Theory of Generations

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StevenWallenhorst Posted: Wed, May 7 2008 8:00 AM

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 I was wondering if anyone has attempted to correlate Austrian-style economic history of the United States with historical generations theory.  Typical examples of this are the books "Generations" and "The Fourth Turning" by Strauss and Howe.  They divide US history into phases called "Turnings", led by archetype generations ("Boomer", "GI", "Missionary" and the like).  They appear to make a convincing case for a four-generation cycle in social and political history (or maybe it only works because we have a propensity for getting into wars every 80 years or so!).  Their Turnings do not align with the spurious Kondratieff Cycles, except in the early 19th century.  But since Rothbard provided a reasonable explanation for the Kondratieff cycles many years ago (in that case, demonstrating that they were merely a temporary correlation in the 1800s, not a real cyclic phenomena), I wondered if similar arguments had been advanced for generations, which would at least seem to have a sociological rationale for their existence.

Steve

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Broken Window replied on Wed, May 7 2008 5:39 PM

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 I first heard about this from an article by Doug Casey which I thought was absolutely fascinating.

 http://www.kitcocasey.com/displaySpecial.php?id=44

I have no clue how this would tie into Austrian economics or even long term valuation waves.

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StevenWallenhorst replied on Tue, May 20 2008 7:18 AM

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 Casey's article is a good one, and the two books by Strauss and Howe make an interesting case.  Their four generational leitmotifs lead to a recurring social-political cycle of events.  Today's Boomers (born 1943-60 according to the Fourth Turning formulation) are the fourth cohort generation from the Missionary Generation (born 1860-1882) of FDR (hmmm...).  The interesting question is whether there is any correlation between the generations, their approach to and attitude towards institutions, and interference in the markets.  Or is it all a simple result of the fact that America seems to like to get into war every 80-90 years or so?  I suspect that there is some correlation with the Austrian business cycle, was wondering if anyone had looked closely at it...