The election outcome has some consequences for the generational cycle. Recently I've been learning about another aligned cycle, Turchin's secular cycle, as outlineed in his books Secular Cycles and Ages of Discord. In pre-industrial times secular cycle were linked to population cycles. Each cycle was associated with a cycle in economic inequality with inequality paralleling population. The cause was that land was fixed, and this determined the demand for farm labor. Labor supply grew with population. So once all the land had been cleared, further population growth depressed real wages, resulting in rising inequality. Secular cycles since the end of the 15th century (i.e. the period cover by S&H) have spanned two saecula.
Ages of Discord is about applying the secular cycle to an industrial nation--America. I read part of it in mansucript in 2014 and it stimulated my thinking. I learned how to do secular cycle theory and now am familar with this cycle two. One of the key advantages of the secular cycle is it is an empirical cycle, unlike the saeculum which is a matter of opinion. This makes it like the 19th century K-cycle. A plot of wholesale prices shows the cycle. Thus, K-cycle theorists, whether they be Red or Blue, will agree on the 19th century date, because they both can consult a plot of wholesale prices. The saeculum depends on how you draw turnings, generations fans will draw truning for other countires or for the US since 1984 differently, partly based on thie politics. Although we are supposedly talking about the same things we percieve different things, which makes it a not very useful concept.
You can't really learn anything if you can't agree on whether the mammal you are looking is an elk or a bison.
So I have spend years trying to come up with a proxy for the saeculum that is empirical. That is take available data, some some calculations and produce an "oscillator" that lets you graph our the saeculum. I appear to have finally found one. It comes from a model for something called a "political stress indicator" (psi), that is basically a function of inequality. Psi was invented by Goldstone in the early 1990's as part of his Demographic-Structural Theory (DST) for periodic state breakdown, and used it to explain things like the English and French Revolutions, the Russian Revoltuion, and I think an event in the Ottoman Empire. All of these in agrarian times.
Turchin uses DST in his models for what causes secular cycles. In Ages of Discord he develops the secular cycle concept for the US. And he gives an equation for psi.
If you include slavery in your inequality calculation and then used the equations Turchin provides to calculate psi directly from inequality you get the result I show in the Turchin secular cycle thread. It shows psi rising and falling with peaks in 1780-4, 1865, and 1929. Look familar? They all occur in 4Ts, typically closer to the beginning of them. And what is psi doing now? it is rising fast, but has not yet peaked because inequality is still rising.
According to secular cycle theory, inequality should stop rising and start falling at some point. And around that time or shortly after there will be a peak in psi. At that point we should be early 4T. That point is still in the future.
This implies early 4T in around 2020 (at the earliest).
In previous work I had noted a correspondence between critical elections and early 4Ts. For example the critical election of 1860 was the actual crisis trigger for the Civil War 4T. Daniel Elazar mapps out a generational concept of political cycles that incoprates Schlesingers liberal/conservative eras and the concent of critical elections. He goes back to colonial times and sees the first Continential Congress in 1774 as equivlaent to a critical election. This Congress was called in response to the British respond to the 1773 Boston Tea Party, which was the trigger for the Revoltuionary 4T. And the 1932 critical election is considered the regeneracy for the last 4T. All early 4T events.
Based on my stock market cycle work, I had initially forecasted (in 2000) the 4T start for in the near future and so naturally thought of 2001 as the 4T start. One I had read about political cycles, I hypthesized if 2001 was right we should see two things: (1) the start of K-winter (this is an empirical indicator for this--no opinion involved) and (2) 2000 has to be a critical election (i.e. what Karl Rove thought) which would be confirmed by a Republican victory in 2008. Didn't happen, winter stubbornly failed to appear, and the GOP lost in 2008, so that put 2001 into the dumpster.
So now I considered 2008 as the 4T start. Once again we need the same two things. K-winter DID begin in 2007. I confirmed this in 2010 (http://www.safehaven.com/article/16716/s...may-2010). Confirmation would be a Democratic victory in 2016. Right up until Tuesday evening I fellt confident in my 2008 date for the 4T, then Trump won and that throws out 2008 as a critical election. But now I have the psi indicator that says early 4T in the early 2020s (at the earliest). Only the K-cycle proxy supports the 2008 date, the other two say not. So 2008 goes into the dumpster. So now we have to consider a possible 2016 start to be confirmed by (1) GOP wining a third term in 2024 and (2) a peak in psi around 2020.
I think you can see the problem here. I keep pushing back the 4T start date as what should happen based on past cycles fails to happen, over and over again. This is what you are supposed to do, change the theory to fit the facts, not try to "interpret" the facts to fit your theory. The first approach is science, the second is ideology.
A 2016 4T start implies a 32 year 3T following an 18-year 1T and a 20 year 2T. A 3T this long destroys the theory. So one would be inclined to reject it. But what is the point of the generational theory? When S&H wrote Generations they referred to it as a history of the future, and argued that in thirty years time we will know whether it works not. S&H were not much into testable predictions. But they made one. The crisis of 2020. Interestly Turchin also forecasts a crisis fof 2020. This is based on his fathers and sons cycle, which is a generational cycle that runs independently of the longer secular cycle. He models both in Ages of Discord.
It turns out Turchin's fathers and sons cycle are S&H generational cycles. He predicts a peak in "sociopolitical instability" around 2020. This is the frequency of violent social unrest events that lead to at least one death. So it is am empirical measure. What S&H mean by crisis of 2020 is unclear.
Turchin's dataset shows rising instability suggestive of a coming peak in 2020. But almost all of the recent events are rampage killings. For example there were many events of social unrest this year, but only two deaths. These two are completely dwarfed by the many of mass killings that have killed over a hundred people. So Turchin's indicator for this year would be dominanted by rampage events. The problem is that this measure isn't really empirical in a useful way. A liberal might agree that these events consitute sociopolitical instability (i.e. instability that is meaningful in that should generate a political response) but a conservative would not--unless the shooter is Muslim. In other words a mass shooting carried out by a non-Muslim is crime (i.e. background noise) while a mass shooting carried out by a Muslim is Islamic terrorism, and can then be linked to much more numerious such events in Europe and the Middle East. In other words the same data point is not seen as the same thing by the two observers, making it not empirical.
In contrast, a riot that ends up with a dozen dead will be seen as a signficant event of sociopolitical instability by both liberals and conservatives. Hence it is an empirical datapoint. Something like the Oklahoma city bombing would also qualify. But if you focus on just these kinds of events there is less of it now than there was back in the 1990's. So I am saying that there is no reason to beleive that there will be any meaningful rise in the sort of sociopolitical violence on which both liberals and conservatives can agree. That is, there will be no crisis of 2020, except for the crisis that exists in your mind. I'm sure we will all see a crisis in 2020, but when you look at it it will be a case of liberals looking and saying elk!, and the conservatives saying no, bison! This disagreement will be good evidence that there will be no there there.
2020 will be 30 years, and when the crisis fails to appear, the S&H saeculum as they definine it will have been invalidated. The model has failed every test thus far. People even now, can see a lot of 3Tish character to our present politics. How much of the Trump-Clinton battle based on cultural elements. How many fiscal conservatives voted against Trump for the sexist, xenophobic, racist stuff he said, even though they perferred him on economics. How many religious voters who detested Trump the man voted for him because of the Supreme Court and abortion. Did they spend much time talking about economics? Or was it mostly poltical gotcha bullshit and culture/identity issues? Was the 3T (culture wars) really over eight years ago? Does that even feel right? Or was it really the same old tired bullshit, with nobody expects anything to change, regardless of who won?
Ages of Discord is about applying the secular cycle to an industrial nation--America. I read part of it in mansucript in 2014 and it stimulated my thinking. I learned how to do secular cycle theory and now am familar with this cycle two. One of the key advantages of the secular cycle is it is an empirical cycle, unlike the saeculum which is a matter of opinion. This makes it like the 19th century K-cycle. A plot of wholesale prices shows the cycle. Thus, K-cycle theorists, whether they be Red or Blue, will agree on the 19th century date, because they both can consult a plot of wholesale prices. The saeculum depends on how you draw turnings, generations fans will draw truning for other countires or for the US since 1984 differently, partly based on thie politics. Although we are supposedly talking about the same things we percieve different things, which makes it a not very useful concept.
You can't really learn anything if you can't agree on whether the mammal you are looking is an elk or a bison.
So I have spend years trying to come up with a proxy for the saeculum that is empirical. That is take available data, some some calculations and produce an "oscillator" that lets you graph our the saeculum. I appear to have finally found one. It comes from a model for something called a "political stress indicator" (psi), that is basically a function of inequality. Psi was invented by Goldstone in the early 1990's as part of his Demographic-Structural Theory (DST) for periodic state breakdown, and used it to explain things like the English and French Revolutions, the Russian Revoltuion, and I think an event in the Ottoman Empire. All of these in agrarian times.
Turchin uses DST in his models for what causes secular cycles. In Ages of Discord he develops the secular cycle concept for the US. And he gives an equation for psi.
If you include slavery in your inequality calculation and then used the equations Turchin provides to calculate psi directly from inequality you get the result I show in the Turchin secular cycle thread. It shows psi rising and falling with peaks in 1780-4, 1865, and 1929. Look familar? They all occur in 4Ts, typically closer to the beginning of them. And what is psi doing now? it is rising fast, but has not yet peaked because inequality is still rising.
According to secular cycle theory, inequality should stop rising and start falling at some point. And around that time or shortly after there will be a peak in psi. At that point we should be early 4T. That point is still in the future.
This implies early 4T in around 2020 (at the earliest).
In previous work I had noted a correspondence between critical elections and early 4Ts. For example the critical election of 1860 was the actual crisis trigger for the Civil War 4T. Daniel Elazar mapps out a generational concept of political cycles that incoprates Schlesingers liberal/conservative eras and the concent of critical elections. He goes back to colonial times and sees the first Continential Congress in 1774 as equivlaent to a critical election. This Congress was called in response to the British respond to the 1773 Boston Tea Party, which was the trigger for the Revoltuionary 4T. And the 1932 critical election is considered the regeneracy for the last 4T. All early 4T events.
Based on my stock market cycle work, I had initially forecasted (in 2000) the 4T start for in the near future and so naturally thought of 2001 as the 4T start. One I had read about political cycles, I hypthesized if 2001 was right we should see two things: (1) the start of K-winter (this is an empirical indicator for this--no opinion involved) and (2) 2000 has to be a critical election (i.e. what Karl Rove thought) which would be confirmed by a Republican victory in 2008. Didn't happen, winter stubbornly failed to appear, and the GOP lost in 2008, so that put 2001 into the dumpster.
So now I considered 2008 as the 4T start. Once again we need the same two things. K-winter DID begin in 2007. I confirmed this in 2010 (http://www.safehaven.com/article/16716/s...may-2010). Confirmation would be a Democratic victory in 2016. Right up until Tuesday evening I fellt confident in my 2008 date for the 4T, then Trump won and that throws out 2008 as a critical election. But now I have the psi indicator that says early 4T in the early 2020s (at the earliest). Only the K-cycle proxy supports the 2008 date, the other two say not. So 2008 goes into the dumpster. So now we have to consider a possible 2016 start to be confirmed by (1) GOP wining a third term in 2024 and (2) a peak in psi around 2020.
I think you can see the problem here. I keep pushing back the 4T start date as what should happen based on past cycles fails to happen, over and over again. This is what you are supposed to do, change the theory to fit the facts, not try to "interpret" the facts to fit your theory. The first approach is science, the second is ideology.
A 2016 4T start implies a 32 year 3T following an 18-year 1T and a 20 year 2T. A 3T this long destroys the theory. So one would be inclined to reject it. But what is the point of the generational theory? When S&H wrote Generations they referred to it as a history of the future, and argued that in thirty years time we will know whether it works not. S&H were not much into testable predictions. But they made one. The crisis of 2020. Interestly Turchin also forecasts a crisis fof 2020. This is based on his fathers and sons cycle, which is a generational cycle that runs independently of the longer secular cycle. He models both in Ages of Discord.
It turns out Turchin's fathers and sons cycle are S&H generational cycles. He predicts a peak in "sociopolitical instability" around 2020. This is the frequency of violent social unrest events that lead to at least one death. So it is am empirical measure. What S&H mean by crisis of 2020 is unclear.
Turchin's dataset shows rising instability suggestive of a coming peak in 2020. But almost all of the recent events are rampage killings. For example there were many events of social unrest this year, but only two deaths. These two are completely dwarfed by the many of mass killings that have killed over a hundred people. So Turchin's indicator for this year would be dominanted by rampage events. The problem is that this measure isn't really empirical in a useful way. A liberal might agree that these events consitute sociopolitical instability (i.e. instability that is meaningful in that should generate a political response) but a conservative would not--unless the shooter is Muslim. In other words a mass shooting carried out by a non-Muslim is crime (i.e. background noise) while a mass shooting carried out by a Muslim is Islamic terrorism, and can then be linked to much more numerious such events in Europe and the Middle East. In other words the same data point is not seen as the same thing by the two observers, making it not empirical.
In contrast, a riot that ends up with a dozen dead will be seen as a signficant event of sociopolitical instability by both liberals and conservatives. Hence it is an empirical datapoint. Something like the Oklahoma city bombing would also qualify. But if you focus on just these kinds of events there is less of it now than there was back in the 1990's. So I am saying that there is no reason to beleive that there will be any meaningful rise in the sort of sociopolitical violence on which both liberals and conservatives can agree. That is, there will be no crisis of 2020, except for the crisis that exists in your mind. I'm sure we will all see a crisis in 2020, but when you look at it it will be a case of liberals looking and saying elk!, and the conservatives saying no, bison! This disagreement will be good evidence that there will be no there there.
2020 will be 30 years, and when the crisis fails to appear, the S&H saeculum as they definine it will have been invalidated. The model has failed every test thus far. People even now, can see a lot of 3Tish character to our present politics. How much of the Trump-Clinton battle based on cultural elements. How many fiscal conservatives voted against Trump for the sexist, xenophobic, racist stuff he said, even though they perferred him on economics. How many religious voters who detested Trump the man voted for him because of the Supreme Court and abortion. Did they spend much time talking about economics? Or was it mostly poltical gotcha bullshit and culture/identity issues? Was the 3T (culture wars) really over eight years ago? Does that even feel right? Or was it really the same old tired bullshit, with nobody expects anything to change, regardless of who won?