Long-time readers are aware of my fascination, healthy or not, with Professor Turchin & his colleagues’ work in structural demographic theory (SDT). One of the themes of their books on the subject is the struggle of those who are members of elite overproduction, which is a fancy way of saying that the population of the elite classes of a society tends to balloon in relation to the non-elite members, until those who must perform the work are insufficient to keeping the elite in the luxury to which they feel entitled. The struggle encapsulates the conundrum faced by children of the elite who discover they are to be ejected into the lower classes: perhaps they are not inheriting a title of nobility from their parents, or the fortune necessary to be recognized as a member of the elite classes; or whatever defines a member of the elite class in the contextual society.
A not atypical response to an impending downgrade in position is violence. Internecine wars, assassinations, that sort of thing. See Turchin & Nefedov’s SECULAR CYCLES for an authoritative overview. The point is that, for many humans, their position in the social order is so important that accepting a societal demotion, to maybe have to work for a living, is simply not acceptable.
So what brought this on? We’ve been watching The Sounds series recently, and what rocked my world was a scene in Episode 6 in which Tom, an alcoholic who has cheated on his wife and killed someone, is negotiating with his wife in the time-honored way of alcoholics in Western society, to not be booted out of the marriage. It was most painful, and I’m sure social workers and psychologists were shivering in recognition at his behavior, and his wife, a strong-will person herself, confronting the problem of knowing when to trust this person to which she’s been married for quite a while … and when not to.
But what really got my attention was not Tom’s, the alcoholic, arguments concerning trust, but when Tom, who comes from an elite family but, unexpectedly, will not be inheriting the family business, abruptly shouts, I’m not going to be poor! I shan’t reveal more in order to avoid the traditional spoilers accusation, but it made me shiver to realize that, for him, retaining his social position, as signified by wealth, was more important than the trust of his wife. That extra motivation made me wonder if the storytellers are familiar with SDT, because that frantic obsession and focus on wealth reminds me of some members of today’s society.
And it’s not a bad little series, if you’re looking for something to watch.
