My admittedly secondhand application of Turchin is that societal cooperation is cyclical: combinations of chance (the contingencies of human agency included IMO) and necessity build it up, and later tear it down. The band-of-brothers stuff is probably necessary but not sufficient to achieve that cooperation long term: e.g. you build an interstate highway system, and invent TCP/IP to enable certain types of cooperation (travel and communication) in a nuclear conflict. Both frameworks have wide benefits for cooperation beyond a conflict scenario. Both frameworks, in addition to various benefits, enable social fragmentation. This over time breaks down, or at least adds friction to, social cooperation and cohesion.

“And, of course, none of this is new — William James published ‘The Moral Equivalence of War’ in 1910.”

Absolutely it’s not new. I’d just add that progressives I know watch movies like Sebastian Junger’s documentary Restrepo and lament they can’t foster on behalf of their ideology that you witness between the members of the 173rd Airborne Brigade’s Battle company. As James Burnham wrote fifty years ago: no one but saints and neurotics is willing to die for a five percent increase in Medicare spending.

Nah – -there’s always college football. But the band-of-brothers, us-against-them stuff is certainly not the only kind of cooperation and arguably not the kind you can use as a solid foundation for a stable cooperative society.

And, of course, none of this is new — William James published ‘The Moral Equivalence of War’ in 1910.

It won't be Hillary; it might be Trump but nobody knows. It is more likely to be white, mildly pro-life Republican — precisely because the Dem culture war against the working class whites has been so successful.

One could easily argue that Trump supporters are, even now, developing asabiya, starting with the sticking together and cooperating, with the imposing its will on others to come. This after the Dem asabiya of minorities, gays, anti-capitalists & anti-Christians have been successfully imposing their wills.

I don't like the word so much, but there is something different than merely the "Us" vs "Them", and again different than the "Insiders" vs "Outsiders".

The hope for Libertarian anti-asabiya efforts might well be to have Dems lose, and have pro-Life Reps start dominating and controlling, and creating a political coalition to genuinely reduce the power of the state to control.

It seems most likely to get worse, possibly much worse, before it gets better.

I think I remain optimistic about a future libertarian society that is sustainable without external conflict. I think its important to distinguish between the forces that help establish highly cooperative social organizations from those that cause them to later decay/decline/fall.

I think this idea of “asabiya” applies more to the rise than the decline of empires.

I am relieved to read this is how older societies broke down because it clearly could never happen here.