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Godfree Roberts's avatar

Turchin’s model applies to China probably as well as to America. The relative immiseration of the median class has gone on for the past forty years”. Seriously?

58% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, CNBC says and their median household net worth is $97,300*, while Chinese urban household net worth is $363,536 PPP, thanks to 96% home ownership and $42 MRIs.

By 2035 there will be 1 billion middle class Chinese, up from 600 million today. By 2049, everyone will be what today we call 'middle class'.

*Federal Reserve Consumer Finance Survey

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John Mutt Harding's avatar

"Turchin’s model has one variable: inequality".

May I draw your attention to: Bas van Bavel (2019) Power concentration and state capture: Insights from history on consequences of market dominance for inequality and environmental calamities. (Spotlight 1.1 in UNDP Human Development Report 2019). (Link: https://hdr.undp.org/system/files/documents//hdr2019pdf.pdf ).

van Bavel uses two axes: inequalty and 'well-being' and plots historic development of market societies as a circular movement in this space. Six stages can be identified:

1. Markets emerge in an equitable setting and grow by creation of institutions that secure easy access to broad groups.

2. The opportunities of market exchange push up economic growth and well-being as long as the fruits of growth are fairly evenly distributed.

3. As markets become dominant - especially the markets for land, labour and capital - inequality grows in a slow process as ownership of land and capital concentrates.

4. As inequality grow, economic growth initially continues, but to a lesser degree get translated into broad well-being. Purchasing power stagnates for large parts of the population. Shrinking demand and declining profitability shift investments to financial markets away from productive sectors.

5. Wealth is instead used to acquire political leverage through patronage and buying political positions.

Through their dominance in financial markets and their role as creditors of the state the wealthy acquire key positions in the fiscal regime,bureaucracy and finance.

6. Over time markets become less open and equitable, through both large wealth owners’

economic weight and their ability to skew the institutional organization. Productive investments declines and the economy stagnates. Economic inequality rises further, feeding into growing political inequity and social unrest, resulting in coercion, rebellion and breakdown.

After breakdown the process starts to build up anew from a position

of more equal distribution of wealth and power.

All considered van Bavel's model has at least these variables: inequality, well-being, market formation and financialization. I think this puts a little flesh on your one-variable discussion of Turchin.

We are obviously at 'End Times', but will soon be at 'Start Times'.

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