What is ‘elite overproduction’?
I agree that societal instability stem from problems within the elites, but not sure it&#x27;s due to &#x27;elite overproduction&#x27; necessarily. I think it has more to do with divergence of interests within the elites. Even without elite overproduction, if the interests of a significant segment of the elites diverged from the interests of the rest of the elites, then you will have societal breakdown, civil war, etc.<p>One example is the american revolution where the one group of elites in the british empire wanted good relations with the indians to protect their fur trade while another group of elites wanted to invade native areas and steal their land. Don&#x27;t think there was an issue of elite overproduction in the british empire in the mid 1700s. But there was an issue of divergent interests and there was no room for compromise as these competing interests directly conflicted with each other.<p>Another one is the civil war, where the interests of the industrial north ( the desire to protect industry via tariffs ) directly conflicted withe the interests of the agrarian south ( who wanted to remove tariffs ) so they could sell cotton&#x2F;agricultural goods to foreign markets. Once again, I don&#x27;t think there was an overproduction of elites in the north or the south in the 1850s.<p>But I guess if the elite overproduction was severe enough, it could structural conflict of interests. But my guess is that conflicts would naturally arise amongs the elites long before elite overproduction.