I think the FTX phenomenon can be seen as another case of job creation. Sam Bankman Fried ostensibly tried to attain certain charitable causes. But in the process he created jobs for a great number of lobbyists and the like.
“Markets and elections should enforce this accountability, but for whatever reason they aren’t.” I’d love to read an entire series of posts on only this sentence.
You would think that a functioning market would handle this. A slimmed company with no administrative bloat would be able to provide cheaper goods and services than it's competitors. At the very least you would expect the unnecessary work force to be fired in a recession. That does not seem to happen. This needs to be analyzed more. It's a market opportunity for people like Musk.
Important topic Erik. I recently took a stab at measuring the rise of the broader upper-middle-class (college grads with six figures of personal income) (within which the PMC dominate). My analysis is on Substack: https://bit.ly/3TINBQ2 Readers might be interested to see how US Census data reveals the rapid growth in this group (i.e. social mobility from the middle-class upwards). Never before has a civilization had this high a proportion of its population elite and entitled.
I would love it if one of the side effects of higher interest rates, crappy economy, etc. Is that the phrase "go woke go broke" starts to take on serious meaning. It seems like in the previous world of easy money, companies just didn't care that much if their ideology lost them a few billion here and there. Will be interesting to see if that changes. Looking at you, Hollywoke
This is a very compelling piece, thank you for writing it.
I think the best means of of understanding American elite overproduction would be to take lessons from 19th century Russia. On this topic, I have written an essay that historian Peter Turchin has read and responded to. In the piece, I tell the story of disaffected elites in Czarist Russia, the rise of nihilism, and how Dostoevsky saw it with his own eyes - while also tying in Peter Turchin's observations along with some criticisms.
Is this the perfect storm of younger college grads (34 and under) having never seen a recession and an education system that inadvertently teaches risk aversion? It seems we are now taught we can do well without taking any chances.
i feel that corporations aren't really just "doing their fair share" (so to speak) when they hire nobility, but rather that they're creating these jobs in response to an implicit threat, like how you have to brown nose certain interests to avoid getting the ADL/SPLC/... on your back
This could have been written 100+ years ago by replacing a few words here and there. PMC are, roughly, (petite) bourgeoisie. It's amusing to me that we call them "elites" now for some reason.
I'm not saying that every detail is the same, of course, but the overall structure is pretty much exactly the same.
I think you could usefully distinguish between the wealthy/capitalists ("nobility/royalty") and the PMC ("bourgeoisie") more carefully. They are not the same, structurally. Yes, there is a degree of mobility, even overlap, between the categories, but they play quite different roles in society.
Surprised to do a CTL-F for "Turchin" and draw a blank
Really enjoying this whole series on the elites!
Great post!
I think the FTX phenomenon can be seen as another case of job creation. Sam Bankman Fried ostensibly tried to attain certain charitable causes. But in the process he created jobs for a great number of lobbyists and the like.
“Markets and elections should enforce this accountability, but for whatever reason they aren’t.” I’d love to read an entire series of posts on only this sentence.
You would think that a functioning market would handle this. A slimmed company with no administrative bloat would be able to provide cheaper goods and services than it's competitors. At the very least you would expect the unnecessary work force to be fired in a recession. That does not seem to happen. This needs to be analyzed more. It's a market opportunity for people like Musk.
Important topic Erik. I recently took a stab at measuring the rise of the broader upper-middle-class (college grads with six figures of personal income) (within which the PMC dominate). My analysis is on Substack: https://bit.ly/3TINBQ2 Readers might be interested to see how US Census data reveals the rapid growth in this group (i.e. social mobility from the middle-class upwards). Never before has a civilization had this high a proportion of its population elite and entitled.
I would love it if one of the side effects of higher interest rates, crappy economy, etc. Is that the phrase "go woke go broke" starts to take on serious meaning. It seems like in the previous world of easy money, companies just didn't care that much if their ideology lost them a few billion here and there. Will be interesting to see if that changes. Looking at you, Hollywoke
This is a very compelling piece, thank you for writing it.
I think the best means of of understanding American elite overproduction would be to take lessons from 19th century Russia. On this topic, I have written an essay that historian Peter Turchin has read and responded to. In the piece, I tell the story of disaffected elites in Czarist Russia, the rise of nihilism, and how Dostoevsky saw it with his own eyes - while also tying in Peter Turchin's observations along with some criticisms.
Sorry, I didn't know where else to share, but I really do think it's right up your alley: https://novum.substack.com/p/elite-overproduction-a-story-of-russia
Cheers
Is this the perfect storm of younger college grads (34 and under) having never seen a recession and an education system that inadvertently teaches risk aversion? It seems we are now taught we can do well without taking any chances.
what about the generation of independent contractors, social media entrepreneurs / wantrepreneurs et al... ?
i feel that corporations aren't really just "doing their fair share" (so to speak) when they hire nobility, but rather that they're creating these jobs in response to an implicit threat, like how you have to brown nose certain interests to avoid getting the ADL/SPLC/... on your back
This could have been written 100+ years ago by replacing a few words here and there. PMC are, roughly, (petite) bourgeoisie. It's amusing to me that we call them "elites" now for some reason.
I'm not saying that every detail is the same, of course, but the overall structure is pretty much exactly the same.
I think you could usefully distinguish between the wealthy/capitalists ("nobility/royalty") and the PMC ("bourgeoisie") more carefully. They are not the same, structurally. Yes, there is a degree of mobility, even overlap, between the categories, but they play quite different roles in society.