Armstrong Economics Blog/Understanding Cycles
Re-Posted Sep 20, 2017 by Martin Armstrong
QUESTION: Hi Martin,
Thank you for everything that you do. Concerning the post, The Long-Term Cycle of Monetary Crisis, you describe the corruption of power that leads to monetary crisis and the subsequent reform: the thread that repeats throughout history.
I was wondering if you could contrast this with the periods of history where there is a renaissance/age of enlightenment, and the common tread there (is it the people revolting, which is the only way that corruption of power is defeated?).
Many Thanks Again,
Danny
ANSWER: Oh yes. This is part of the Cycle of Civilization but now you are at the 309+ year level where major change begins to appear. The big one comes on the Sixth Wave of the 309.6 Year level. This is the only reason I do what I do. I have written many times that when this wave peaks in 2032, when we come to a crossroads. We either regress contracting into authoritarianism, then break-up into a fragmented feudal type system of local tribes basically, or we can perhaps crash and burn, but then see the light and we make a major technological leap forward.
Even at each 51.6 year wave culmination there is a major structural reset. It is my HOPE that if we reach a level of understanding how and why things work, then we have a shot and perhaps pushing back and we can make do what Neil Armstrong said upon landing on the moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.“
This is the third set of the Sixth Wave. This is why I say if it was just me, I am ready- Beam Me Up Scotty. I have my posterity to think about. So I am trying to do what I can. I bumped into cycles in the middle of the night. They found me. I never approached this as a theory to go out and prove. Most major discoveries in science have been by accident.
The Renaissance really began when Constantinople fell to the Turks. Then the scholars fled to the West bringing the known with them in 1453. Note the year. They began schools and started to teach people all the knowledge they had forgotten. There were some who were starting to reintroduce mathematics like Fibonacci (c. 1175 – c. 1250) during the 13th century. But it was the schools that opened following the fall of Constantinople that brought educate back to Europe. Hence, Columbus was exposed to that knowledge and he realized the Earth was round. He set sail in 1492.
The full Age of Enlightenment truly began with the confrontation that cycles existed. It all began with the discovery in 1772 of a frozen intact woolly rhinoceros . Then intact woolly-mammoth followed in Siberia. Suddenly people were stunned. This meant that you could be frozen with food still in you mouth. This inspired tremendous investigation into gravity to the cyclical nature of comets.
The Dark Age is the fragmentation of society reverting back to where we see nations breaking up unto regions and then all the way back to city states. The Renaissance is typically inspired by the rediscovery of lost knowledge. This is really an extensive subject. I have written a book on this entire topic documenting everything from math and science to political rise and fall. I am hiring more editors to try to get out several books that have been backlogged for way too long.
