‘‘NO GROUP IS MORE DANGEROUS,” growled Theodore Dalrymple in 2014, “than the disgruntled literate.” Two years later, in Ages of Discord, the political scientist Peter Turchin made the same point, stating famously that “one of the most reliable predictors of state collapse and high political instability is elite overproduction”.
The problem, as Dalrymple and Turchin both see it, is that the sharp-elbowed bourgeoisie makes often considerable sacrifices to obtain an education, with the aim of then securing employment that affords status and compensation commensurate with that sacrifice. And when there are more sharp-elbowed strivers than juicy jobs, the also-rans become restive.
Turchin argues that this is the predicament in which America finds itself at present: with an excess of would-be middle-class courtiers, managers and nobles and too few desirable positions for them all to fill. He predicted in 2016 that this would drive a period of growing unrest as intra-elite competition intensifies, that will peak in the 2020s.
American political events so far this decade have done nothing to dispel the impression that Turchin is onto something. But while he draws on American history to develop his thesis, one aspect of contemporary elite overproduction is historically unprecedented: the pronounced, and growing, overrepresentation of women.
A competing female elite
THE SEX RATIO IN AMERICAN COLLEGES was last balanced 50/50 in 1978, and women have outnumbered men every year since then. Today, women make up 57 per cent of the US student body. In September the Wall Street Journal reported that over the last year, the proportion of female to male college students on American two- and four-year courses has shifted even more markedly, to 59.5 per cent vs 40.5 per cent respectively.
In 2007, the US census bureau estimated that two million more American women held bachelor’s degrees than men, and the year-on-year increase in this sex disparity has compounded the gap since then. At private
