Elite Overproduction

[0:00]In 2010, a former Beatle ecologist predicted America would tear itself apart. Everyone laughed. Peter Turchin, a complexity scientist, said the US and Western Europe would see growing instability over the next decade. He cited stagnating wages, ballooning debt, and too many degree holders chasing too few positions. Colleagues dismissed it. As time went on, he looked more and more right. Turchin calls the mechanism, "Elite Overproduction." More people trained for elite roles than roles that exist. The U.S. awards 55,000 doctorates a year. Fewer than 17% get tenure-track jobs. An Ohio study of law school's class of 2010 tracked graduates into jobs as pest control technicians, tennis instructors, and lingerie salespeople. This pattern isn't new. Hong Xiuquan, born to a farming family in 1814 China, failed the civil service exam four times. His village had pooled resources to fund his education. After the fourth failure, he declared himself to be God's second son and launched the Taiping Rebellion, one of the deadliest conflicts in human history, with a higher toll than World War I. In 75% of historical cases Turchin analyzed, elite overproduction led to breakdown, not reform. Today, in South Korea, where 69% of young adults hold degrees, cram schools are so competitive that subsidiary cram schools now exist solely to coach students into more prestigious cram schools. Cram schools for cram schools. Brian Caplan, an American economist, estimates 80% of education's return comes from signaling, not actual skills. Which means the system doesn't fail when someone like Ellen Tara James-Penney sleeps in her Volvo with $140,000 in debt. That's the system working exactly as designed.