Given that various people have mentioned the
recent performance of East Asian economies, some of
which have been the only economies in the world to
generally perform BETTER since the presumed 1973
turning point of the global Kondratiev long wave
(except for a few oil exporters during the 1970's),
I thought I might add a further knot to this thread.
That is the idea of yet an even longer wave/cycle
than that of Kondratiev, "la duree" or the "geographic
cycle" of Fernand Braudel, first formulated in his
magnum opus, _The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean
World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. 1_. This hypothesizes
a 300-400 year cycle thus generating not just clusters
of several bad decades (Kondratiev) but whole centuries
that are bad (500's, 900's, 1300's, 1600's). The presumed
mechanism is quasi-Malthusian with long-building demographic
pressures pressing against ag technology limits with war,
famine, and pestilence resulting. This dismal scenario
has so far been held off in this century (except for war
and some famines) by the dramatic technological changes in
ag resulting from the industrial revolution, not to mention
declining birth rates, although some dramatic neo-Malthusian
gloomsters would say we aredue for a big hit.
However, one aspect of this theory is the observation
that with the switch points of EVERY OTHER cycle (500-600's
and 1300's) came shifts in global technological leadership
between Europe and Asia. We seem to be right on schedule
for that and it may be shifting to Asia. That might
explain the exceptional recent Asian performance in resisting
the otherwise global Kondratiev downswing (which I note hit
the socialist/communist economies as well, except for the PRC).
BTW, my e-mail address will be changing on Friday April
7 to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and I shall have to go off-net
during the changeover. I apologize to anybody whose message
on the net I do not see. If you wish to respond to me on net
in the next several days, you might wish to send me privately
a copy as well.
Barkley Rosser
James Madison University
