Andrew Brown of the Guardian looks at Turchin’s theory and concludes, if war builds civilisations, the left has a problem:
One of the things I like about this argument is that it explains why western Europe has welfare states and the US has not. The welfare states of western Europe had their genesis as a means of war preparation – you can see this very clearly under Bismarck – and grew to seem inevitable in the period from 1914 to 1945, when the continent ripped itself apart in war, and the necessity of solidarity was obvious to all the survivors. The American experience of those years was entirely different.
This is something that really ought to worry the left. It’s rather frightening to think that the solidarity of being all bombed together was largely responsible for the spirit of 1945. No wonder Ed Miliband can’t bring it back. Things may be bad today but they aren’t that bad, or not bad in that way. So it’s most unlikely they will get better.
The USA doesn’t have a welfare state? Tell us another one.