01-09-2017, 01:01 PM
(01-09-2017, 09:21 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Mike,
The 2001 recession was shallow enough (despite the "jobless recovery", something which started happening in the early '90s) and the real estate bubble followed sufficiently soon thereafter, that people didn't really notice the deviation (which, as I remember from the chart you posted, was quite small at that time) until 2008.
I also think that trying to force a direct one-to-one comparison with the 1930s via your political cycle is a bit misguided. History rhymes, it doesn't repeat.
Also, M & T had the peak of the 17th k-wave in 1914, and in their book postulated a 19th k-wave peak around 2030. This would put us no earlier than 1900, if we're going to do it like that. In the Berlusconi thread, I gave an argument for why the high-growth/deconcentration/coalition-building bit should be started no later than the mid-90s, and that the k-wave should peak around 2020-2025. This would place us more in the 1905-1910 range. If I am not mistaken, Turchin has the peak of civil unrest occurring in 2020. So, all in all, I am still more inclined to a Crisis climax starting around 2020.
The times of maximal tumult come when mass hardships meet political offense. The body bags return from a war whose purpose has become shallow, or the economy keeps tanking without an acceptable explanation -- and the elites are caught in obscene indulgence or exploitative corruption. When political life is nothing more than the enforcement of the will of people who see themselves as masters of the people and people are told to accept great hardships on behalf of the elite because of some purpose that those elites see as the highest purpose in life, then even small triggers can force a revolution. Conspicuous consumption by ravenous elites in the presience of mass suffering is one way to make a popular revolution possible.
The elites hijacked the cultural revolution of low-brow white people who thought that they were no longer getting the respect that they deserved and told those people "Just ignore your economic pain; we will punish those who sneer at you". They offered to cut down everyone else because, like the pathetically-unlearned, they do not want an independent middle class that needs to earn more than peon pay. But don't worry; the common man will get hurt too, and the anger that it had toward such people as college professors can change direction quickly.
Just imagine how nasty American politics can get when the people on the populist Right today go to the populist Left. Who knows? America might have a Hugo Chavez in the wings. If we get that, then Donald Trump and the GOP majorities will have made that possible.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.