Peter Turchin — Intra-Elite Competition: A Key Concept for Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Societies

Intra-elite competition is one of the most important factors explaining massive waves of social and political instability, which periodically afflict complex, state-level societies. This idea was proposed by Jack Goldstone nearly 30 years ago. Goldstone tested it empirically by analyzing the structural precursors of the English Civil War, the French Revolution, and seventeenth century’s crises in Turkey and China. Other researchers (including Sergey Nefedov, Andrey Korotayev, and myself) extended Goldstone’s theory and tested it in such different societies as Ancient Rome, Egypt, and Mesopotamia; medieval England, France, and China; the European revolutions of 1848 and the Russian Revolutions of 1905 and 1917; and the Arab Spring uprisings. Closer to home, recent research indicates that the stability of modern democratic societies is also undermined by excessive competition among the elites (see Ages of Discord for a structural-demographic analysis of American history). Why is intra-elite competition such an important driver of instability?...

Cliodynamica — A Blog about the Evolution of Civilizations
Intra-Elite Competition: A Key Concept for Understanding the Dynamics of Complex Societies
Peter Turchin | Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Connecticut, Research Associate in the School of Anthropology, University of Oxford, and Vice-President of the Evolution Institute

Alexrpt — “F**K the EU”. After tearing apart Syria and Libya, White House tells Europe it will not help with refugee crisis

Another cost of being vassals. But the US was not alone in this. Then French president Sarkozy was behind the Libya fiasco.

Red Pill Times
“F**K the EU”. After tearing apart Syria and Libya, White House tells Europe it will not help with refugee crisis

Alexrpt

Mark Buchanan — Economics beyond shocks??

Place a lit cigarette in an ashtray in a closed room where the air is perfectly still. As everyone knows, the smoke will rise, but not in a simple regular flow; the rising flow is unstable, begins to wobble, and then breaks out into a tangled mess -- turbulence. You don't need any outside cause or shock to the rising smoke to make it happen. 

Economies do highly irregular things too, as a rule, going through repeated booms and busts, and yet economists seem quite hesitant to see such fluctuations as the result of similar natural instability. In recent decades, at least, they seem to have greatly preferred the idea that fluctuations around average growth must be caused by "shocks" to the economy of some kind.…

In Bloomberg, I've written about some new work that puts this RBC theory into a very new light. It suggests, in fact, that theories of this basic class, if examined more closely, actually predict the existence of inherent instabilities in economies.…

The Physics of Finance

Economics beyond shocks??
Mark Buchanan

Michael Klare — The Hunger Wars in Our Future: Heat, Drought, Rising Food Costs and Global Unrest

The Great Drought of 2012 has yet to come to an end, but we already know that its consequences will be severe. With more than one-half of America's countiesdesignated as drought disaster areas, the 2012 harvest of corn, soybeans, and other food staples is guaranteed to fall far short of predictions. This, in turn, will boost food prices domestically and abroad, causing increased misery for farmers and low-income Americans and far greater hardship for poor people in countries that rely on imported U.S. grains.

This, however, is just the beginning of the likely consequences: if history is any guide, rising food prices of this sort will also lead to widespread social unrest and violent conflict.

Food -- affordable food -- is essential to human survival and well-being. Take that away, and people become anxious, desperate, and angry.

Read it at Truthout
The Hunger Wars in Our Future: Heat, Drought, Rising Food Costs and Global Unrest
Michael Klare, TomDispatch | News Analysis
(h/t Kevin Fathi via email)

Alex Jeffries — Revolutionary Conditions

The three main indicators of collapse seem to be oil use decline, debt deflation and population decline, with oil the leading indicator and population the lagging indicator. But given the food crisis that is now upon us, it is starting to look like it won’t be lagging by very much.

Read it at Club Orlov
Revolutionary Conditions

Alex Jeffries
(h/t Peak Oil)

Bill Moyers interviews James K. Galbraith — Zero Hedge

JKG: An extraordinary concentration of wealth is an extraordinary concentration of power. Favorite Adam Smith quote (the only short sentence): "Wealth is power, as Mr. Hobbes says."

Read an excderpt and watch the videos at Zero Hedge
Bill Moyers and James K. Galbraith Talk About the Financial Crisis and John Kenneth Galbraith
Submitted by ilene

Not what you'd expect to see at Zero Hedge. Good for them.

The videos were posted at Jesse's.

Interview: Jamie Galbraith on Inequality and Instability

For your weekend viewing pleasure.

Real News Network YouTube videos posted at Naked Capitalism.
Jamie Galbraith on Inequality and Instability
by Yves Smith