Discussion

Elite overproduction

timmg: I'm one of those people that goes by the "all models are wrong, but some models are useful" saying.I'm sure the "elite overproduction" model is mostly wrong. But I also think it is an interesting/useful way to look at some things happening in society recently.Certainly, you can think of the recent "cancel culture" phenomena as a great way to remove elites to make room for new ones. (Maybe you could argue that some of the effects of MeToo were similar.)DEI -- along with hiring quotas -- tended to bring new "officials" at companies and government orgs ("head of diversity") which is another great way of "creating" more elites.Kinda neat, I think. But probably not super-explanatory.

jagged-chisel: I found this interesting:“… the two decades after World War II in the United States, a time of economic redistribution and reversal of upward social mobility.”Does anyone have a summary about the “reversal of upward mobility” bit? I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard that anywhere else and I don’t think I have the mental model to understand it intuitively without an explanation.

Yizahi: Article mixes "elites" and real elites. The mere usage of the term employment is a dead giveaway, among other issues. Real elites are not employed by someone as a general rule, with some exceptions of course. Article would be more aptly named "Overproduction of qualified or overqualified workers".

pfisherman: I associate this phrase with losers and people trying to sabotage the US. You know who is not wringing their hands about “elite overproduction”? China, who are pumping out tons of smart and capable STEM PhDs, and have in a relatively short time caught up to and in some cases surpassed the US in production of scientific output and technology.

whearyou: Per Turchin model, the declining population in China has created conditions for more elite-adjacent positions for all those STEM PhDs, preventing overproduction

ftmootnomoat: You just wanted to jam in this conversation your dislike of DEI (which can be criticised but it’s not the subject).Elite overproduction is about everybody wanting to be basically managers and nobody wanting to be production workers.Except that without enough production workers it’s impossible to justify “elite” positions.College graduates took on huge debt only to realise they’re not needed. That’s how you get a class of young, angry and unemployed intellectuals which is every government’s worst nightmare.

liveoneggs: hello fans of professor jiang

zingababba: It's been awhile since I've read Turchin but I'm pretty sure in his own examples elites are indeed employed in prestigious positions. Which is really his whole point, there are only so many prestigious positions. His example using musical chairs has always stuck with me.

Ekaros: I have largely gotten to idea that education never made elites. It was just signal most of time for someone who already belonged to elite class. From this people started to think that getting education would mean to become elite. But this was reality only for a few. And even with many of those it was questionable were they elites or only more skilled and more professional groups like say doctors and lawyers.

pwozgcw: Probably couples with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-intellectualism

atomic_reed: Elite overproduction = Elected overproduction = Elected mass-production.There are those that value equality (=). There are those that value non-equality (>).As elites of the history until now (>=6000 years-ago until now). We are the "chosen ones" who received "=" and ">" at an early age. These symbols are not "math" nor "school"; they are simply life to us.But now consider why there must be ">" in the world. On a relaxing beach, why must one wave be higher than another? How does the water "feel"? Warm? Is that ">" than cold?In my head, I see Master Epstein as 100, and other people as 17. 100 > 17. Master has died, so perhaps death > life. But I am only one person out of billions in the world. But I have not seen a billion people, am I over-trusting the books?So my point is that the Elite Overproduction model is more wrong than Master Epstein. In particular...1. If "elite overproduction model", then "Master Epstein model"2. "Elite Overproduction" = "Master Epstein"3. "Elite Overproduction" -> "Master Epstein"4. 100 > 17, so "Master Epstein" model > "Elite Overproduction" modelYou may not understand my point, but I hope you at least understand Master Epstein.

dkHasgrI12: China itself has a PhD and academics glut:https://www.economist.com/china/2025/11/19/china-has-too-man...Or maybe the Economist is "trying to sabotage China"?

whattheheckheck: Yeah society needs to be able to allow for thisIn Machiavelli's view. whoever desires to establish a kingdom or principality where liberty and equality to prevail, will equally fail, unless he withdraws from that general equality a number of the boldest and most ambitious spirits, and makes gentlemen of them not merely in name but in fact, by giving them castles and possessions, as well as money and subjects; so that surrounded by these he may be able to maintain his power, and that by his support they may satisfy their ambition, and the others may be constrained to submit to that yoke to which force alone has been able to subject them. ... But to establish a republic in a country better adapted to a monarchy, or a monarchy where a republic would be more suitable, requires a man of rare genius and power, and therefore out of the many that have attempted it but few have succeeded. (Discourses I; Machiavelli [15311 1950, chap. 55, p. 256

pembrook: So essentially, this is why the suburbs of Washington DC are among the highest income regions in the world.You don’t have to invent new technologies if you simply position yourself next to halls of power and the money printer.

sinuhe69: In the Turchin model of societal collapse, discussing elite overproduction alone is not helpful at all. The model calls for 3 pillars:- elite overproduction and limited job opportunities- wealth pump and inequality- declining of popular wellbeing and growing resentmentThus, it only makes sense to consider elite overproduction within this framework.

AreShoesFeet000: The last time the world had an intelligentsia of this magnitude, the Tsarist State fell.

ForHackernews: STEM PhDs and engineers are not the elite at issue here. They're talking about the social elite, and the angry wannabes shut out of the ruling class.

farialima: I think it’s just poorly worded; it’s about the upward mobility of the _generation born after the Second World War_. This generation lacked opportunities and this created unrest in the 60s and 70s.The previous generation – the one that reached adulthood before and during WW 2 – had upward mobility in the 40s, 50s, and wanted its children to have too

ftmootnomoat: It works in China because they have growth. In the west thousands of college kids thought they could land cushy management positions or at least highly paid expert jobs.Then these kids realise these jobs don’t exist, that they should have gone to trade school instead, and that their student debt will cripple them for life.Same thing will happen in China. For now their economy grows so fast it can absorb many intellectuals, but that won’t last forever.

pembrook: In my view, STEM PhDs are not members of the “elite.”Historically, in the US the elite are the managerial class, the lawyers (future politicians), and the coastal dilettantes who are already wealthy enough to major in the social sciences.When 1+ million students are getting MBAs every year in the belief they will be members of the C-suite, but there’s only a few thousand such positions, you have a case of elite overproduction.

marton78: My take: "Professor" Jiang is a CCP asset meant to destabilise the west. Change my mind.

TrackerFF: I've observed that when big waves of (labor) change washes over the working classes, it is met with "tough luck!" and some advice to seek a new profession, often starting again at the very bottom.But when this happens to the educated professional class, all hell breaks loose. The system has to change, because it is unthinkable for some professional with a master's degree to become a warehouse sorter.If AI really makes professional workers obsolete in the future, I fully expect the next revolution to be fronted by that class.

alexpotato: Isn't this partly what explained the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt?e.g. the government made university education free, lots of people went to university, there was now excess supply of college educated professionals, this led to unhappy young professionals, in turn led to unrest etc etc.

roenxi: I'm sure the actual theory goes in to a lot of detail in academic papers and whatnot, but the Wiki summary is to vague to be interesting. There is a key question left unanswered. Who are the elite?Are the elite:- billionaires?- top 1,000 Political leadership?- top Military leadership?- top 10% of society by wealth?- top 10% of society by influence?- smart people?- hard working people?- people with valuable economic skills?- people who went to university and got a degree?We have no idea from Wikipedia. It might be possible and practical to have an entirely elite society where everyone has a job for all I know reading that. I suspect we're all elite compared to the population of the 1500s.Just to put my oar in, there is a huge problem when people aren't allowed to better their own lives and also have nothing better to do than sit around discussing how to overthrow the power structure. How that matches up to elite overproduction theories I cannot say.

atq2119: > DEI -- along with hiring quotas -- tended to bring new "officials" at companies and government orgs ("head of diversity") which is another great way of "creating" more elites.If anything, it's a way of placating existing elites.The elite overproduction idea is that there is a surplus of people who feel that they should have an elite status compared to reasonably available elite positions.Creating additional managerial positions is a way to attempt to absorb this situation.

energy123: This is my model for Reddit. College educated individuals who are angry about their life, leading to a lot of well written posts about how everything is awful and everyone is evil.

ftmootnomoat: The problem with educated youth who understand the game is that if there’s no room for them to join the ruling class they become very angry.They will want to topple the elite so they can replace them.

jackdoe: > I fully expect the next revolution to be fronted by that class.the keyboard warriors?

PorterBHall: I have to wonder, too, if this partially describes why "Make America Great Again" has been such an effective slogan. The greatness that most Americans long to return to is a time where a larger middle class was able to more easily pay for health care, housing, and other needs.

ftmootnomoat: STEM and PHDs were definitely “elite” 40 years ago.For-profit degree-churning colleges made them not-so-elite through the law of supply and demand.And now they can’t even get a job.

whattheheckheck: And how every person who figures out enough stuff to buy a house with a 30 year mortgage... they get to climb a predestined little mountain to keep them busy

smallmancontrov: ...which is where the "Marx in a Moustache" critique comes from, because it's all just immediately downstream from inequality. But if you can slap a moustache on economic inequality, you avoid academic accusations of unoriginality and the popular antibodies against "he who must not be named."

whattheheckheck: Well also think about every fortune 1000 company and the mini fiefdoms that exist in each of them

llm_nerd: "Even though Canada has the highest percentage of workers with higher education in the G7, the nation's productivity ranks lower than every other nation's in this group except Japan. ... By August 2024, Canada's youth unemployment rate was 14.5%, the highest seen since 2012."A lot of does-not-follow suppositions are embedded in this. Nor does the article really seem to be talking about "elites", as career training is not some elite status.During the period in question Canada saw outrageous levels of immigration. The highest population growth, in absolute numbers, in the developed world. It was incredibly destructive.https://dennisforbes.ca/blog/features/10000_brainiacs/It was kind of the apogee of a problem that had grown for years, where Canada had leaned on low-cost, exploitable imported labour to avoid salary pressures, with that avoiding modernizing, automation, etc. With that massive immigration bulge we also moved to a housing-based economy where people no longer cared about normal avenues of entrepreneurial effort, but instead everyone became real estate speculators. Why start a business when you can just stand in line for some pre-con condos on the notion that you'll flip it at a big gain when complete. Or buy some dilapidated house and become a slumlord for a dozen international students.It was perverse incentive, and has been a lost decade for the country.

ftmootnomoat: They’re just angry at everything and everyone because they're 200K deep in debt with no way to pay for it.

keybored: Political theorists like that word resentment. Maybe they took it from Nietzsche.

NalNezumi: I've discussed Elite Overproduction with some economists and the best way for me to conceptualize this in modern day is with software, UI/design specifically.UI and design is weird. There's a saying in fashion "there's no new fashion, just cycled old ideas" and things have a trend cycle. UI have a similar trend, as we can see with IOS pattern update and icon update for Google: they're just new, but we can't really tell if it's "better". But UI designer still require busywork to justify their existence and salary, so we get new UIs now and then. Part of it just falls under the bullshit job category [1]When we ponder upon this, it boggles down to the fact that it's notoriously hard to distinguish "value creation" vs "value extraction". If I invent a fridge and it become commercially available or cheap enough so that people previously not able to purchase it can buy it, it's fairly easy to see it as value being created. A duopoly diluting milk with water to increase the profit margin, a search engine monopoly intentionally worsening it's search engine so we have to search twice (=twice the use!), a white ware company implementing planned obsolescence but better UI, looks good on the profit and balance sheet but was value now created, or extracted?Elite overproduction, though this scope, is not about some 1% but most "middle class and up" that doesn't really do anything meaningful (bullshit job, value extraction) in society but expects titles and yearly salary increase.This is not an issue when a society genuinely have room to grow (value creation is ample) but when the growth is harder to come by, but new generation expectations haven't changed. Then more jobs are created to extract value, and the burden start to bubble up[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs

roenxi: > If I invent a fridge and it become commercially available or cheap enough so that people previously not able to purchase it can buy it, it's fairly easy to see it as value being created.When you think about it, it actually isn't as obvious as you might think - which is the whole problem you talking about. Another way to recast it is there is some theoretical optimum use of resources and it is unclear whether the action you took is in line with that optimum or not. In fact, since reality is rather complicated, it probably isn't!I might liken the idea to a chess grand-master watching a club player and a total rookie play. From the grand-master's perspective, both sides are just blundering even though one is much more likely to win.In the same way some supreme hyper-intelligence might see the fridge creation as a horrific failure to allocate resources to create value and hence value-destructive in relation to the original resources, even though we mere mortals think it is a pretty good idea. All we can really do is compare things and talk about which one is more efficient.So it isn't just notoriously difficult to distinguish, but objectively almost everything we do is probably value destructive compared to a potential optimum allocation. Up until the 1950s or so even the best people managed was still pretty pathetic at creating value by modern standards. They weren't putting enough resources towards creating fertiliser, which is far worse than the milk-dilution example.

armchairhacker: > I've observed that when big waves of (labor) change washes over the working classes, it is met with "tough luck!" and some advice to seek a new profession, often starting again at the very bottom.Where have you observed this?I really believe that we should increase automation in blue-collar work, e.g. self-checkouts. But I don’t believe those displaced should “start at the bottom”. I believe they should get better (from their perspective) jobs, subsidized payments for whatever “job” they desire, or something in between (subsidized payments for jobs like community service and art, which have some value but don’t pay as much as they should because of desirability).I also believe we should do this for white-collar work, and executive-level. The only exception is jobs that benefit from human-ness, like service and figureheads, and these should be automated to be as easy (comfortable and effective) as possible while keeping the human.

scrappyjoe: > I associate this phrase with losersCompletely separate from the substance of your point, this sort of language does not encourage constructive dialog, it frames the discussion in such a way that you are either going to geta. People who agree with you, resulting in you not learning anything b. People who are triggered into fighting with you, once again, resulting in you not learning anything c. People ignoring you, resulting in you not learning anything.My constructive suggestion to you is that you simply don't write that first sentence. I suspect you (and everyone else!) will have a much more fruitful time online as a result!Edit: Spelling correction

oscaracso: Thank you for giving him the lesson on etiquette. I was going to do the same but you beat me to the punch, so instead I will just upvote you and move on without further remark.

terminalshort: Universities were just elite finishing schools. It's a status signal to be able to afford to spend 4 years of your youth not working, partying, and paying tuition to "study" subjects that have no economic value (studying practical things like medicine and law was not elite because it shows that you need to work for a living). This stopped being a status signal with the advent student loans because it removed the exclusivity, but it takes generations for the non elite to figure that out.

jgalt212: > Where have you observed this?NAFTA

galangalalgol: The western notion that a middle class whose well-being is independent of state owned enterprises should exist is destabilizing to the ccp, so retaliation seems likely.

armchairhacker: Education does increase upward mobility. But 1) you have to pay attention and use the education to find opportunities, and 2) it doesn’t guarantee it, you need opportunities in the first place.You can get more upward mobility by skipping education - but only if you what you do instead enables lots of upward mobility. For example, if you skip education to work in trades, you’ll have a reliable career and upfront cash; but the career’s growth is capped, so to become really successful, you must figure out how to use the upfront cash and reliable income (which probably involves research i.e. education).

keybored: Even people like me are getting masters degrees (working on it). I don’t understand how to square this with the inflation that these degrees have got.

PorterBHall: > When we ponder upon this, it boggles down to the fact that it's notoriously hard to distinguish "value creation" vs "value extraction".This is an excellent frame to think about this. When we look at the increasing financialization of consumer spending (subscriptions, buy now pay later, rebates, club discounts, etc.), we can think of it as disguising value extraction as value creation.

aleph_minus_one: > Universities were just elite finishing schools.Quite some time ago, I read the claim on HN that in the USA, elite universities rather serve the purpose that- "rich/elite" kids, and- highly smart and ambitious kidsget mixed together so that when they finish university, these groups become (mostly) indistinguishable. The reason why this a central purpose of elite universities is that these two groups need each other.

relaxing: I hope you’ve learned a valuable lesson about unsubstantiated claims on HN.

pfisherman: Yeah, you are not wrong. The topic is a bit like troll bait for me. Probably because I have a first hand view of how the current strain of anti intellectualism and resulting policy in the US is destroying jobs and eroding competitive advantage. My observation is that this type of rhetoric tends to be produced and consumed by “elites”, and is often used to advocate for policy that limits socioeconomic mobility.The irony is that in limiting mobility and competition from the “non elite” out-groups to preserve status, they end up shrinking the overall size of the pie.

scrappyjoe: That's a really interesting perspective.I've always taken the elite overproduction thing as an _analytical tool_ to help us make sense of why we have experienced the rise of an oppositional anti intellectual position in contemporary culture.But you make the good point that it can also be a _weapon_, leveraged by those oppositional groups, to justify their oppositional position.Perhaps this seeming tautology can be resolved with some systems thinking. Maybe there's some insight in the elite overproduction analysis, but that means that, as an argument for further polarising society it's a pretty effective tool. It's actually reinforcing the feedback loop! A fascinating example of a self fulfilling prophecy.

aleph_minus_one: > The problem with educated youth who understand the game is that if there’s no room for them to join the ruling class they become very angry.My experience/observation is that only few (university-)educated people really do understand the game. Only a subset of them actually make serious attempts to understand the rules of the game, and of those, most get to believe in often very dangerous falsehoods about what the rules are.

ftmootnomoat: The rules are simple and ancient: noble blood breeds nobles; common blood breeds commoners.What’s sophisticated are the layers of ideology and falsehood that made people believe that aristocracy was dead.

algo314: What you're saying is also similar to what Marx says about ideology that ruling sensibilities align with the interest of the bourgeoisie rather than proletariat. Same is true for geo-politics a man killed in a developed nation is somewhat exceptional to man killed in the "other" countries.

jmyeet: There's a double-whammy here of the Myth of Meritocracy [1] under capitalism and Prosperity Gospel [2] under Protestantism.After the Civil War we compensated slave owners. After the GFC we bailed out the banks. The government giving money to poor people is somehow a moral hazard yet the wealthy not only expect government handouts, they demand them.Many in tech don't seem to realize that after 2 centuries of automation coming for only blue-collar jobs, AI will finally come for theirs. Jobs losses, depressed wages, unpaid extra work and constant layoff churn. The heady heights of the 2010s will seem like a fairy tale.Except this time, unlike a century ago, there is no labor movement. It's been decimated. There is no effective pushback against further wealth concentration to like 100,000 people. The Jeff Bezoes of the world will demand even more government money so they can have $205 billion instead of $200 billion and things will get really bad until eventually we have a Russian or french type revolution.Too many people think it's a big club when it isn't. As George Carlin said, you're not in it [3]. People actively advocate for their own worsening material conditions because they're deluded into thinking they'll be Jeff Bezos one day.[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_meritocracy[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nyvxt1svxso

GerryAdamsSF: Revolution is no longer possible in the age of AI drones and Tiktok propaganda. The collapse of global society is much more likely than revolution.

csa: > get mixed together so that when they finish university, these groups become (mostly) indistinguishableSort of.1. It’s a place where capital can make friends with capable people who will be willing to work for them later.2. It gives the smart and ambitious “commoners” enough exposure to elite social circles such that they can learn and adapt some/most of the social standards (if they choose to do so, which most don’t). This is important, as all the brains in the world won’t do you much good if you don’t fit in, especially when it comes to the bigger money positions.3. The social shibboleths between the two groups are very real, and it usually takes less than 5 minutes hanging around someone to know which group they are in. There can be some false signals about being higher status, but those are hard to sustain for very long.Note that many “commoners” who go to elite schools end up hitting a glass ceiling in their 30s or so due to focusing on being smart and a skill person rather than being a socially savvy person. The social people will be able to make it rain later in life, and the skill people just get shifted around as needed.

BobaFloutist: >it is unthinkable for some professional with a master's degree to become a warehouse sorter.I mean I think you do actually have a salient point, but I also think there's a material difference between telling someone that's maybe been paid not a lot for half a of labor that they need to change industries and someone who's tens of thousands of dollars into debt that the implied social contract encouraging that debt was a house of cards and they need to start from scratch with 0 experience even ever being employed.

betaby: > But when this happens to the educated professional class, all hell breaks loose.If the programmers fall into the "educated professional class", then no, not in Canada. I personally know people with engineering/science degrees who became "warehouse sorters", baristas, metal workers, parcel deliverers, cooks in cafeteria. Some of them eventually found programming jobs again, others are still employed in blue collar/service jobs after 3+ years.

morkalork: Canadian programming job market is weird, places are hiring and can't find people, and people are looking and not being hired. IMO nobody wants a junior and everyone wants the mythically perfect candidate. Employers are gonna have to bite the bullet and hire people less qualified and train them up but they refuse.

ftmootnomoat: It's always been that way. They're looking for a senior at the price of a junior. That kind of job listing has always been around, and it makes companies look good to have openings.