George Friedman
In my books “The Next 100 Years” and “The Storm Before the Calm,” I introduced a model of U.S. history consisting of political cycles and socio-economic cycles – the former tracking presidential elections, the latter explaining a 50-year process that coincides with the election of new presidents. These cycles included broad social, economic and geopolitical evolutions. I will now lay out the sixth cycle expectation for the next 50 years. Its purpose is to link the evolution of U.S. politics to the general social and economic patterns we anticipate.
In the United States, a new socio-economic cycle shows its hand, its flaws and its power over time as a president, sometimes heedless of the emerging reality, manages the political system that will govern it and, in turn, be reshaped by it.
It’s important to remember that the president of the United States presides. He does not rule. His power rests in a profound awareness of the spirit of the nation and the forces that will shape it, ranging from the domestic economy to global interests. It is these forces and the president’s grasp of them that define the presidency, but the forces – be it technological innovation or unforeseen economic calamity – are not of the president’s own making. He presides over and facilitates the necessity that emerges and faces the inevitable. President Ronald Reagan politically engineered the financial foundation of our current cycle by creating a climate to increase investment capital and oversaw the founding of a new financial and social order following one of the models that new presidents employ on taking office: the ruthless and even reckless overthrow of the old.
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