05-16-2016, 07:40 PM
Since the middle of the last century it has become clear that Europe experienced a series of long-term fluctuations in prices and population during the second millennium Such oscillations, which include similar cycles in political and social variables, are known as secular cycles (Turchin and Nefedov 2009:5) and are the subject of this paper. About nine Chinese secular cycles over two millennia have been identified from historical population data. Secular cycle theory has been used to detect “more than 40 demographic cycles in the history of various ancient and medieval societies of Eurasia and North Africa, thus demonstrating that the demographic cycles are not specific for Chinese and European history only, but should be regarded as a general feature of complex agrarian system dynamics” (Korotayev 2006:44).
A secular cycle can be considered as a pair of secular trends, one integrative and one disintegrative, each of which has two phases. The integrative trend comprises an expansion phase during which social trends are positive and a stagflation phase during which the positive trends gradually diminish. The disintegrative trend begins with a crisis phase, often accompanied by state collapse when social trends turn negative. Post-crisis recovery is called the depression phase, which lasts until conditions emerge that allow a new secular cycle to begin. To identify a secular cycle one must quantify oscillations in measureable quantities plausibly related to at least one of four fundamental variables: population, state strength, elite dynamics, and sociopolitical instability. Secular cycle boundaries approximately correspond to cycle troughs in these and related variables.
In one sense, secular cycles are population cycles. In another sense, they are cycles of state rise and decline that can be tracked with measures of state strength. Economic inequality exhibits cycles that can serve to characterize elite dynamics. Various measures of sociopolitical instability have been proposed which can be used identify cycles. Finally economic measures such as price level also show secular cycles and may be used as an adjunct to the fundamental variables.
Secular cycle can be explained by Jack Goldstone’s demographic-structural theory (DST) of state breakdown. DST describes how rising population relative to available farmland leads to excess workers and falling real wages. Excess agricultural labor implies a shortage of farmland leading to rising rents and land values. Both of these result in rising economic inequality, for which the ratio of per capita GDP to average wage is a good proxy.
Rising land values and falling real wages allowed financially-savvy landowners and employers of agricultural labor to earn windfall profits, leading to elite upward mobility and elite proliferation. Heightened social mobility and larger numbers led to increased competition and factionalism amongst elites. Rising rents were not favorable to less financially astute landowners who had leased their land in long-term contracts. They saw their real income decline and were often forced to sell land to maintain their standard of living. They grew poorer while others grew rich, creating disaffected nobles who were predisposed take sides in challenges to state authority.
At some point population reached its limits to growth and there was no more surplus product to extract, leading to intense competition over a no longer growing economic pie. Competition turned to conflict, resulting in state collapse and population decline. This is the crisis phase of the secular cycle. The problems caused by excess elites were eventually resolved over the depression phase, which could contain multiple episodes of temporary state recovery followed by collapse, until elite conflict was finally brought under control and a new cycle could begin.
This means an important requirement for a successful state was pacification of elites.
A secular cycle can be considered as a pair of secular trends, one integrative and one disintegrative, each of which has two phases. The integrative trend comprises an expansion phase during which social trends are positive and a stagflation phase during which the positive trends gradually diminish. The disintegrative trend begins with a crisis phase, often accompanied by state collapse when social trends turn negative. Post-crisis recovery is called the depression phase, which lasts until conditions emerge that allow a new secular cycle to begin. To identify a secular cycle one must quantify oscillations in measureable quantities plausibly related to at least one of four fundamental variables: population, state strength, elite dynamics, and sociopolitical instability. Secular cycle boundaries approximately correspond to cycle troughs in these and related variables.
In one sense, secular cycles are population cycles. In another sense, they are cycles of state rise and decline that can be tracked with measures of state strength. Economic inequality exhibits cycles that can serve to characterize elite dynamics. Various measures of sociopolitical instability have been proposed which can be used identify cycles. Finally economic measures such as price level also show secular cycles and may be used as an adjunct to the fundamental variables.
Secular cycle can be explained by Jack Goldstone’s demographic-structural theory (DST) of state breakdown. DST describes how rising population relative to available farmland leads to excess workers and falling real wages. Excess agricultural labor implies a shortage of farmland leading to rising rents and land values. Both of these result in rising economic inequality, for which the ratio of per capita GDP to average wage is a good proxy.
Rising land values and falling real wages allowed financially-savvy landowners and employers of agricultural labor to earn windfall profits, leading to elite upward mobility and elite proliferation. Heightened social mobility and larger numbers led to increased competition and factionalism amongst elites. Rising rents were not favorable to less financially astute landowners who had leased their land in long-term contracts. They saw their real income decline and were often forced to sell land to maintain their standard of living. They grew poorer while others grew rich, creating disaffected nobles who were predisposed take sides in challenges to state authority.
At some point population reached its limits to growth and there was no more surplus product to extract, leading to intense competition over a no longer growing economic pie. Competition turned to conflict, resulting in state collapse and population decline. This is the crisis phase of the secular cycle. The problems caused by excess elites were eventually resolved over the depression phase, which could contain multiple episodes of temporary state recovery followed by collapse, until elite conflict was finally brought under control and a new cycle could begin.
This means an important requirement for a successful state was pacification of elites.