Kondratiev Waves

An explanation:

In this paper, it is claimed that the effective causality of long-term macroeconomic rhythms, most commonly referred to as long waves or Kondratieff waves, is founded in our biological realm. The observed patterns of regularity in human affairs, manifest as socioeconomic rhythms and recurrent phenomena, are constrained and codetermined by our natural human biological clocks, themselves the result of instructions impressed in the human genome and human cognitive capacity by the physical regularity of fixed cosmic cycles. Considering that a long wave can be conceived as an evolving learning dissipative structure consisting of two successive logistic structural cycles, an innovation cycle and a consolidation cycle, and applying considerations from population dynamics, chaos theory and logistic growth dynamics, a Generational-Learning Model is proposed that permits comprehension of the unfolding and time duration of the phenomenon. The proposed model is based on two kinds of biological constraints that impose the rhythm of collective human behavior - generational and cognitive. The generational consist of biologically based rhythms, namely, the Aggregate Virtual Working Life Tenure and the Aggregate Female Fecundity Interval, both subsets of the normative human life span or human life cycle. The cognitive consist of a limiting learning growth rate, manifest in the alternating sequence of two succeeding learning phases, a new knowledge phase and a consolidation phase. It is proposed that the syncopated beats of succeeding effective generational waves and the dynamics of the learning processes determine the long-wave behavior of socioeconomic growth and development. From the relationship between the differential and the discrete logistic equations, it is demonstrated that the unfolding of each structural cycle of a long wave is controlled by two parameters: the diffusion-learning rate and the aggregate effective generation t_G, whose product maintained in the interval 3<t_G<4 (deterministic chaos) grants the evolution and performance of social systems. Moreover, it is speculated that the triggering mechanism of this long-term swinging behavior may result from the cohesion loss of a given technoeconomic system in consequence of reaching a threshold value of informational entropy production.

This is a bit complicated, but I have noticed that this article in wikipedia has been changed several times in the last month or so (more attention focused on it for obvious reasons). I believe these kondratiev waves are real and that they correspond with the human lifespan not the 2 generations cited in wikipedia. They correlate with the human lifespan in this way: humans live a certain amount of time and society is a collection of humans which are demographically divided to young, middle, old. The lessons taught by the old (elders) to the new generations are lost when they die and therefore history is to repeat itself. This may be a key part of the equation for the recent and ongoing economic crisis. The question is can technology dampen or perhaps even eliminate these economic fluctuations. If people use it like we do, then probably, but most people don't (as addressed in a previous article by Taggart). So we may continue to see these economic cycles for years to come. Also, the artificiality of markets may play a role which I can't yet comment on (as in, power centers may influence markets to create boom-bust cycles or potentiate them at least as this would mean quite a bit of profit for those power centers).

1) Devezas, Tessaleno. A wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tessaleno_Devezas

2) Devezas T.C.¹; Corredine¹ J.T. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Volume 68, Number 1, September 2001 , pp. 1-57(57)http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/els/00401625/2001/00000068/00000001/art00136"