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[Mikebert]

(04-23-2017, 12:35 PM)ChrisP Wrote:

(04-23-2017, 05:41 AM)Mikebert Wrote: I have tried to interest some of the other folks in posting here since this site is better for serious posts, threads don't get buried for instance.  Also it is better from presenting data. People keep saying they want more theory.  Well here's a theory post I just made at the other site. Let's see if it gets any engagement over here.



Now this is not a turning model.  It is a model designed to fit the empirical instability data which shows that the last 4T was not a period with a lot of unrest. Thus, the fact that the model forecasts no period of instability for the last 4T. The period around 1920 had lots of unrest and the model predicts peak unrest in 1922.  The model explains low levels of violence during the Depression by suppression of radicalization by moderates, who peaked in the mid 1930's.). These moderates were Lost radicals of the teens and early 1920's who had become disenchanted with radicalism. This might be why we avoided fascism last time.

Does this model interact with his/your inequality model?  It doesn't appear to, as 20s and 60s saw rising inequality.

I have added an interaction between inequality and social contagion.  It uses a concept invented by Jack Goldstone to model the forces leading to state breakdown called the political stress index (PSI). Turchin developed a version of it for America and I simplified his model

PSI =e^2 / [INEQ(1-INEQ)]

where e is elites as a fraction of the population and INEQ in inequality as given in the figure below:



The elite number is derived from inequality through a differential equation.  The figure above shows inequality and PSI.  Now I took the basic social contagion model described above and I spiked the radicalization parameter to a higher value at the beginning of a secular crisis, which was defined as a political moment which begins at a time when PSI is in the top quartile of its values over a secular cycle. Spikes were added in only two years, 1861 and 1932.  Shown below is the effect of the spikes.



The new model shows how adding a spike in 1861, caused by the coming to power of a dominant generation during a time of high PSI, led to a very large spike in radicalization, implying a great deal of violence, which is what happened.  Another spike was added in 1932, for the exact same reasons as in 1861. But this spike fizzled, producing a little uptick which then degraded. The reason why (according to the model) it did not catch hold was that there were too many moderates in the population--burnt out former radicals left over from the violence of a dozen years earlier.  And this is what happened.  Huge changes occurring in political and economic institutions, and yet these were accompanied by little violence.

This brings us to the present political moment.  The political cycle model forecasts the start of a political moment in 2008.  PSI was not in the top quartile of values in 3008 and no spike was added. This makes 2008 like 1965, 1897, and 1829, all starts of political moments in which PSI was not high.  These last three are 2T-type political moments, implying that the moment beginning in 2008 is one also.  A later start for the political moment would put it into the 4T category.  But this would be contrary to the generational model that says when the grey champions arrive, the 4T begins.