Worse, the path to safety is not clear; simply getting past the next election without the democratic system grinding to a halt seems like a big achievement.
Both authors had predicted, by a decade or more, that a period of great crisis would arrive around 2020, though neither foresaw a pandemic.
He proposes a cyclical scheme of societal rise and subsequent disintegration based on a “wealth pump,” whereby elites get richer and ever more entrenched.
Inequality, if left unchecked, grows to the point that the system fragments and has to be rebuilt from the ground up.
Such is the situation today in America, where oligarchy has become so extreme that a huge redistribution of power needs to take place.
Persons:
Neil Howe, Peter Turchin, Neil Howe’s “, Peter Turchin’s
Organizations:
Elites
Locations:
Ukraine, America