Paranoiac accentuation – the psychotype of a person for whom it is characteristic to strive toward a goal, at times to the detriment of those around him. The main characteristics of such people are their difficulties in controlling the strong emotional reactions that occur, and stability, perseverance, single-mindedness, and the presence of persistent orientation to attaining goals (at times without any good reason), right up to formation of predominant ideas or relationships. Most successful business leaders are accentuated paranoiacally. Their predominant idea is to start the ball rolling, get to work. The paranoiac or “trapped” type of accentuations are stuck on something under the influence of a “predominant idea”.
Resonant psychotype – one of the basic psychotypes of the gainfully employed population, which ensures the success of the society and of the people in a given historical epoch, in given types of activity or in a given specific circumstance… Usually these are domain experts, frequently with traces of paranoia.
Postresonant psychotype – a type of person who imitates the resonant psychotypes and learns from them. Usually these are social motivators, often with traces of obsessiveness.
Post-postresonant psychotype – a psychotype which psychologically and logically comes to replace the postresonant psychotype. Most often these are social motivators, often with traces of hysteria.
“Domain expert” metaprogram – a psychotype and simultaneously a strategy for satisfying a human need, conditioned by the presence of corresponding systems of dynamic stereotypes, through analyzing and managing technological processes, owing to personal work in an activity whose purpose is domain specific (image, object, process etc.).
“Social motivator” metaprogram – a psychotype and at the same time a strategy for satisfying human needs, conditioned by the presence of corresponding systems of dynamic stereotypes, through analyzing and managing other people, and through personal work or activity in a system of interpersonal relations, whose aim is related to forming needed motivation or behavior of other people.
People change under the influence of social and natural factors, including solar activity. At certain peaks of solar activity, people can become highly agitated and particularly emotional. They become increasingly hysteroid and psychopathic.
All of the Russian revolutions (1905, 1917, 1991) coincided with solar peaks that were the largest in a decade.
In years of solar tranquility, the average annual number of such sunspots is small – 10 – 20.
Peaks of solar activity are also peaks of social protest and revolution. Social roles that had previously been accepted (stable social dynamic stereotypes) – were swept away. Society was ready to accept new roles, to begin to live according to new customs, traditions, and laws. In the language of the physiology of higher nervous function, the apparatus for closing and opening nerve impulse circuits has succumbed to change to a much greater degree than usual.
People are capable of behaving and changing their dynamic stereotypes to a much greater degree than usual. The influence of hysteroids and psychopathic personalities automatically becomes stronger and more relevant. They have higher sociometric ratings and exert a more effective influence on those around them than usual. Revolution, for the hysteroids that take part in it, frequently becomes the moment of their fullest emotional satisfaction – on the barricades, at the center of attention, all in one emotional outburst… Even actors don’t get such an emotional outburst on the stage.
One might counter that not all peaks of solar activity end up in revolutions. True enough. Several peaks of solar activity have not ended up in revolution in Russia.
There are two exceptions: 1991 (the incursion of troops into Afghanistan) and 1957–1958. The entry into Afghanistan turned the agitation of people and their heightened psychopathy into an emotion about “fulfilling international obligation”. Nevertheless the decision itself was in large measure impulsive.
But the period from 1957 to 1958 deserves a separate analysis. The atypical behavior of the Soviet people must be explained by the fact that after the war everyone got used to being compliant, and firm dynamic stereotypes were engineered to obey orders and meet the demands of the powerful agencies, while at the same time (!) the functioning of the apparatus opening and closing conditioned reflexes became more active. This suffices to minimize the effect of the Sun for up to 20 years. That is on the one hand.
On the other hand, the influence of the country’s authorities on the people was emotionalized. The people were emotionalized. The accumulated psychopathic energy poured out into emotions because of the denouncing of Stalin’s personality cult, the launch of the first sputnik, the World Youth Festival, the construction of new housing – “khruschevki” and so on and so forth. Steam was let off with the help of these and other events.
Rates of economic development (N. Kondratiev curve) are linked to solar activity.
Of the 12 peaks of solar activity since 1870, in 8 cases economic development slowed after peak solar activity passed, and at each stage of growth of the Kondratiev cycle, a peak of solar activity preceded maximization.
An economically active population first becomes increasingly emotional, then returns to a normal state. In the normal state, the economic laws discovered by science are active. In a psychopathic state of the population and the subjects of economic activity, they are deformed depending on the degree of psychopathization of both the economically active population as well as the elite.
2.2. Causes of the crisis today: analogies in the past
The wavelike change in people’s psychotypes and the economically active population is superimposed on the wavelike change in the quality of the elite. In countries that are developing under the influence of endogenous factors, that is, that depend on the influence of neighboring countries and external factors to a lesser degree than others, the quality of the elite changes radically in the span of three generations. Studies by F. Braudel and other scholars show that it has happened like this for millennia.
The psychotypes of the elite and economically active population are multifaceted. Let’s take just one facet: the relationship between “domain experts” and “social motivators”. People think with metaprograms.
The “social motivator” is oriented toward the opinion of other people, while the “domain expert”, when making a decision, is oriented toward technological processes, which he tries to manage.
The “social motivator” is oriented toward the opinion of other people, while the “domain expert”, when making a decision, is oriented toward technological processes, which he tries to manage.
The role and significance of domain experts and social motivators has fluctuated throughout history.
In this respect there is the study by Y.A. Van Houtte, which finds a pendular movement of industry between cities, towns and villages throughout the Netherlands from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. Initially, industry in the Netherlands was scattered through the villages. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, industry began to migrate to the cities. After the long depression of 1350–1450, villages were again deluged with tradesmen. Guilds no longer satisfied them, and labor costs became more expensive in the city. But in the workshops it was primarily the “social motivators” who occupied the leading position in their management – people who were able to unify others and force them to make cooperative sacrifices for common goals.
In the sixteenth century, according to Van Houtte, cities again became attractive for Dutch tradesmen, while in the seventeenth century, the village again attracted the tradesmen. Van Houtte explains this migration in terms of the level of taxation. ¬But taxes are more often imposed by “social motivators” and not by “domain experts”.
This is generally true for any unorganized backgrounds and associations of people. Real democracy is replaced in time by the management by “social motivators”. Eventually this management leads to oppression of “domain experts”, and then, to conflict with them. Without a certain number of “domain experts,” the “social motivators” have nothing to do, no one to exploit, and thus they need to create the conditions that would attract “domain experts” to them again.
On the whole, this oscillating interaction of “social motivators” and “domain experts” has enabled a more tempestuous development of society. This much is clear: this is how compromising conditions of coexistence, an optimal social and economic structure of society, are more quickly worked out between “domain experts” and “social motivators”. In the Netherlands, this oscillating movement of the tradesmen generally enabled growth of labor productivity and the development of industrial relations. This correlates with Holland’s intensive development in those years.
The relationship between “domain experts” and “social motivators”, their oscillating rotation, is likewise the basis of the rotation of the main centers of economic development. Thus, in the Middle Ages there was a competition for primacy in the system of economic relations between Genoa and Venice. Loss of the leadership positions by these city-states was frequently associated with one of the groups of “social motivators” coming into power. As a rule, social motivators come to power under the guise of democracy. This period of exceptional activity of the “social motivators” is a period of intensive development of democracy. But then the “social motivators” have to either lose power under the pressure of the masses, or cede it to the “domain experts”.
The first-generation elite is substantive, objective. The second generation of the elite is filled with social motivators. Without the difficulties that temper it, without the struggle for domination, without reinvention, the third-generation elite becomes emotionalized, hysteroid, and loses the ability to manage society effectively.
This logic of elite formation is valid when the development of society proceeds more or less without conflict. At the same time, internal and external conflicts and problems can introduce large nuances into this development, up to the point of creating the necessary conditions for rapid renovation of the elite, moving intelligent competent people into the elite to renew it, or rapid changes toward creating the necessary abilities in the existing elite.
The coupling of the type of elite and the type of economically active population in a country determines the basic socio-economic processes. Rates of economic development and the nature of relations between various social groups, political processes etc. depend on this. When the combination is detrimental, that is, when the third generation elite and the condition of the population when it mimics emotionalized, psychopathic people, a psychoeconomic crisis occurs.
History shows that this three-generational phenomenon has time limits. It may take up to a hundred years or more, and it may be shorter than 50 years. This does not depend just on the average lifespan (all else being equal, when lifespan increases, the time of three generations also increases on average). It also depends on social factors, on solar activity, on management decisions, on the personality shaping decisions on socioeconomic processes and on the decisions of the government and legislative agencies of the leading countries, and on a system of exogenous factors. The U.S. is a country where the degree of influence of external factors on development is much lower than in most other countries. And here this time interval is more indicative.
The strongest socioeconomic upheaval in the history of the U.S. (which coincided with a solar activity peak) was the Civil War of 1861-1865. The first-generation elite was formed as a result.
Prior to this, the first-generation elite was created during George Washington’s administration (1789-1797). From the beginning of George Washington’s presidency to the beginning of the US Civil War, 72 years passed.
The first-generation elite was formed anew as a result of the Civil War.
This elite grew out of the struggle, out of a violent civil war. At the top of the social hierarchy moved those who were more capable, but not more astute or successful in the system of interpersonal relationships. From the moment the U.S. Civil War began to the moment of the conclusion of the country’s second most powerful socioeconomic conflict (the Great Depression of 1929-1933), 72 years passed. If we add that time to the year of the end of the Civil War in the U.S., we get 1937. This was just as critical a year for the U.S in the opinion of modern economists. Now if we add 72 years to 1937, we get 2009. Although it is generally accepted that a world crisis began in 2008, nevertheless the coincidence of the numbers has a sacred character.
During wars, the succession of the elite psychotypes, the economically active population, and the development of the country obey slightly different laws.
The new first-generation elite in the U.S. likewise grew out of the flames of war. Let us add 72 years to 1945 (or perhaps to 1944, the Bretton Woods Conference). 2017 (plus or minus 3 years) is a time when by analogy with the past, sufficiently compelling reasons may arise to replace the existing elite of the US with a new cohort of people. But much depends on the development of the crisis that has begun and on the managerial decisions being made.
One can argue with these calculations. One can include the depression and crisis of 1873-1896. For this reason one can object that different countries have their endogenous cycles of psychoeconomic crises and that this depression is an example of the influence of Germany’s development (which was in another cycle) on the US and other countries. This is an academic argument. For our purposes, it is important that countries that depend less than others in their development on the influence of neighboring countries have a more stable cycle in their development – three generations of elite and two to three generations of an economically active population. This affected all former world economic centers (Genoa, Antwerp, Amsterdam etc.). This affected the development of countries like the U.S. and U.S.S.R., that is, countries that depended on external factors less than others.
It is possible to insist that one must count from the conclusion of an event that serves as a sign of transition of government from one type of elite to another. We can and must maintain that wars deform the process. All this is true. In support of what has been claimed, it is interesting to note that since 1917, when the Bolsheviks came into power in Russia, until 1991, when the now-ruling political powers, the elite, came into power, 74 years passed. One may also object by insisting on 1989, when the CPSS in power fell. Then we likewise obtain 72 years. We may talk about what the events are that our consciousness connects to the arrival of the new elite, the loss of power of one elite and its interception by another. But real changes occur more under the influence of cumulative causes, that is, a large aggregation of microreasons. In the historical process, much is accidental, which carries its own corrections to the effects of cumulative causes. However, the peaks of solar activity arise quite consistently at a 12-year interval (plus or minus 1-3 years).