The US Is Entering Inevitable End Times？

Q1

The China Academy: You published an article in The Guardian titled “The Deep Historical Forces That Explain Trump’s Win,” where you mentioned three common factors that foster unrest and fragmentation: popular immiseration, elite overproduction, and state breakdown. Could you explain to the audience how, over the past 40 years, popular immiseration and elite overproduction have been continuously exacerbating the social crisis in the United States?

Peter Turchin：Let me preface that with a general introduction to my research. My research group here at the Complexity Science Hub in Vienna has collected data on hundreds of past societies spanning the last 5,000 years, since the first states emerged.

What we observe is that states can function effectively for a period of time—typically about a century, though sometimes less or more. However, inevitably, at least in the past, these states enter a period of social turbulence and political violence. These are the “end times” that my book discusses. What we are seeing now in the United States is not unique; it has happened in many societies before. We can learn from history to help us navigate our current crisis.

Now, to directly address your question, let’s illustrate. These forces—popular immiseration, elite overproduction, and state breakdown—are very general and have affected societies in the past.

Let’s look at how they have developed in the United States. A previous period of political turbulence in the U.S. peaked during the American Civil War, and unrest continued roughly until the 1920s, when there was another peak of instability. This included urban riots, assassinations, and other violent political events.

The American Civil War

Fortunately, these did not lead to a revolution or civil war because American elites managed to push through a series of reforms that rebalanced the economy and allowed the United States to become a very prosperous nation.

After the New Deal, even during World War II, the wages of American workers grew rapidly, rising alongside GDP. However, things began to change in the 1970s. Two generations later, American leaders became complacent.

This is what I call the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Leaders began to roll back the reforms of the New Deal era. For example, they allowed the suppression of labor unions, implemented tax cuts for themselves, and made other changes that undermined equitable economic growth.

What happened in the late 1970s is what I call turning on the wealth pump. Before this, workers’ wages grew alongside productivity. But after the 1970s, while productivity continued to grow, wages stagnated or even declined. This created a flow of wealth from workers to the economic elites.

This economic shift set the stage for the three factors driving the current crisis. First, it led to popular immiseration—the stagnating or declining living standards of the majority of the population.

Second, it created a massive increase in the number of wealth holders. Over the past 40 years, the number of individuals with $10 million or more in wealth has grown tenfold, while the number of billionaires has grown even more dramatically.

Third, the precarious living conditions for many Americans led to widespread elite overproduction. Many people from the common American class sought to escape these conditions by going to college. But as a college degree became insufficient, they pursued professional degrees, law degrees, or PhDs—like the one I have, for instance.

The result is what we call elite overproduction. Many of the wealthy—Trump is a prime example, but not the only one, with figures like Michael Bloomberg also fitting this pattern—have sought to convert their wealth into political power. Some became candidates themselves, while others, like Peter Thiel, supported others running for office.
On the credentialed side, we now have an enormous number of professionals, especially lawyers, vying for limited positions of power.

Some competition for positions is healthy, but too much competition can corrode societal frameworks. In politics, for instance, there is only one president, 100 senators, and so on.

What happens to those who lose in this competition? Many become frustrated and turn into counter-elites—individuals who work against the established elites and attempt to overthrow them. This is precisely what we saw in the French Revolution with figures like Robespierre, or the Russian Revolution with Lenin, and in many other historical examples.

Maximilien Robespierre

In the United States, we’ve been fortunate that the revolution we’re experiencing now has not been violent. Trump, for example, narrowly escaped assassination, which was quite lucky. But so far, we have avoided a civil war, and I hope we will continue to do so.

What has happened is that the counter-elites have overthrown the established elites—at least temporarily. Who were these established elites before 2016?

The Republican Party was the party of the wealthy 1%, and the Democratic Party was the party of the credentialed 10%. The rest of the population had little to no voice in politics.

When Trump’s MAGA movement took over the Republican Party, it transformed from the party of wealth holders to, at least in rhetoric, a populist party representing the common people.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party became the party of the ruling class, as some Republicans left their party and joined the Democrats. While some former Democrats, like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., joined the MAGA movement within the Republican Party.

The MAGA coalition consists of counter-elites, with Trump at its center. But it would be a mistake to focus solely on him. He has allies like politicians RFK Jr. and J.D. Vance, as well as wealth holders like Elon Musk, who is an important counter-elite in his own right. Musk has been unhappy with how he has been treated ideologically. Figures like Tucker Carlson also play a role in this power network. Together, this group has managed to gain power.

When I wrote my book two years ago, I described the United States as being in a revolutionary situation. Now, I would say we are in a true revolution. There are two aspects to this revolution. First, it’s a revolution of the elites—Trump and his network are trying to replace the established elites with their own members. Second, their intent is to make this revolution transformative, meaning they aim to fundamentally change attitudes toward their agendas and America’s role on the geopolitical stage.

Q2

The China Academy: At this point, everyone cares about the likelihood of an internal political crisis in the U.S. What do you think is the probability of such a crisis? And in what forms might it manifest—civil war, fragmentation, or large-scale violence?

Peter Turchin：So far, I’m encouraged that we haven’t seen large-scale violence. But we are in a very fragile situation.

If one group starts using violent methods, the other side will respond, and that could escalate into a civil war. Territorial fragmentation, similar to the American Civil War of the 1860s, is also possible. For instance, more liberal states like California, Oregon, and Washington—the so-called “Left Coast”—might resist federal actions like forced deportations. That resistance could become a flashpoint for violence.

For now, the previous ruling elites seem shocked by what’s happening. They haven’t yet organized into a reactionary, counter-revolutionary party. That will likely happen eventually, but we’ll see.

The truth is, nobody knows how this will play out. During periods of crisis, there are too many potential ways for the situation to develop. Predicting specific outcomes is impossible. It’s what we call mathematical chaos—the situation is highly unpredictable.

Tiny actions by individuals and random events can have enormous consequences.

Q3

The China Academy: Do you think the MAGA Republicans—the coalition of Trump, Elon Musk, and other unconventional politicians—are solid? Or do you predict they will divide?

Peter Turchin：This is a very good question. When we look at historical data from previous societies, we find that it is very typical for revolutionaries who come to power to eventually start fighting amongst themselves.

There is a saying—I forget who said it—about the French Revolution: “Revolution devours its children.” We saw this in the aftermath of the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and many other instances.

It is an interesting question whether the MAGA coalition will break apart, because we already see tensions within it. For example, you have populists like J.D. Vance and figures like Steve Bannon, who doesn’t hold a formal position but is still highly influential. Then you have the libertarian, Silicon Valley types like Elon Musk.

Steve Bannon has already criticized Elon Musk a lot, which shows the cracks in the coalition. But ultimately, it depends on the personalities involved. For example, Musk and Trump appear to have a personal friendship. Whether that friendship can survive the tensions and stresses they will undoubtedly face is a big question.

Q4

The China Academy: There are some people who hold the view that Trump is an exception, and once he leaves, things will stabilize. In your opinion, do you think the rise of Trump’s MAGA Republicans was historically inevitable?

Peter Turchin：Let me explain. Back in 2010, I published a short article in Nature, a premier science journal, where I presented a forecast. Using a model called Structural Demographic Theory, I predicted that the United States would enter a period of high instability by 2020.

At that time, I had no idea about Donald Trump or what would later be called the MAGA movement. The theory doesn’t predict specific individuals—it predicts the impersonal social forces that push societies toward crisis.

To answer your question directly: if Donald Trump hadn’t risen to power—if, for example, he had been assassinated—these forces would still have manifested, maybe not at the same time but perhaps four years later. The underlying drivers of instability are still there and have not been reversed.

We are looking at multiple years of social turbulence and political instability. It’s not about Trump as an individual; if it wasn’t him, someone else would have emerged to fill the void.

Q5

The China Academy: You’ve introduced the concept of the “wealth pump,” which siphons money from the poor and channels it to the rich. This aligns with common criticisms of neoliberalism. Why is it that criticisms of inequality have existed for so long, yet this trend has not been effectively reversed?

Peter Turchin：That’s a very easy question to answer: it’s the Iron Law of Oligarchy. Essentially, when people gain power, they tend to use it for their own ends—for their own enrichment. This is a universal feature of human societies.

This is why human societies go through cycles. During a societal crisis, these problems often get reversed, but after a couple of generations—typically two—the leaders forget the reasons behind the earlier reforms.

By the 1970s, all the people who had established the New Deal reforms had retired or passed away. A new group of leaders came in, and they assumed they didn’t have to worry about inequality because the United States was doing great. And it was—for a time. But they started changing the system to make it more lucrative for themselves.

In the 1970s, they were complaining about profits disappearing. This was partly due to a cyclical economic downturn—remember the bear market of the 1970s. They used this downturn as an excuse to rebalance the economy in their favor. They implemented mechanisms to suppress the growth of worker wages while boosting their own profits.

Even when they go to Davos to discuss inequality—inequality was the main theme of a recent Davos meeting—their attitude is self-serving. They say economic growth will solve the problem. But economic growth doesn’t help if its benefits don’t reach the common people.

The vested powers have selfish interests, and they undermine the societies that sustain them. This is how revolutions happen, including events like the French Revolution. It’s a result of short-term thinking. They believe everything is fine and continue doing what benefits them in the moment, without considering the long-term consequences.

Q6

The China Academy: You’ve mentioned some of the things Trump has done. Within one month of taking office, he implemented several sweeping changes—layoffs, restricting immigration, shutting down USAID, and so on. Do you think these measures could help the U.S. overcome its crisis? Or, to some extent, make things not so bad?

Peter Turchin：I don’t think Trump and his movement fully understand the forces driving societal crises.

I would single out J.D. Vance and Tucker Carlson as exceptions. If you read Carlson’s book Ship of Fools, for example, you’ll see that they understand part of the problem. They are genuinely concerned about the well-being of ordinary Americans, which is important. But so far, none of their actions have significantly helped workers.

Addressing these issues is extremely challenging. For example, they would need to increase the minimum wage and raise taxes on the wealthy. But Trump has done the opposite.

Industrial policy, which could bring well-paying jobs back to the U.S., is another potential solution. Trump supports this idea, but it takes a long time to implement.
So, to answer your question: some of the things they are doing might help the situation, but others are neutral or even make things worse.

There’s another critical factor I haven’t discussed yet: the weakness of the state. This happens when government spending far exceeds revenue, leading to mounting debt.

The U.S. likely won’t go bankrupt because it can print dollars, but it could experience runaway inflation. That would further erode the incomes of ordinary people. Addressing the deficit is crucial. Figures like Musk, for example, are trying to address this issue, which is good. If the state goes bankrupt or inflation gets out of control, it could lead to even greater instability.

However, I don’t yet see any significant effort to turn off the wealth pump. That remains a major issue.

Editor: huyueyue