15. Wealth Gaps. Large and widening wealth gaps tend to lead to periods of greater con ict, especially when economic conditions become bad and people are
ghting over a shrinking pie.
16. Values Gaps. While wealth matters, it is not the only thing that people ght over. Values (e.g., in religions and ideologies) matter a lot too. History shows us that widening values gaps, especially during periods of economic stress, have tended to lead to periods of greater con ict, while shrinking values gaps tend to lead to periods of greater harmony. This dynamic is driven by the fact that people tend to coalesce into tribes that are bound together (often informally) by the magnetism of their members’ commonalities. Naturally, such tribes operate with each other in ways that are consistent with their shared values. When under stress, people with greater values gaps also prove to have greater con ict. They frequently demonize members of other tribes rather than recognizing that those other tribes, like themselves, are simply doing what is in their self-interest in the best ways they know how.
17. Class Struggles. In all countries throughout time, though to varying degrees, people are sorted into “classes,” either because they choose to be with people like themselves or because others assign them to a class. Power is usually shared among three or four
classes who in aggregate make up only a small percentage of the population. The classes people are in typically determine who their friends and allies are and who their enemies are. They are sorted into these classes whether they like it or not because people stereotype. While rich and poor are the most common class distinctions, there are many other important ones, such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender, lifestyle, location (e.g., urban versus rural), and politics (right versus left). Early in the Big Cycle, when times are good, there is generally more harmony among the classes, and when things are bad toward the end, there is more ghting. Class warfare has profound e ects on the internal order, which I will explore in Chapter 5. For more on this determinant, see the addendum to this chapter.
18. The Political Left/Right Cycle. In all societies there are swings between the political left and the political right that determine how wealth and power are distributed. The swings are sometimes peaceful and sometimes violent and are always important to understand. Typically, the big cycle in the capital markets, along with cycles in wealth, values, and class divisions, drive the political left/right cycle because these create the motivations for political change. When capital markets and economies are booming, wealth gaps typically increase. While some societies succeed at striking a relatively sensible and steady balance between left and right, more frequently we see cyclical swings between norms. These swings typically occur throughout empires’ rises and declines, in roughly 10-year cycles.
The big economic crises that mark the end of the Big Cycle often herald revolutions. For more, see the addendum to this chapter.
19. The Prisoner’s Dilemma Must Be Solved for Peace to Exist. The prisoner’s dilemma is a concept from game theory that explains why, even when the best thing for two parties to do is to cooperate, the logical thing for each to do is to kill the other rst. That is because survival is of paramount importance, and while you don’t know for certain if your opponent will attack you, you do know that it is in their interest to defeat you before you defeat them. It’s for this reason that deadly wars are best avoided by both sides establishing mutually assured protections against existential harms. Exchanging bene ts and creating
interdependencies that would be intolerable to lose further reduces the risk of con ict.
20. Whether There Are Win-Win Relationships or Lose-Lose Relationships. It is up to both parties to choose what kind of relationship they have. That is true at all levels of relationships, from individuals up to countries.
Most fundamentally, parties can choose whether to have a cooperative win-win relationship or a threatening lose-lose relationship—i.e., to be allies or enemies—
though actions by both determine what type of relationship they will have and whether it will work well. To be clear, win-win relationships can exist between competitors as long as each side does not pose an existential risk to the other (see the prisoner’s dilemma). All that’s required is that they know and respect each other’s existential red lines. Parties in win-win relationships can have tough negotiations, competing like two friendly merchants in a bazaar or two teams at the Olympics. Having win-win relationships is obviously better than having lose- lose relationships, but sometimes there are irreconcilable di erences that must be fought over because they can’t be negotiated away.
21. The Big Balance of Power Cycle That Drives the Big Peace/War Cycle Both Within Countries and Between Countries. The balance of power dynamic is the timeless and universal dynamic of allies and enemies working to gain wealth and power. It drives virtually all struggles for power, from o ce politics to local politics, and from national politics to geopolitics. In some cultures this game is played a bit di erently than in other cultures—e.g., in Western society it is played more like chess while in Asian societies it is played more like Go—though the objective is the same: to dominate the other side. It has always existed and still exists everywhere and appears to transpire along a consistent series of steps, which I describe in more detail when discussing the internal order in Chapter 5 (even though these same forces apply equally to internal and external power struggles). For a more complete explanation of how the balance of power cycle works, see the addendum to this chapter.
22. Military Strength and the Peace/War Cycle. History shows us that military strength—whether one’s own or another’s via alliances—is a critical determinant of outcomes, sometimes because the mere threat of force is power and sometimes because the use of force is required. Military strength is readily observable and measurable, but it can also be qualitatively assessed.
Internationally, military strength is especially important because there is no e ective international judicial and enforcement system. This leads to countries needing to ght to test their relative powers and a cycle of war and peace that I will explain when discussing the external order cycle in Chapter 6.