The Socionomist A monthly publication designed to help readers understand and prepare for major changes in social mood Dem October 2011 1 In the midst of growing negative mood, ocr democracy faces threats from within 5 Scientist who challenged textbook orthodoxy receives Nobel Prize 8 Monumental shifts are occurring in everything from trade alliances to acy gender lines Under AttAck PO Box 1618 • Gainesville, GA 30503 USA A publication of the Socionomics Institute 770-536-0309 • 800-336-1618 • FAX 770-536-2514 www.socionomics.net © 2011 SOCIONOMICS INSTITUTE Democracy Under Attack The Socionomic Nolan Chart Helps Us Map Current Events By Alan Hall [Editor’s note: In the West, few institutions are as revered as democracy. Yet socionom- ics holds that social mood pushes around even society’s most sacred norms. Where will politics end up after a historic bear Courtesy abcnews.go.com market? As Hall shows with his break- through “Socionomic Nolan Chart,” the only certainty is an increasingly fragmented process.] Expressions of the large-degree negative A protester on Wall Street displays his predisposition. social mood trend now seem to be accelerating A Growing Appetite: and putting aspects of our Socionomic Nolan Chart (Figure 1) into motion. (For a review of the chart, tions, boycotts and strikes in New York, London, Spain, see our April 2010 issue). So forceful is the mood shift Greece, India and Israel: “wariness, even contempt, to- that even democracy itself, an idealized form of govern- ward traditional politicians and the democratic political ment during the Grand Supercycle uptrend from 1784, is process they preside over”4 (emphasis added). now coming under more-widespread attack from within “We’re the first generation to say that voting is democracies. It is still early in this process. One should worthless,” said a young Spanish woman. A young In- not assume that democracy, or at least its current form, dian woman said, “We elect the people’s representatives will survive the expected Grand Supercycle downtrend so they can solve our problems, [but] that is not actually in social mood. happening. Corruption is ruling our country.” A young In the United States, Peter Orzsag, the former direc- Israeli man said, “the political system has abandoned tor of President Obama’s Office of Management and its citizens.” Budget, wrote an article, “Too Much of a Good Thing: One woman, who told USA Today she walked 200 Why We Need Less Democracy.” Orszag said U.S. miles to protest in Washington, said, “We are the 99 “political polarization was growing worse – harming percent. We don’t have a government that represents Washington’s ability to do the basic, necessary work us. That is the message.”5 of governing.” Beverly Purdue, the governor of North Sociologists flounder when they try to explain Carolina, called for suspending elections for two years why the world’s young adults are suddenly taking to so that Congress can “get over the partisan bickering the streets: 1 and focus on fixing things.” You’re looking at a generation of 20- and 30-year- Russia is about to re-elect Vladimir Putin in a olds who are used to self-organizing. They believe 2 “mockery of democracy,” says the Economist, while life can be more participatory, more decentralized, The Washington Post laments, “Russia, once almost a less dependent on the traditional models of organi- 3 democracy.” zation … .4 Citizens, too, are increasingly questioning whether representational democracy works. “‘Voting is worth- This generation is not inherently different. Like the less’? Global protests share contempt for democracy,” previous generation, it comprises Homo sapiens, and reads a September 28, MSNBC headline. The article they have the same brains as their predecessors. Rather, cites a common theme in the recent street demonstra- the protestors are reflecting a new social mood trend. We regularly release new socionomic reports. If you would like us to email you whenever we release a resource, you may request notification here:www.socionomics.net /1110-email-update The Socionomics Institute • www.socionomics.net P.O. Box 1618 • Gainesville, GA 30503 USA • 770-536-0309 • 800-336-1618 • FAX 770-536-2514 The Socionomist—October 2011 Originally published in the April 2010 Issue of The Socionomist Figure 1 You Are Here: Western society’s ideological decentralization process appears to be somewhere between stages 2 and 3. A recent blog post at FifthWaveFinancialAnalysis. All the Same Frustration com captures Occupy Wall Street’s true impetus: Right-wing media, including political commentator People think these protestors are being rational. They Sean Hannity, have castigated the primarily left-wing aren’t; they are just finding something to protest Occupy Wall Street protesters, portraying them as because of the predominately negative social mood. disorganized “mobs” engaged in “class warfare.” But If the trend were up, all the inequity on Wall Street as humorist Jon Stewart pointed out on his October 5 7 would be like water off a duck’s back. Indeed that show, the protests have much in common with the Tea was the case up until the May 2 top.6 Party protests of 2009-2010 despite coming from the 2 The Socionomist—October 2011 opposite side of the political divide. Stewart showed a forms, and evidence of it will be visible in all types clip of Hannity saying, of social organizations. Political manifestations will The average American taxpayer knows that at the end include protectionism in trade matters, a polarized of the day they are going to be on the hook for the and vocal electorate, separatist movements, xeno- trillions and trillions of dollars that we are using to phobia, citizen-government clashes, the dissolution bail out these companies, some of whom have been of old alliances and parties, and the emergence of irresponsible. And they are expressing their frustra- radical new ones.8 tion, which I think is quintessentially American. Figure 2 approximates the positions of the Tea Party Stewart applauded, but then revealed that Hannity was and Occupy Wall Street movements in the context of our speaking of the Tea Party protestors in 2009. Socionomic Nolan Chart. In fractal fashion, the groups that have calved from the center will themselves tend Internal Fragmentation to divide. Diverse groups increasingly display polarization. In September 2011, Ben Smith wrote on Politico. For example, on October 18, Reuters reported “Fissures com, “Sarah Palin’s address to a Tea Party Express rally at the Federal Reserve over the correct course of future … appeared to focus on worries that the movement is monetary policy.” The New York Times headlined a rift divided and flagging.” Palin warned against “internal that has widened “in the last decade” within the tight- quarrels,” yet modeled polarization by attacking fellow knit Amish society: “Amish Renegades Are Accused in Republican Rick Perry for “crony capitalism.”9 Bizarre Attacks on Their Peers.” The renegades assaulted Similarly, Occupy Wall Street, which has yet to other Amish and cut off their beards, an important mas- coalesce into a definable group, already shows internal culine symbol. The fear is so great that some Amish are division. Recently at an Atlanta rally, the group could unusually cooperating with law enforcement. not agree whether to let civil rights hero John Lewis speak.10 A Chicago Sun Times article suggests the movement has plenty of bulls’-eyes to divide its atten- tion: “Now perhaps it’s time for another target: Occupy Congress.”11 MSNBC reports regarding Occupy Wall Street: It’s messy. It’s disorganized. At times, the message is all but incoherent. All of which makes Occupy Wall Street, the loosely organized protest in lower Man- hattan … a lot like the rest of the current American political discourse.12 ABC News also described the protests’ lack of defini- tion: Figure 2 These protesters have adopted that same decentral- ized structure. … One of the beautiful things about A Changing Landscape: We expect to update the Socionomic Nolan Chart in the future to track the emergence of new groups [Occupy Wall Street] is that it is a movement defining 13 in the U.S. and perhaps in other countries. itself as it ‘becomes.’ The September 2001 issue of The Elliott Wave Though Occupy Wall Street’s objectives are vague, Theorist said, the protests themselves are gaining steam. Representa- 13 The coming trend of negative social psychology will tives from 15 of the largest U.S. labor unions and the be characterized primarily by polarization between Industrial Workers of the World have announced support 14 and among various perceived groups. … Such a for the movement, and copycat protests have spread 15 sentiment change typically brings conflict in many to dozens of cities. 3 The Socionomist—October 2011 Both the Tea Party protests and Occupy Wall Street As Prechter explained later in The Wave Principle have different particulars and timing, but they spring of Human Social Behavior (1999), advancing waves of from the same source—the negative social mood trend. social mood “tend to lead to political freedom, while Both movements emerged early in the downtrend. They retrenchments tend to lead to political repression.”18 should pick up in frequency, intensity and internal frag- Under a September 2011 headline, “The compass fails,” mentation as mood continues to decline. The Economist noted, Freedom House, a New York-based body that moni- Not Just Democracy tors a range of political and civil rights, reported that The Elliott Wave model suggests that social mood 2010 saw a net decline in liberty across the world for is always in flux. There is never a static norm. Change the fifth year in a row, the longest continual decline in is the norm.