Great Empires die not by murder but by suicide.  Arnold Toynbee

On a stroll down Pearl Street Mall the night before leaving for Greece to attend a family wedding, I ran into City Club member Brett Berry and casually mentioned that I still did not have “The Book” to take on my trip, so I was planning to read The Fourth Turning Is Here. 

More intellectual and passionate by nature than I am at the top of my game, Brett waxed philosophic at length as to why, instead, I should read End Times by Peter Torchin. 

Having slugged through Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations, The Rise and Fall of Great Empires, and The Fourth Turning, which City Club member Steve Smith has reviewed, I was not sure I wanted to spend my vacation reading End Times. Half an hour later, Brett showed up at our house with a new book copy. Case closed; I had my book.

First, the bad news. Everything is cyclical, and America is currently riding the down elevator. “Deaths of Despair,” including suicide, alcoholism, and drug abuse, are way up. The wealth gap between the upper 1% and the lower 50% continues to grow. Our public debt has never been higher. Higher education costs more and pays less than it used to. College graduates, the new “frustrated elite aspirant class,” with substantial student loans, earn a minimum wage working as baristas. “From the French Revolution to the Arab Spring, frustrated youth with advanced degrees have been the most significant factor in driving societal upheavals.” 

Diminished economic conditions for the less educated, which Hillary Clinton called the deplorables – our version of Les Miserables – combined with the decline in social institutions like marriage, family, church, labor unions, public schools, and neighborhood associations create a fertile ground for the pitchforks to come out. This is what the anthem of such revolution sounds like today: Rich Men North of Richmond

The good news: The ruling class, comprised of an overabundance of elite aspirants, might learn from history that it is in its ultimate enlightened self-interest to peacefully rebalance the system and avoid the societal chaos that has accompanied every chronic systemic wealth/power imbalance throughout the ages. 

Let’s pray for a wise new leader and a new New Deal. Meanwhile, on suicide watch, one must stay vigilant, and remain optimistic.

— Sina.