Cycles or Dynamic-Equilibrium: The K (Cycle) Question

Carl Dassbach Writes:

This individual is merely another case - and there are plenty - of these so-called "experts" on K-wave who have simultaneously failed to carefully read Schumpeter while not acknowledging how much they have borrowed from Schumpeter. Few people understand Schumpeter because they can't be bothered to carefully read, while asking the right questions, the two volumes of Business Cycles and several of his essays written before the appearance of Business Cycles. Instead, they rely on Kuznet's review and critique of Business Cycles or subsequent interpretations of Schumpeter (which rely on Kuznet and reproduce his errors) and the result is confusion and imprecision - I can name names but I won't - instead, I'll mention some of the typical errors: confusing invention with innovation, failing to see what is truly significant about innovation, failing to understand what causes the "clustering" of innovations, restricting the meaning of innovation to new material technologies, failing to understand that each K-wave is a "historical individual" or failing to understand what gives K-waves, in Schumpeter's eyes, their cyclical character.

EvB and others were on a list I created several years ago called Long Waves …The list had an interesting history - first , not much discussion and then what I call "stockmarket types" … subscribed and the list really took off. These people are primarily interested in long waves as a tool for speculation - for, predicting the future behavior of the market etc. Hence, they tend to ask the wrong questions, become overly involved in quantitative measures to identify trends and make predictions, and even try to "sell" their advice …

Lk R. Replies:

Two points ---> This divergence of LW perspectives (stockmarket/investment types Vs. academicians) points to the issue of seeing social/economic change in light of either: the contemporary short-view or the long term view of change in human experience; if we take a longer term approach to waves/cycles, then we’re going to have to, by necessity, consider issues of regularity and directional sequence over time --> That entails we consider dating in cycles of socioeconomic history, timing within and over a spread of K-waves and hegemonic shifts, and the distinct ‘points on the wave’ corresponding to human events in world [system] history.

Eric’s model, it seems to me, is turning the paradigm of the Long Wave inside out and then taking a distinct cycle and analyzing it (interiorly) via its <qualitative universal-operational> (its “dynamic”) components. The problem in doing this is that it belittles the extended (into-time) picture of K-wave phenomena [which is clearly seen to be keyed in with the larger spectrum of history] saying that only directional linear progress matters over the long haul of historical experience while regularities and parallels from one period to another don’t make a difference. The historical record seems to lend credence to the argument that they do make a difference. There is cyclical change AND progress, cycles AND sequence (ergo, we’d have a spiral in history - that is, cycles and <linear, directional> sequence).

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A CLOSING QUESTION: What are we to make of Kontratyev’s own differentiation between the irreversible and reversible trends? In light of World-Systems or even a standard academic (non-market watcher) long cycle perspective, what alternatives should we consider to EVB’s model {of accounting f/ K-dynamism and the I/R trends by the dynamics of the “square wheel” (dynamic equilibrium) and its ‘track’ (i.e., the path of PROGRESS in history)? …

Luke Rondinaro, The Consilience Projects