David Leonhardt and Geraldine Fabrikant wrote an article in a recent New York Times (August 21, 2009) entitled "Rise of the Super-Rich Hits a Sobering Wall." I think I like better the title given to the article by a California newspaper, The Press-Enterprise, which was "After 30-Year Run, Super-Rich’s Rising Wealth Hits the Wall."
Thirty-year run.
A class of super-rich people have developed over the last 30 years, except that now the glitzy vacation for them is over. Which brings me to why I’m writing this blog.
I predicted it.
Not because I have some supernatural gift of prophecy. Not because I read it in the stars. Not because I’m some hot-shot stockbroker. No, because I’m a political scientist (I have the Ph.D. from Cornell to prove it) who noticed an interesting trend in history about 20 years ago and am only now completing the book which gives me this surprising (and often frustrating) power of prediction.
Why frustrating? Remember that Tiananmen Square moment in Iran? I predicted that, too. At least in a general way. Isn’t that convenient? I’ll just go around telling people I predicted things after they come true. It’s driven me to join Twitter (CatherineDong), actually, just to have some kind of record that I can point to someday and go — "See! I told you so!"
But enough complaining. If a stockbroker’s predictions are worth listening to, surely you can take a chance on wasting a few minutes hearing the basis for mine. Just in case I actually did predict this.
Oh, I also created a website with a chapter from the book --- the one about precisely these last thirty years --- at http://www.PredictingHistory.com . So maybe I do have a little proof this time...
Here’s what’s going on.
Every 97.5 years, over the last several hundred years (the cycle was 133.5 years prior to the modern era), we’ve been repeating three world views with extraordinary regularity. As in, every 32.5 years.
I kid you not. And — just to look silly — I’ve called these three repeating world views: mind, body and spirit eras. Okay, not to look silly, but there you go.
Since 1977, we’ve been in a body era. A time of materialism in which the rich get richer (oh, and the poor get poorer, if anybody asks). That period ends in mid 2010.
You see my interest in the headline? "After 30-Year Run, Super-Rich’s Rising Wealth Hits the Wall."
No, they’ve got it all wrong. It was a 32 and a half year run. Ah, well. Nobody’s perfect.
Where’s my evidence? The Second Industrial Revolution in the late 19th century, the First Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century, England’s commerce and financial revolutions in the 17th century, Spain and Belgium’s influx of wealth and financial innovations in the 16th century.
It’s all there on the internet. Really.
Perhaps you’re wondering, then, what’s coming up. If the super-rich aren’t going to be super-rich any more — if we’re not all going to be quite so into materialism — well, what are we going to be into?
Look at our bellwethers — the people who always seem to be out front in a trend, and you’ll have a pretty good idea. Yeah, I’m talking about Jane Fonda and Madonna. (Who did you think I was talking about?) Political protester during the 1960s (Fonda), exercise queen (Fonda) and material girl (Madonna) in the 1990s and...all modest and religious now, aren’t they? And you remember how I named the next one a spirit era?
Of course, there’s always the possibility that my evidence just isn’t strong enough. The early 20th century introduction of Fundamentalism and Pentecostalism, the early 19th century Second Great Awakening, the early 18th century First Great Awakening, the 16th century Awakening in the Netherlands...
So don’t ask me to be surprised about the end of the good times for the super-rich. And now you won’t be surprised in a couple years when you find yourself in a field with 100,000 other people "speaking in tongues" as you give yourself to God.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.