[PEN-L:4577] Re: Kondratiev waves (long)

[dassbach@xxxxxxx (Carl H.A. Dassbach)]

>A possible explanation for "long waves" - or at least the current
>post-WW2 cycle - is increased global indebtedness. This means that
>accumulation of financial capital due to all sorts of returns
>(interest, dividends on stock, any other type of returns on
>saved/invested money) gradually and in an accelerating tempo
>(exponential curve) drives the gobal economy into a financially
>polarized state of affairs, with a small number of rich agents on one
>side (net creditors) and a large number of net debtors on the other.
>These dynamics are a logical consequence of the mechanism of compound
>returns.


Maybe, but this is NOT an explanation of the K-waves, as recurring periods
of expansion and contraction, evident in advanced economies since the late
18th c. (and some would say 16th. c. see Dassbach, "Long Waves Prior to
1790." REVIEW, Spring 1995, forthcoming).

Explanation of K-waves may not, in fact, be that important or, for that
matter,  possible..  It is conceivable, for example,  that K-waves could be
the result of long term biological process which are outside the purview of
sceince..  What is signficant about K-waves is that they provide a
perspective on (periodization of)  the `development' of major industrialized
economies and perhaps even the world economy for at  least the last two
hundren years.  K-waves show us that the development of societies is neither
constant nor linear but, like human life, organic and uneven and perhaps
cyclical.  The periodizations offered by K-waves introduces, in turn, a
higer order coherence into our historical narreative and interpretation.
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Carl H.A. Dassbach                                   E-mail:   DASSBACH@xxxxxxx
Dept. of Social Sciences                            Phone:   (906)487-2115
Michigan Technological University              Fax:       (906)487-2468
Houghton,  MI   49931    USA