Poll: Is Donald Trump the GC? And how does this effect your vote?
Yes, he is the GC, and I'm voting for him.
No he is not the GC, but I'm voting for him.
Yes he is the GC but I'm voting Democrat.
No he is not the GC but I'm voting Democrat.
Yes, he is the GC, but I'm voting Third Party
No, he is not the GC, but I'm voting Third Party
Yes, he is the GC but I'm not voting
No he is not the GC but I'm not voting
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Grey Champions and the Election of 2016
#85
(11-11-2016, 04:06 PM)Warren Dew Wrote: I got the pepperland reference.  I get most of the references that Eric gets, and he's in at least the middle of the boomer cohort, rather than trailing edge.

I think the relevant cultural movements are a characteristic of the awakening; they aren't necessarily brought to full fruition in the crisis.  Was England in the 1040s pining for Norman rule?  I don't think that's how it works.

I think the grey champion concept is an after the fact romanticization - notice how the original one was anonymous - so talking about it as if it necessarily fits the leader at the peak of the crisis is questionable.

Still interested in your thoughts on who the elites are.  Presumably that's not going to change between now and 10 years from now if they aren't taken down in the meantime.
AS far as I can figure, grey champions don't actual occur until the modern cycle, what Sean Love called saeculum II.  If you look at the turning length you will see a string ca 27 year turnings (saeculum I) and then a series of ca. 20 year ones (saeculum II). The original one is an apocryphal figure because there couldn't really be GCs in saeculum I; they would be too old.

S&H give a rather hazy description of how their cycle works.  Using their material from the appendix in Generations gives a mechanism that doesn't work.  It is possible to come up with a model that works and which is based on some of the concepts they discussed. This model holds that leaders in 4T's come of age in 2Ts.   S&H's grey champion which refers to people playing a stewardship role in a 4T had become conflated with leadership since two of the six examples of GCs given were presidents (note that Washington, the central leader of the 4T, was NOT a GC).

The model actually has prophets (defined as those who come of age in a 2T) as leaders in a 4T, so it actually calls for GCs, except there are lots of them.  S&H do talk about how religious issues feed into the 4T:  The abolition movement arising out of the Transcendental 2T called for Emancipation which was made reality in the Civil War 4T.  The social gospel arising out of the Missionary 2T, called for a more compassionate approach to the working class poor, which came to fruition during the Depression 4T. We are running out of time for such a link between this 4T and the previous 2T.


Elites are actually a sociological quantity. It refers to a polities "ruling class". During Medieval times one could pretty much peg them as the King, the Privy Council and members of Parliament.  As the society got more complex it becomes a larger and more diffuse category.  In the models elites refers to "elite number" e which stands for elites/population and is calculated from inequality defined as "worker fraction" (wf) the fraction of output that goes to workers:

de/dt = mu(WF0/wf-1) where mu and WF0 are adjustable constants.

Turchin uses relative wage (w) defined as wage/GDPpc in place of wf.  I use a more sophisticated definition for wf that includes slavery.  If you simplify wf it reduces to w.


Elite data is hard to get.  In medieval times you could use numbers of peers, but after industrialization this is obviously useless.  Turchin uses fraction of rich people in the population as a proxy for e.  Obviously you don't have to be very rich to be a member of the ruling class (neither Clinton nor Obama were all that rich when they became president).  But Clinton is now very rich and Obama soon will be.  Nonrich folks who become elites tend to get rich. 


The very fact that you are rich means you have more interests that can be implemented by state policies and historical events, so you have to have an interest in these things, making you and elite: And if you are rich enough and have enough interests you will have to hire someone to monitor policy and act on your behalf (i.e. a lobbyist) which is another elite.    So there is going to be correlation between elites and rich people making the latter a proxy for the former.

There are all sorts of elites. Business owners create elite actors (corporations) who act in their stead as a way to protect themselves from culpability for adverse effects of their business.  Workers can pool their resources to create elite actors (e.g. labor unions, grange halls) who then petition corporations and other elite institutions.  Folks like Markos Moulitsas or Erick Erricson founded web sites that made them elites.  Obviously leaders of major institutions would be elites, and many more.
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Messages In This Thread
What is a Grey Champion? - by Bob Butler 54 - 05-05-2016, 07:50 AM
A Test of Theory - by Mikebert - 08-13-2016, 08:45 AM
RE: A Test of Theory - by Ragnarök_62 - 08-13-2016, 04:43 PM
RE: A Test of Theory - by Mikebert - 08-14-2016, 09:10 AM
RE: Grey Champions and the Election of 2016 - by Mikebert - 11-12-2016, 04:38 PM

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