decades of struggles, violent or otherwise, and lots of pain and suffering caused by failed attempts to make a society of mass bureaucratization work for people.