Elite Overproduction and Duchatelet

rananegra

A few weeks ago I came across what was to me a new concept: elite overproduction. It was devised by anthropologist Peter Turchin and is summarised in layman's terms here. The idea is that since the 70s wages in the US (and by implication the western world) have stagnated while the rich have reaped the benefits of gains in productivity. While this has clearly been bad news for people at the bottom, it has meant that there are more people at the top, holding greater wealth. However, this does not necessarily translate into power or office as the number of offices available has more or less stayed the same. So, it means there are a lot of politically engaged wealthy people with no obvious outlet for that political engagement. He notes a similar process with law degrees, but it could apply to much higher education generally - I guess the equivalent here would be Oxbridge PPE, I've no idea whether these have expanded to the same extent. This is what is termed elite overproduction - there are far more people who think they should fill elite political roles than there are roles available, so causing more discord amongst the elite. This part I think chimes well with observable politics post-WW2: concensus between the main parties which starts to break down at the end of the 60s and is fractured entirely by the coming to power of Reagan and Thatcher. The Democrats in the US and Labour here then accepted the changes made by them in the 90s and tried to ameliorate the worst excesses of the new world order, resulting in a resurgent populist right, as characterised by the Tea Party, Trump and UKIP. All of this populist right wing has characterised itself as standing up for the "little guy" and cloaked itself as anti-elite, despite being funded or fronted by billionaires or multi-millionaires who are excluded from regular political angles.

So far, it just looks like it applies to politics. But then I thought about another member of the elite who played at politics, failed and then moved on. Duchatelet is typical of the elite - rich, arrogant and convinced he is right about everything. He failed at politics and decided he would try to revolutionise another area of public life: football. To be fair to him, I don't think his initial ideas that there are problems in football connected to money are wrong, he's just ridiculously cack-handed in dealing with them and when Financial Fair Play fell by the wayside, he had no plan B.

These are initial thoughts but I don't think it is just Duchatelet's involvement in football which is a sign of elite overproduction. The influx of money into the English game from Russia, China and SE Asia is also a sign, as the control of politics is very strong in those countries, so there is no opportunity to influence political life, but controlling a football club can be seen to have many of the same thrills.

Algarveaddick

Never heard that theory. It makes perfect sense generally and in the case of Duchatalet.

Dippenhall

I agree some owners have turned to buying football clubs as an outlet for exercising power, and that in Duchatelet's case it's something different - like using his wealth to create a football community for Morris dancers to come together with those with a passing interest in football. He has no Plan B because without Plan A he has no plan.

Let's hope he does not think up a Plan B.

PassItToLeaburn

It makes a lot of sense. All these super rich people with an inflated sense of self worth based on their misconception that a person's worth is reflected in their bank balance. Once they're bored with all of the money and they've bought all of the stuff that they want (not even new shoes in Roland's case!) then they realise that the way to get their kicks is to impose their superior ideas on the 'normal' people.

Politics is the most obvious route to this as you're controlling people's every day lives, fail at that though then buying your way into the fanaticism and tradition of a football club in order to influence a large group of people is a sensible next step. We know from day one that Roland saw this as some kind of social reprogramming where we would go to football to socialise as families and dance and sing. Look at the changes that they have actually made away from the playing side (spent money on loungers, the fan sofa (that you had to dance to get onto), the dance music, the family days etc etc), they are all geared towards this, even their unwanted intervention in the POTY do carries this hallmark. Roland doesn't want groups of blokes meeting up and drinking and being passionate about the game, he wants people to have a picnic and a boogie behind the Covered End. In isolation none of these things is necessarily bad in itself but they need to be a sideshow to football as the main event, not the principle aim. If they're the principle aim then the football falls apart and the crowd that you wanted to influence disappears. This has happened already.

I think we mistakenly gave him credit for far too long for being intelligent because he made money and for looking to make a profit when it is quite possible that he wants influence more than money as a return for his investment.