I can do that.
I'll do that -- though I don't expect much edification but I can always use a chuckle or two. This blurb from your first link:Originally Posted by AdamG
""As Future Shock did in the 1970s and Megatrends did in the 1980s, this groundbreaking book will have a profound effect on every reader's perception of America's past, present, and future.""
is probably indicative of the total value of the Book -- both the two cited were IMO flops and of small merit. Few books live up to their hype and as Neils Bohr said, "Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future." People are too erratic and individually different to be pigeonholed as most predictive efforts have to try to do.
However, no argument on broad predictability. Everything goes in cycles including American domestic politics which are boringly predictable and cyclical.Mid stream, time wise. Not so good, just belated and somewhat reasonable guesses -- which are what most 'forecasts' are. Actually, I'd say they missed it by 20 years. That turning was mid 60s to mid 80s and the US (as well as most of the rest of the world) has yet to understand how much the world changed in that time frame. The world's power structures, mostly, did not adapt (Singapore one bright exception, there are a couple of others) -- and is still fighting and trying to avoid adapting to it. Witness everything that's driving the nervous types up a wall today and it all started between 1965-1985, we're just cleaning up the aftermath.They put the Third Turning as "the Culture Wars (1984 to 2005?)". That's pretty accurate forecasting, from 1997...
Note also US domestic programs oriented to the 1930s by all those left leaners who have not yet realized that their dreams of dependency and an all powerful government are not going to happen. Today, most western nation are just beginning to adjust to the changes that were glaringly obvious in the 1980s but which power structures diligently ignored as threatening to their 'vision.' Generational change is part of that adaptation but public discontent with the political classes worldwide is a more important driver of belated change.
The fascinating thing is that Karl Marx, bourgeois soul that he was, got confused and though disagreement with the human condition was about class -- it was not and is not, it's about fairness of opportunity -- not outcome, opportunity. Very few begrudge he or she who has great wealth as long as they believe they could achieve that or close to it under their system of government. The socialist or populist idea opposes that fairness, by denying chance for great success in order to attempt 'equal' outcomes -- most people do not agree with that model.The Social Democratic governments of Europe got cranked up in the 30s, went for broke (literally) after WW II and, finally really broke, can snicker at the idiotic USA which is still trying to implement that foolishness as opposed to wisely scaling it back as Europe is doing. That model does not work for the long haul because it is intrinsically unfair and people will passively at first, actively if necessary, opt for change. There may be a "Fourth Turning," may not -- much depends on what a few people do or do not do -- and authors who have attempted to predict what people will do fail every bit as badly as the Generals who busily prepare for the last war.
As to the full effects of "the new coming-of-age generation of upbeat, team-playing, Millennials," we'll see. Too early to tell, as is true of the Gen Xers and even the Baby Boomers. Generational change is real -- but only rarely is it truly significant.
Your final quote from the book:May or may not occur, elements of it have (a number of times during the last 220 years and including this year..."An impasse over the Federal budget reaches a stalemate. The President and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The President declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The President threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics.") and certainly will again. Default has loomed, will again and is vastly overblown as a potential problem.
I think Wall Street and Panics is almost certainly an oxymoron...
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