几句关于精英产出过剩的笔记 (A Few Words on Elite Overproduction)

Elite Overproduction by Peter Turchin is not exactly 内卷 but I think a good frame that could help the debate. Definitely relevant for the contemporary US.

We often see the Trump people as “the problem,” but actually they’re really not the problem. They’ve always been there. The problem is the formulation of a social group of people with advanced degrees who seem themselves as better than the Trump people, even as they work at Starbucks. Rather, precisely because they work at Starbucks, they have to use cultural signaling to justify their eliteness. This group is actually more of a wildcard than the Trump group.

The thing is, 内卷 is the forces and pressures of markets that prevent material progress; elite overproduction saturates markets with people who feel superior than the jobs they’re asked to do. And overeducation is a force of social instability (without a doubt). Education should always be a good, celebrated thing. That’s the idealistic dream. And I think we should have that dream. Everyone can read and write, etc. But the problem is, education can become an industry in and of itself. (This happens in many places — piano in China, or English) Quality varies; outcomes varies. Costs are high. And these costs are interwoven with class status. Parents want to pass their class status down to their children or even improve the status. The problem is, these pressures are causing people to overinvest. And their kids are getting two masters degrees and are working at Starbucks. And then they become Marxist, which is the red flag of a broken society.

So now we have a country of Trump supporters and cappuccino communists. And that’s a toxic combination. The first group never got an education, the second group got too much of one. Neither is happy. The two groups feed off each other. But it’s part of why it’s hard to have a common consensus rhetoric. Wokeness is a big part of the elite’s repertoire. It signals that they are elite.

Let’s pose a question. How much can getting into a good university really change a person’s life? What’s the stats on expected annual income, etc. With certain US schools, the average is still pretty high. But it’s uneven between undergrad and grad. Like certain Harvard masters degrees make less than community college degrees.

What’s distinct in China it seems is, going to a university in itself doesn’t seem to confirm elite status in China. Whereas in the US, because of the costs involved, it does. It’s like driving a Tesla. 科举/高考 system can easily lend itself to elite overproduction, But at least as of now it doesn’t seem to have happened in China. It also seems like China is keen of preventing the formulation of too clear a distinct identity among elites.

A great example is television. Chinese television may not be successful in terms of artistic quality. But it is very successful in flattening society. There aren’t really “elite” shows it seems. In the US, There are certain shows I guarantee you only university grads watch. Whereas《奇葩说》 has a mandate to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible. The West Wing would be a classic example. It’s so professional. It’s like, hey, how does a bureaucracy work, and it’s profiling jobs that all those uni grads would want. Friends on the other hand was broad. People without college degrees watched friends. As did those with degrees.

One of the interesting things about the US cultural marketplace is that is has always been niche. There have been exceptions but it’s always more or less been a collection of subcultures. What Spielberg recognized in the 1970s was that one could make a “broad” blockbuster and take a bigger piece of the market. But we shouldn’t let the blockbusters of Hollywood define the Hollywood narrative: when you look closely, the real stuff trends niche. The blockbuster is a commercial response to eliteness and nicheness. It’s a way of solving that problem. Another way of solving that problem somewhere else is censorship.

Honestly, what you see in America is very clear. It’s just decadence. All those ideals of the 1960s that made sense then have just followed through to their logical extremes. From gay rights to trans pets. From universal education to 200k debt for an education. Decadence is the extreme moral excesses of what was once a good thing.Many of the problems we see today began with good intentions. But they just continue unchecked and unabated to the point where it’s like alcoholism. From a healthy glass of wine to pure alcoholism. We are in the alcoholism stage now preparing for detox.