For change having to do with reversing economic inequality trends there is a specific answer to the problem: State collapse and reformation that serves as a secular cycle boundary.
Secular cycles are a recurrent feature in pre-industrial, agrarian societies that have recently been extended to America (in press). They show a rising (integrative) and falling (disintegrative) trend. Embedded within them are cycles of high and low unrest called fathers and sons cycles (FSC). These seem to be generational in nature like turnings.
During the disintegrative trend the high unrest periods feature state collapse (i.e. deposition and typically the death of the monarch). The down phase ends when one of this period of unrest solves the problem that causes the disinegrative trend (too many elites hoarding too much of total output, i.e. inequality). In fact secular cycles can be thought of as inequality cycles.
One way inequality has been solved in the past was wholesale slaughter of elites (e.g. Norman Invasion results in essentially no extant Saxon elites by the time of the Domesday survey or the Wars of the Roses that slaughtered a huge fraction of the nobility). Another task was diversion of elite energies into other roles. For example the onset of the disintegrative trend was delayed during the Plantagenet cycle (1080-1485) by the diversion of large numbers of elites into monasticism during the 12th century. As a result the secular cycle lasted 400 years instead of the typical 2-3 century length. Another example of non-lethal solution was the resolution provided by the Glorious Revolution. The political quarrel between the king and Parliament was resolved in favor of Parliament and the inequality problem was resolved by enlarged the pie. Up until the mid 17th century, real per capital GDP was flat. Then it started to grow, allowing elites to skim off additional wealth without driving wages of the rest of the population to starvation levels as had happened earlier in the century.
In America the most recent example of FSC periodic unrest was during the 1907-1941 secular cycle disintegrative phase. Here I quote a paper I am working on:
I then quote an author who described how the Republicans set themselves up for financial crisis. I point out that the Republican solution to the FSC violence around 1920:
![[Image: cycles-violence.png?1344015330]](http://i.livescience.com/images/i/000/029/657/i02/cycles-violence.png?1344015330)
did not solve the underlying problem (the inequality) and so the disintegrative trend continued. Until the "elite problem" is addressed this trend will continue on and on (170 years in the case of the Plantagenet cycle).
I then continue:
We only began the disintegration phase of this cycle around 2006. Last time there were numerous political responses to the problem which we know as the Progressive Era. None of them solved the problem, inequality continued to rise, leading eventually to economic collapse, as shortly after a second, larger state collapse. I submit that the reason why they did not solve the problem when things got bad around 1920 was because it was a 3T. The recessive/conservative generation in charge was not suited to enact a secular crisis (even though there were triggers galore--hell the period was the closest we have gotten to a revolutionary situation since 1774-1775.) But a little more than a decade later, despite no revolutionary situation, a solution was obtained, because a dominant/liberal generation had come to power. That is I am merging secular cycle theory with S&H theory.
Here's the problem we face. According to my best models, we saw a dominant generation come to power around 2001. That is the 4T started then. But we we were still in the integrative trend of the secular cycle (that is, inequality had not yet become a structural problem). We entered the disintegrative trend around 2006 and in that same year Congress switched parties and two years later we got Democratic control of the government and some major legislation was passed. It now looks like a Democrat will win a third term for the first time since 1940. This implies that 2008 was a critical election which is an indicator of a political moment. So the period from 2008 on qualifies as a fathers and sons cycle "up" phase. Inequality has not been addressed yet. And maybe it wont be. My best estimate is that the next recessive generation comes to power after 2020. So that implies the next four years are critical.
I believe the only way the secular cycle and secular crisis can both be resolved favorably is with an economic collapse like last cycle. As you probably know I am calling for a 10000 point drop in the Dow by 2018. If this happens and if it is accompanied by another financial crisis (I think this is 50:50) then there is a possibility for panic amongst the economic elites like the Koch bros. If the Koch's rein in the Cruz faction (who can Cruz work for after he leaves elective office when everybody hates him? He will have to attach himself to a patron and the Kochs have been friendly to him) then president Clinton would have the ability to prevent collapse. If she is smart enough to realize that unless she restores prosperity in two years she and her party will be destroyed in the next election she will hold out for a truly massive stimulus or go to full-scale crusade war to accomplish the same objective (re-election). Massive stimulus or war will be inflationary until action is taken to raise taxes to the rafters. Even then inflation could crush wealth unless they permit Clinton even more power to regulate the economy "for the duration of the crisis". Note that a war which actually costs the elites something is a war that will be WON as soon as possible and that takes care of re-election.
Something like this is the only way I can see a positive result from this 4T. More likely is Clinton is a one-term president having achieved nothing, after which GenX is in power and no resolution of the disintegrative trend will be possible for another 80 years.
This latter result is actually the more likely. Turchin dates the America secular cycles as 1780-1930 and 1930-ongoing. Since his first cycle spans two saecula, then why wouldn't his second? In this scenario this 4T will be another inconsequential 4T (from an inequality viewpoint) like the Civil War or Armada 4T and the real action will come in the next 4T long after all of us here are dead.
Secular cycles are a recurrent feature in pre-industrial, agrarian societies that have recently been extended to America (in press). They show a rising (integrative) and falling (disintegrative) trend. Embedded within them are cycles of high and low unrest called fathers and sons cycles (FSC). These seem to be generational in nature like turnings.
During the disintegrative trend the high unrest periods feature state collapse (i.e. deposition and typically the death of the monarch). The down phase ends when one of this period of unrest solves the problem that causes the disinegrative trend (too many elites hoarding too much of total output, i.e. inequality). In fact secular cycles can be thought of as inequality cycles.
One way inequality has been solved in the past was wholesale slaughter of elites (e.g. Norman Invasion results in essentially no extant Saxon elites by the time of the Domesday survey or the Wars of the Roses that slaughtered a huge fraction of the nobility). Another task was diversion of elite energies into other roles. For example the onset of the disintegrative trend was delayed during the Plantagenet cycle (1080-1485) by the diversion of large numbers of elites into monasticism during the 12th century. As a result the secular cycle lasted 400 years instead of the typical 2-3 century length. Another example of non-lethal solution was the resolution provided by the Glorious Revolution. The political quarrel between the king and Parliament was resolved in favor of Parliament and the inequality problem was resolved by enlarged the pie. Up until the mid 17th century, real per capital GDP was flat. Then it started to grow, allowing elites to skim off additional wealth without driving wages of the rest of the population to starvation levels as had happened earlier in the century.
In America the most recent example of FSC periodic unrest was during the 1907-1941 secular cycle disintegrative phase. Here I quote a paper I am working on:
Quote:The progressive era contains one of the periodic episodes of high levels of social unrest in American history (Turchin 2012). These episodes define a cycle which corresponds to the “fathers and sons” cycles embedded in pre-industrial secular cycles (Turchin and Nefedov 2009:79). Pre-industrial English fathers and sons outbursts in instability that occurred during the disintegrative trend of a secular cycle typically involved internal conflict leading to the monarch being deposed and often, killed (Alexander 2016). This did not happen during the period around 1920. Rather, a pair of realigning elections over 1918-1920 replaced a Democratic-controlled government with a Republican one, which went on to rule for twelve years. The replacement of the President and Congress by an opposing party with strongly opposing ideas might be considered as equivalent to the premature end of a monarch’s reign. The incoming Republicans appeared to have resolved the crisis by restricting immigration and suppressing militant labor unions, but this was not the case
I then quote an author who described how the Republicans set themselves up for financial crisis. I point out that the Republican solution to the FSC violence around 1920:
did not solve the underlying problem (the inequality) and so the disintegrative trend continued. Until the "elite problem" is addressed this trend will continue on and on (170 years in the case of the Plantagenet cycle).
I then continue:
Quote:the Republican state remained blind to the challenge to its legitimacy posed by the Depression. Their blindness led to a rejection far larger than had occurred to Democrats a dozen years earlier. From 1930 to 1937 the Republicans lost control of the Presidency and its share of Congress fell from about 60% to 20%. Democrats went on to hold the executive branch for the next twenty years after 1932. For the next 62 years, they would hold the Senate 84% of the time and the House 94%. Such an electoral repudiation can be seen as another “fathers and sons” outburst of political instability (of a non-violent type leading to a collapse of the old Republican order. By the time the Republicans recovered a semblance of political control in 1981, they had become a different party than they had been in 1932.The solution to the inequality problem was achieved by the New Dealers over 1933-1945, as I show elsewhere in the paper.
We only began the disintegration phase of this cycle around 2006. Last time there were numerous political responses to the problem which we know as the Progressive Era. None of them solved the problem, inequality continued to rise, leading eventually to economic collapse, as shortly after a second, larger state collapse. I submit that the reason why they did not solve the problem when things got bad around 1920 was because it was a 3T. The recessive/conservative generation in charge was not suited to enact a secular crisis (even though there were triggers galore--hell the period was the closest we have gotten to a revolutionary situation since 1774-1775.) But a little more than a decade later, despite no revolutionary situation, a solution was obtained, because a dominant/liberal generation had come to power. That is I am merging secular cycle theory with S&H theory.
Here's the problem we face. According to my best models, we saw a dominant generation come to power around 2001. That is the 4T started then. But we we were still in the integrative trend of the secular cycle (that is, inequality had not yet become a structural problem). We entered the disintegrative trend around 2006 and in that same year Congress switched parties and two years later we got Democratic control of the government and some major legislation was passed. It now looks like a Democrat will win a third term for the first time since 1940. This implies that 2008 was a critical election which is an indicator of a political moment. So the period from 2008 on qualifies as a fathers and sons cycle "up" phase. Inequality has not been addressed yet. And maybe it wont be. My best estimate is that the next recessive generation comes to power after 2020. So that implies the next four years are critical.
I believe the only way the secular cycle and secular crisis can both be resolved favorably is with an economic collapse like last cycle. As you probably know I am calling for a 10000 point drop in the Dow by 2018. If this happens and if it is accompanied by another financial crisis (I think this is 50:50) then there is a possibility for panic amongst the economic elites like the Koch bros. If the Koch's rein in the Cruz faction (who can Cruz work for after he leaves elective office when everybody hates him? He will have to attach himself to a patron and the Kochs have been friendly to him) then president Clinton would have the ability to prevent collapse. If she is smart enough to realize that unless she restores prosperity in two years she and her party will be destroyed in the next election she will hold out for a truly massive stimulus or go to full-scale crusade war to accomplish the same objective (re-election). Massive stimulus or war will be inflationary until action is taken to raise taxes to the rafters. Even then inflation could crush wealth unless they permit Clinton even more power to regulate the economy "for the duration of the crisis". Note that a war which actually costs the elites something is a war that will be WON as soon as possible and that takes care of re-election.
Something like this is the only way I can see a positive result from this 4T. More likely is Clinton is a one-term president having achieved nothing, after which GenX is in power and no resolution of the disintegrative trend will be possible for another 80 years.
This latter result is actually the more likely. Turchin dates the America secular cycles as 1780-1930 and 1930-ongoing. Since his first cycle spans two saecula, then why wouldn't his second? In this scenario this 4T will be another inconsequential 4T (from an inequality viewpoint) like the Civil War or Armada 4T and the real action will come in the next 4T long after all of us here are dead.