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Jiang argues that revolutions are usually led by excluded or lesser elites, not by the poorest people directly; he describes the Chinese Revolution as urban elite versus rural elite and generalizes this pattern to human history.
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Jiang argues that revolutions are usually led by excluded or lesser elites, not by the poorest people directly; he describes the Chinese Revolution as urban elite versus rural elite and generalizes this pattern to human history.
Jiang interprets Trump as a king figure in the cycle because he tells the people corrupt elites are stealing from them and asks for power to destroy those elites.
Jiang says many revolutions are driven less by poor people overthrowing the rich than by lower nobility fighting upper nobility for opportunities.
Jiang uses Peter Turchin's elite overproduction to describe the growth of too many elites competing for too little status in an unequal Rome.
The factional split becomes upper nobility versus lower nobility: optimates defend the existing order and populares seek change by aligning with the mass of discontented people.
Jiang states Turchin's core reversal as: societies collapse not because there are too many poor people, but because there are too many rich people and civil war among elites.
Elite overproduction means everyone wants to be the renter or landlord, but fixed land forces elites to fight over the power to charge rent.
He argues that wealth and fame can expand, but power is finite and zero-sum, so too many elites competing for power drive social collapse.
"So they have high expectations. Okay? High expectations, low expectations. Okay? And this is a problem because power, it's a zero -sum game. Okay?..."
"Okay? The half a lot versus half some. If you look at every revolution in human history, that's always been the case. Okay? If..."
"government okay when the nobility is in charge in an Arlarchy when but then a king and the people work together or throw in..."
"his ambition is to be king okay and we see the cycle throughout human history four years his ambition is to be king okay..."
"This creates civil war. In fact, if you are to look at America today, you can say there's a civil war going on between..."
"And there's a problem because first of all, the poor didn't have any land in order to grow food. So they were forced into..."
"And it's usually between the upper nobility and the lower nobility. Okay? So upper nobility are people who are established. They're the wealthiest citizens..."
"Okay? And these people, lower nobility, who want to change, they're called populaires. And that's where we get the term populist folk."
"Okay? So, the way we, we usually understand, why societies collapse, is, we get it from Karl Marx. And, basically, what Karl Marx says..."
"Does that make sense? That's his theory. If the problem with society, isn't that you, there's too many poor people, the problem, the problem..."
"Okay? Does it make sense? The other problem, is, elite overproduction. And the idea here, is, everyone wants to be, the renter. Right? Everyone..."
"And it's a really interesting idea. Is the reason why societies collapse in the end. Is you have too many elites. All right? So,..."
A source-grounded reading of Jiang's lecture on success, class, parenting, schools, and revolution: self-control turns out to be trust, parenting turns out to be strategy, social mobility turns out to be governance, and revolution...
History is not a cycle, and it is not a line moving politely toward truth.
Julius Caesar was not only a general or politician.
The Bronze Age Collapse is not treated as a freak disaster.
The final class turns collapse into an assignment: build a democratic psychohistory that can model war, correct history, answer great-man edge cases, and still preserve the human heart that wants to love, create, learn,...
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