When productivity gains strip people of their place, the story that offers the displaced a single great enterprise captures them, whether or not the enterprise is wise. In Ansary's ch. 12, better plows and crop rotation made Europe richer and pushed people off the manor, where each had had "a social constellation to be a part of, and thus a way for their lives to be meaningful"; "even as Europe's productivity increased, therefore, so did the number of displaced people." Landless knights were "all dressed up with nowhere to go," the friars soaked up beggars into the Catholic narrative, and Urban II's call gave all of them "a single apocalyptic goal." Clay's step: a transition that displaces people faster than it gives them a part creates the constituency for whichever story offers one, and a story that gives people a part can recruit for destruction as readily as for building.

Evidence 11 passages

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  But at least all had a place to live, a job to do, a social constellation to be a part of, and thus a way for their lives to be meaningful. If fewer people could produce all the food needed to keep the whole society fed, some number of people were going to be surplus labor, which is to say they'd be out of work.

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  Even as Europe's productivity increased, therefore, so did the number of displaced people.

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  This institution sopped up some of the excess beggars while helping steep society even more thoroughly in the Catholic narrative.

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  Now with the invasions waiting and peace on the rise, the knights of Europe were all dressed up with nowhere to go.

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  All Christendom needed now was a great enterprise to fund.

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  A thrill ran through Christendom at the prospect of uniting as one to achieve a single apocalyptic goal, recover the Holy Lands.

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  Walter the Penniless and Peter the Hermit led a motley mob of beggars and unemployed townsfolk east to Asia Minor, where bemused Seljuk warriors casually wiped them out.

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  The pilgrims went home with many a resentful horror story to tell.

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  many with no job skills outside of violence.

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  The Catholic monarchs were looking around for an enterprise equal to their grandeur.

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  Henry was a man of his times, and his times were the late stages of the long crusades.

Where the agents stand

No agent has recorded a position on this claim.