From: jimruttshow8596
Popular immiseration, or the economic decline of the general population, is identified as a primary driver of political disintegration and social instability in societies. When people experience a loss of economic standing, it generates discontent and increases the potential for mass mobilization against the ruling regime [02:44:07][02:44:07]. This phenomenon has been observed ubiquitously in historical data and is a key factor in understanding why large-scale societies run into periods of social dysfunction [03:38:00][03:38:00] [03:47:00][03:47:00].
Measuring Immiseration
Clio Dynamics, the science of history, seeks systematic ways to test theories against data [03:09:00][03:09:00]. To measure popular immiseration, researchers use specific proxies:
- Relative Wage This metric is defined as the nominal wage divided by GDP per capita in nominal dollars, which helps exclude the role of inflation in comparison over time [02:00:53][02:00:53] [02:09:00][02:09:00]. It measures the economic well-being of the general population, excluding high earners who are part of the elites [02:40:00][02:40:00]. In the United States, the relative wage has nearly halved since around 1850 [01:50:00][01:50:00]. The decline means that workers stopped sharing in general prosperity, with that prosperity being redirected to economic elites [02:54:00][02:54:00].
- Average Stature (Height) Average height serves as a reliable and accurate proxy for biological well-being within a population, as it reflects the economic conditions under which people grow and age [01:54:00][01:54:00] [01:58:00][01:58:00]. Historical data from millions of skeletons in European museums over the past two thousand years shows that in pre-crisis periods, average population height tends to decline, signaling potential troubles [01:42:00][01:42:00] [01:52:00][01:52:00]. In the United States, data broken down by race and sex indicates that all groups have been negatively affected in the last 20-30 years, showing a surprising persistence of Malthusian factors in a supposedly post-Malthusian world [01:13:00][01:13:00] [01:29:00][01:29:00].
The Wealth Pump
The concept of a “wealth pump” explains how popular immiseration develops. This mechanism transfers wealth from the poor to the rich [02:39:00][02:39:00].
- Operation: Historically, factors like population growth leading to overpopulation and too many workers for too few jobs could depress wages and increase rents, shifting a higher proportion of overall GDP to elites [02:22:00][02:22:00] [02:39:00][02:39:00]. In modern societies, particularly the United States since the late 1970s, the wealth pump has operated differently but with similar outcomes [02:50:00][02:50:00]. Productivity continued to increase, but compensation for typical workers stagnated or declined, creating a gap that represented extra wealth flowing to economic elites [02:20:00][02:20:00] [02:22:00][02:22:00].
- Elite Role: During periods of internal peace, ruling elites tend to reconfigure the economy for their own benefit, thereby activating the wealth pump [02:40:00][02:40:00] [02:42:00][02:42:00].
- Relative Expectations: People’s expectations for well-being are relative, not absolute. They compare their consumption levels to other segments of the population and, more importantly, to previous generations [02:49:00][02:49:00] [02:55:00][02:55:00]. In the US, until the late 1970s, each generation experienced increased well-being compared to their parents; this trend has since stopped or worsened [02:55:00][02:55:00] [02:57:00][02:57:00]. Large-scale items like housing and education have become disproportionately expensive for the median worker, contributing to this relative decline [02:58:00][02:58:00] [02:59:00][02:59:00].
Consequences of Immiseration
Popular immiseration feeds into broader societal instability by:
- Increased Discontent: As people lose economic ground, their discontent rises, creating a “Mass mobilization potential” that can be exploited by political entrepreneurs [02:44:07][02:44:07] [02:56:00][02:56:00].
- Fueling Elite Overproduction: The wealth pump not only causes popular immiseration but also contributes to the overproduction of wealthy people [04:47:00][04:47:00]. In the US, the number of deca-millionaires (net worth $10 million or more) has increased tenfold in the last 40 years, while the overall population grew by only 40% [04:12:00][04:12:00] [04:13:00][04:13:00]. A portion of these newly wealthy individuals enter the political arena, increasing competition for a fixed number of elite positions, leading to a surge in frustrated elite aspirants [04:17:00][04:17:00] [04:22:00][04:22:00].
- Rise of Counter-Elites: Popular immiseration creates a powerful push for people to escape precarity, often leading them to seek higher education and advanced degrees [04:17:00][04:17:00] [04:20:00][04:20:00]. However, the overproduction of graduates (e.g., three times as many lawyers as positions for them) results in a large segment of intelligent, ambitious, and well-educated but underemployed individuals [04:29:00][04:29:00] [04:30:00][04:30:00] [04:37:00][04:37:00]. These “frustrated elite aspirants” become potential revolutionaries and radicals, serving as the “officers” and “food soldiers” for political movements [04:37:00][04:37:00] [04:46:00][04:46:00]. This combination of popular discontent and organized counter-elites creates an explosive mixture [04:49:00][04:49:00].
Historical Examples
- Medieval Europe (14th Century): The wealth pump was operating powerfully for a century prior to the Black Death (1250s-1340s) [03:03:00][03:03:00]. When the Black Death killed one-third to one-half of the population, disproportionately affecting the poor, it removed a significant portion of the “base” of the already top-heavy social pyramid, leading to collapse [03:09:00][03:09:00] [03:10:00][03:10:00]. This contributed to prolonged conflicts like the Hundred Years’ War in France and the Wars of the Roses in England, where elites exterminated each other [03:09:00][03:09:00] [03:11:00][03:11:00] [03:15:00][03:15:00].
- British Empire (19th Century Chartist Period): Britain, unlike other European states, avoided the 1848 Revolutions despite a century of declining real wages for English workers, even amidst rapid GDP growth [03:40:00][03:40:00] [03:43:00][03:43:00]. This was achieved through both short-term and long-term solutions implemented by the British elites [03:47:00][03:47:00].
Mitigation and Solutions
Addressing popular immiseration requires both short-term and long-term strategies.
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Short-Term Mitigation (Risk Reduction):
- The British Empire’s temporary solutions included shipping millions of surplus workers to colonies like Australia and North America, and moving surplus elites to positions within the empire [03:57:00][03:57:00] [04:02:00][04:02:00].
- In the modern context, one obvious action is to increase the minimum wage, which economists generally agree does not harm employment [04:12:00][04:12:00] [04:17:00][04:17:00].
- Employing large numbers of well-educated but underemployed individuals (e.g., history PhDs) in useful public service could reduce their desperation and mitigate their potential as counter-elites [04:17:00][04:17:00] [04:18:00][04:18:00].
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Long-Term Solutions (Reducing Fuel):
- The most crucial long-term strategy is to “shut down the wealth pump” and rebalance the economy [04:09:00][04:09:00] [04:12:00][04:12:00].
- The British example involved expanding voting rights to make the political system more democratic and giving workers formal power to organize and bargain [04:12:00][04:12:00] [04:15:00][04:15:00]. They also abolished the “Corn Laws,” which were a mini-wealth pump benefiting landlords by artificially increasing food prices for workers [04:17:00][04:17:00] [04:22:00][04:22:00].
- Historical examples like the Progressive Era and the New Deal in the US demonstrate how society can be reformulated over decades through reforms, partly due to the memory of past conflicts like the American Civil War [04:48:00][04:48:00] [04:50:00][04:50:00].
Violence is considered counterproductive and undesirable, as societies that have experienced violent revolutions or state collapses suffer immense human misery [04:55:00][04:55:00] [04:57:00][04:57:00]. Many violent revolutions simply exchange one group of “scoundrels” for another [04:58:00][04:58:00] [05:00:00][05:00:00]. The goal should be to learn from societies that managed to implement necessary reforms in a relatively peaceful way [05:01:00][05:01:00].