Four turnings and cycles of history

This post is in continuation to the one started here on John Bagot Glubb's 250 year cycles of history.

William Strauss and Neil Howe (HT: Ananth  who has a very good summary) describe a cyclical trend in history. Their century-long cycle encompasses four phases, or turnings as they call it - High, Awakening, Unravelling, and Crisis. Each turning lasts a social generation of about 20-25 years. This post draws from a very good interview of Neil Howe. 

Interestingly, their book prophesied four big events much before they happened - the rise of China, the 9/11 attack, the global financial crisis, and the Covid 19 pandemic.

The first turning represents growth and progress after a crisis. There is a flowering of social action and institution building. Society feels like than it is more than sum of its parts. There is a strong social consensus on what is the collective goal. The late forties to sixties represented this period. This is the spring season of hope.

The second turning is the summer of Awakening. People realise their individual selves and want to shed social discipline and civic responsibilities. We have a much more individualised society, and less governed society. It was characterised by the initiation of deregulation and tax cuts. Social liberalism takes root. It spawned the consciousness revolution. Boomer generation leads the charge. It spanned from the late sixties to the early eighties.

The third turning is the fall season of Unravelling. Individualism is celebrated and institutions are despised. They are children of awakening. Free agency is the mantra. People take on a lot of risk, trust only themselves, and pursue their narrow interests. Get your deals and cut your profits. This spanned the period from mid-eighties to early 2000s. 

The final turning is the winter of Crisis. It has always been a feature that lightly governed generations come to crisis. Covid 19 may have exacerbated/expedited the fourth turning. Gen X would begin to assume leadership roles and boomers will be beginning to retire. While it was foreshadowed by 9/11, it may have truly started with GFC and Great Recession. It will go on till early-2030. But 2020s will be climactic decade of fourth turning. It will be a time when public history will move very fast.

Each turning is associated with the birth of a new generation, which in turn comes of age (or adult life) in the next turning, and assumes leadership in the next-to-next turning. See this primer on the US generations.

A few other interesting snippets from the interview:

1, Howe also describes today as a lightly governed society despite indicators like government's share of GDP being higher than earlier. This conceals the large share of welfare entitlements (generous medical and pension benefits). But in terms of discretionary spending on public endowments and on government's market making role, we live in a time of very small government. 

The Government in the US is organised around social security for the boomer generation, the "libertarian welfare state". Most of this government is about quasi-contractual commitments between government and individuals, mainly medicare and social security. Taxes go to paying creditors and entitled beneficiaries. The government spending on civic purposes is very small compared to earlier times. 

2. The GI generation inherited a government which was small and had a lot of room to expand. Millennials don't have that luxury. Therefore, he argues that in the years ahead, as the debt squeeze mounts, the millennials will pare down the entitlement benefits and spend more on community issues. The GI generation, due to their sacrifices, had a moral claim to entitlements. But boomers have no claim over their entitlements. So the GenX will be able to dismiss the boomer's claims without much moral problems. 

Or they have to inflate away debts. Given the large foreign ownership of US debts, the inflation haircut will be borne by foreign creditors of the US. 

3. It is a universal feature of historical cycles that governments always become larger, more intrusive, more authoritarian during times of crisis. The stimulus measures of today is only the beginning of the latest round of growth of government. 

4. Howe talks about how a significant share of today's GDP consists of monetisation of activities which were once done at home, when extended/joint families were common. Many service industries of today, including blow-dry of hair, nail polishing, takeaway eating, coffee shops, home care and assisted living, child care, and so on are activities which were once done at home. He calls a lot of the GDP today as "make-believe" or "play money" - I pay you to do what I used to do at home earlier. 

He foresees a return of the extended family, and therefore a contraction of the "blow-dry economy", and the share of such activities in the market place. He argues that we will make our own food, and will go back to making things we can do in an extended family. The strengthening of the household economy is likely to be accompanied by more community orientation.

5. A century ago in 1920, every adult women in the US was either a servant or had one. Household servants were the norm. It was the Victorian ideal. In 1900, the largest occupational category in Chicago was that of housemaids. In the 1930-50 period the entry of refrigerators, washing machines, and the like brought to an end the culture of servants. He points out that it was not labour costs that brought about this transformation, but culture.

6. Howe talks about how historically definitive social choices are made during times of crisis. Deep reform rarely happens when the times are good. The Social Security Act in the US, which underpins the country's post-war welfare state was passed in 1935 at the depths of the Great Depression as an insurance against unemployment. Long-term problems don't get solved on bright sunny days. We may want to use the good times to push deep reforms, but that rarely, if at all, happens. Societies make their long-term choices and their most committed decisions when there is hurricane outside and they have their backs against the walls.

7. China, rest of Asia, and Europe too are following the same generational cycle. The problem with Europe is that the generation that established the European Union have now passed on the baton. They were the builders, who believed in flow-charts and Committees, and had a sophisticated view of the government. Having gone through the suffering of the wars, they were deeply committed to making sure that European countries will never go to war with each other. So they created the EU with all these "inter-locking committees". 

Now Europe faces a reckoning. The boomer generation of Merkel etc is fading and GenXers are taking over leadership. They are at least half a generation younger than European bureaucrats. They have no experience of the Wars, and struggle to identify with the European project. He argues that it is difficult to reconcile the imperatives of frugal Nordic and Northern countries with the necessity of Southern Europe.

8. China is also experiencing its fourth turning. The current set of elder leaders are the Red Guard generation that gave the cultural revolution. They have to live down the legacy of the long march generation. They want to rectify the century of humiliation. The leadership faces pressure from its younger people who want the country to be more vigorous and aggressive. 

8. Finally on pandemics, Howe points to the work of William McNeil, Plagues and Peoples, who traces back in history over 3000 years to show that great pandemics hit after periods of great openness. The first Plague of the late 2nd century AD came after Rome opened up dramatically. The Bubonic Plague in 1347 came after Mongols opened up the great steppes thereby connecting Venice and Beijing. The Spanish Influenza too followed a period of great openness. But in each the pandemic brought to an end the period of openness. 

This blog from Ananth on cycles of history is a useful read. He quotes from British philosopher, John Gray, in the context of the end of the Cold war to argue that contrary to the widespread belief of End of history it was likely to lead to a reversion to history,

That a reversion to history as usual should be unthinkable testifies to the mind-numbing power of secular faith. While progressive ideologies are often divided into reformist and revolutionary varieties, the difference is not fundamental. Both rest on the faith that history is an accretive process in which meaning and value are conserved and increased... Progress occurs in interludes when history is idling.