Commentary on his paper in Nature by Arthur Dahl 17 April 2013
For those who have been following the line of thinking about the
potential collapse of civilization, starting with The Limits to
Growth (1972) and including Jared Diamond's Collapse and
Thomas Homer-Dixon's The Upside of Down (see Dahl
2008), there is an interesting new approach from a mathematical
modeler. Peter Turchin, a mathematical ecologist in the USA, felt he
needed a new challenge after modeling the rise and fall of biological
populations, and turned to history as a field that had not yet been
explored by mathematicians. He assumed that the growth of a civilization
or empire depends on social cohesion. Collecting data sets on a number of
past civilizations, using as an indicator collective violence, he looked
for patterns and cycles. Among other things, he found a 200 year cycle in
which population growth and technological innovation create wealth that is
concentrated by a wealth elite or expanding upper class. Eventually an
oversupply of labour makes it possible to drive the workers further into
poverty, but the poor do not revolt. A generation later, the young people
who no longer have access to the shrinking elite become the
revolutionaries, producing factionalism, anarchy and ultimately collapse,
before the cycle starts over again. He predicted a risk of political
instability and impending crisis in Western Europe and the USA peaking in
2020. The only way to avoid this would be to reduce social inequality.
The reference to the original paper is Turchin, Peter, 2010. Political
instability may be a contributor in the coming decade. Nature,
vol. 463, p. 608 (4 February 2010). doi:10.1038/463608a. It was cited in
Holmes, Bob, 2012, Revolutionary Cycles, New Scientist, 18
August 2012, p. 46-49.