Graz Schumpeter Lectures 2026 - Lecture 4

Social and political turbulence in the United States and Western Europe has been rising over the past decade. Cliodynamics, the new transdisciplinary field, which combines analysis of historical data with the tools of complexity science, has identified the deep structural forces that work to undermine societal stability and resilience to internal and external shocks. Here I look beneath the surface of day-to-day contentious politics and social unrest, and focus on the negative social and economic trends that explain our current “Age of Discord.” In America, the wealth pump has been operating full blast for two generations. In historical terms, our current cycle of elite overproduction and popular immiseration is far along the path to violent political rupture. In fact, today the USA finds itself in a situation that fits the definition of revolution, although, so far, fortunately a relatively non-violent one. The current focus of my research team is, how do we navigate our Age of Discord without descending into a hot civil war?