(08-26-2019, 11:10 AM)David Horn Wrote:(08-25-2019, 10:06 PM)Marc Lamb Wrote: The previous posts by the him, her, or whatever gender pronoun pbrower2a prefers, perfectly illustrate why the S&H cyclical history theory is really meaningless beyond something as an interesting or even, perhaps, accurate means to explain the mystery of humankind's past, present and future.
As Michael Alexander conceded, "politics, not economics was the key to the saeculum because all facets of the social world, economics, politics, religion, morals, in short, culture, are represented in one’s politics."
There lies the nasty rub: In short, politics always alternately illuminates and blinds our hearts and minds to the truth, because we all become a prisoner to our dated "social world, economics, politics, religion, morals, in short, culture." The world is always passing us by. Just ask Joe Biden. I'm sure he'd agree. Ok, ask Mitch McConnell, too.
Thus the "saeculum" merely exists as means for the "one", not the "many", to set their internal clock of the future based upon the cycle of history. My clock is set to 6am, while pbrower2a's clock is, at the same time set to midnight. My "saeculum" clock says it's morning in America, while his has determined darkness has only begun to fall upon his America.
Edit: Perhaps the word "useless" rather than "meaningless" is a better adjective to use as I assess the S&H theory.
In short, you believe that the theory supports everyone's biases, but provides no real guidance. So why bother? If, after the fact, it is what it is, it will be that without any interstitial handwringing.
Exactly. I see something that Howe and Strauss missed because they saw less evidence when writing Generations in 1989 than I did -- later because it happened later -- that the bad culture, bad business practices, bad economic choices that people made, and bad politics of a 3T consumes or destroys the 'seed-corn' of economic well-being and social stability -- the capital and the culture of trust that people built steadily from the first opportunity after the collapse of the pre-Crisis world of the previous Saeculum.
When Neil Howe invited comments, I suggested that the cause of the financial panics that precede Crisis Eras result from speculative booms that happen when the speculation crowds out other investment, devouring capital in what prove fecal investments. During the speculative boom that portends the end of an era of comparative stability, people are not starting new businesses, Big Business fails to make adequate investments in plant and equipment that create the jobs that create the means for consumer prosperity, and government cuts taxes to reward people for monopolizing, gouging, and speculating. So what is left when the speculative boom exists? Nothing! People addled on mass low culture start to feel hunger and see everyone demanding quick payment or begging for aid. Government has under-invested in infrastructure both material and human. People have looked for quick-buck, highly-marketable, liquid investments and suddenly found those worthless. The worst corporate entities, the ones that treated leverage as a tool for accelerating corporate prosperity, implode first.
The recovery begins soon after the bloated behemoths die. Small business, always a slow-return, illiquid, low-yield investment at its inception, fills the niches that incompetently-run entities leave behind. Governments start investing in shovel-ready projects to sop up mass unemployment. People start looking at customers as assets to be cultivated carefully. People develop institutional loyalty that monopolistic behemoths took for granted due to control of the market. It begins as a poorer world than what preceded, but it gets better for people because it is better.
It may surprise people, but a depression is the best time in which to start a business. Expectations are low for owners. which means that owners stick with struggling entities even if those barely feed the owner's family. Labor is cheap, good, and loyal as it had not been before. Inventories are available at fire-sale prices without the fire. Commercial rents of real estate are cheap. Zoning gets lenient because governments are far more interested in jobs and tax revenue than in some aesthetic principle. Building a smelter in a residential neighborhood? At least people will have jobs quickly even if they must pay a heavy price in years ahead through the subtle and insidious effects of heavy-metal pollution. The social culture changes -- the economic culture in which everyone acts like a loan-shark collecting debts is over.
Does this sound like 3T economic culture, complete with an everybody-for-himself ethos and mindless consumerism as vogue?
People will be more rational in their consumer choices -- and for that they will better like what they get. Selling stuff will be more personal, as people will be less likely to buy junk.
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.
