Talk:Cyclical theory (United States history)

I know the general format isn't quite accurate, and other aspects of the article may be extraneous. Please offer suggestions on how this needs to get cleaned up. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Jimmystang (talk • contribs) 05:03, 8 July 2006.

Reference to entry "Crab mentality"
I don't see the connection between this entry on Schlesinger's cyclic theory of American history and the "see also" of "Crab mentality". Is the reference a subtle criticism of the Schlesinger theory? If I'm not "getting it" then there is a probability that others aren't as well. Suggest an explanation of the reference or its deletion. LAWinans (talk) 07:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Major revisions and additions
I added something big that I think was missing: which eras of American history are liberal (public purpose) and which are conservative (private interest). It is important to do that, so as to give readers something to relate to, if nothing else. For instance, the American Civil War and its effects are much better-known than this theory of cycles, I'm sure. Ending slavery and deposing the slaveowner aristocracy were major reforms that that war brought about, and it's easy to see what that period is a liberal / public-purpose period. Likewise, the Gilded Age is also likely better-known. It was a time of rapid industrialization, something with the side effect that a few industrialists ended up commanding major parts of the US economy. This is obviously conservative / private-interest.

I also added a table that gives a summary of each kind of phase, and Arthur Schlesinger Jr's speculations on what makes each kind of phase generate the other kind. I think that the rest of the article should be merged with my descriptions, but I would like each bit of discussion referenced. Here is an outline of what we could do: Lpetrich (talk) 18:27, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
 * The types of phases
 * Liberal phases
 * Conservative phases
 * The types of transitions between phases
 * Transitions in general
 * Liberal to conservative
 * Conservative to liberal

I've left the last three Schlesinger periods blank, because I could not find any proposed names for them in any of my sources. Here are my personal names: That last one is from common comparisons of recent years to the Gilded Age of the late ninteteeth century. Adding these names would violate No Original Research, so I have not done so.
 * Eisenhower Era
 * Sixties Era
 * Gilded Age II

I've added some more cycles:
 * Samuel Huntington's creedal-passion periods, times of upheaval with "American Creed" passion a major part. Their approximately periodic occurrence is a kind of cycle. I could not find much else that refers to them, however. I found much more in Google Scholar, scholar.google.come that refers to the Schlesinger cycles, for instance. I'm mainly giving the creedal-passion periods because they help clarify what goes on in some of Schlesinger's liberal periods.
 * Party systems, since their succession is a kind of cycle.
 * Realigning elections, since their occasional occurrence is a kind of cycle.
 * Frank Klingberg's foreign-policy cycles.

I've neglected the issue of correlations because of lack of mention of them in my sources. The only exception is the lack of correlation between the Schlesinger and Klingberg cycles, which Arthur Schlesinger Jr. proposes is due to the two cycles having different causes.

However, some correlations are evident. Here are Schlesinger's liberal periods with Huntington's creedal-passion periods bolded:

Constitution - Jefferson - Jackson - Civil War - Progressive - New Deal - Sixties

Also, the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th party systems started at the beginnings of liberal periods or shortly before, and that is also true of all the generally agreed-upon realigning elections.

I plan on including Stephen Skowronek's president cycles.

I am half-thinking of including a section on predictions. Some of those who wrote on Schlesinger cycles in the 1980's proposed that a new liberal period would emerge in the 1990's. However, those predictions failed, at least according to Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in "Cycles of American History".

The above is consistent with No original research because it is all documented in outside discussions of the cycles. But what has happened more recently does not have any documentation of connections to the Schlesinger cycles that I have been able to find, though I'd welcome being proved wrong in this. Recent years have IMO a strong resemblance to the later years of some other conservative periods, when unsolved problems accumulate and society's elites either do not recognize their existence or else are reluctant to do much to solve them. Problems like wages being stagnant while student debt rises, housing costs rise, and medical expenses rise. We also see efforts by the Left to end the Gilded-Age features of our time, efforts like the Wisconsin Revolt, the Occupy movement, and most recently, sending left-leaning politicians to Congress. That last effort has had several successes, with the ascent of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being the most spectacular one so far.

Lpetrich (talk) 03:37, 27 November 2019 (UTC)

For Skowronek's president types, my sources gave identifications for only some of the presidents, so I filled in the remaining ones using the descriptions of the types. Most of them are not very well-known, with the exception of George Washington. That's a bit close to violating NOR, I will concede.

I'll have to consult my sources to see how much they recognize relationships between different theories of cyclicity. Huntington's creedal-passion periods match some of Schlesinger's liberal periods but not others.

I'm half-thinking of including a section of criticisms of cyclic theories. David Resnick and Norman C. Thomas in "Cycling Through American Politics" discuss two types of spurious cycles:
 * Procrustean - forcing data into some theoretical mold
 * Random - from the vagaries of statistics

The Strauss-Howe generational cycle seems very Procrustean to me, so that is why I did not include it.

I'm also half-thinking of mentioning Schlesinger's and Brown's prediction of another liberal period in the 1990's. Schlesinger himself later conceded that that prediction failed. For my part, I notice that while Candidate Clinton said all the right things, President Clinton wimped out on most of them, and was meekly passive about the Right's attacks on him.

Lpetrich (talk) 03:54, 30 November 2019 (UTC)

Names of the Three Most Recent Schlesinger Periods
I have left them unnamed because of lack of clear support for the names in the sources that I worked from. However, these seem like plausible names:
 * Eisenhower Era
 * Sixties Era
 * Reagan Revolution / Gilded Age II

"Eisenhower Era" usually refers to Dwight Eisenhower's Presidency and not necessarily to the years immediately around it, years that are also in this period. History of the United States (1945–1964) calls it the Postwar Era, and I've found "Truman-Eisenhower Era".

"Sixties Era" is a common term for the cultural upheaval that took place from the early 1960's to the mid 1970's. History of the United States (1964–1980) calls it the Civil Rights Era, though it refers to the "Cultural Sixties" (term in the article). Counterculture of the 1960s is another reference to "Sixties".

The third period spans three Wikipedia articles: History of the United States (1980–1991) "Reagan Era", History of the United States (1991–2008) "Post-Cold War Era", History of the United States (2008–present) "Modern day". However, Reagan era may be a good candidate, since that era is interpreted as covering essentially all of the most recent Schlesinger period.

Wikipedia does not have much reference to a "Gilded Age II", though it has an article on the original one: Gilded Age

Lpetrich (talk) 20:58, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

Possible additions
There are a lot of possible additions to this article that I did not add because they likely violate No original research They may go in there if one can find published sources that state them, and I'm listing them here to give an idea of what to look for.

A collection of the various cycles in a unified timeline. I doubt that that violates NOR, and I have done something similar for the Schlesinger liberal and conservative periods, linking to articles that describe the time periods. Aside from that, the main problem may be actually implementing the timeline, whether with some Wikipedia timeline widget or in some other way.

Listing the reforms in the liberal phases. This could be done as a table:
 * Huntington Creedal Passion: Revolution, Jackson, Progressive, Sixties
 * Welfare State: New Deal, Sixties
 * Consumer-Products Regulation: Progressive, Sixties
 * Labor Unions: New Deal
 * Race Relations: Civil War, Sixties
 * Feminism: Progressive, Sixties

Additions to the Klingberg-cycle table. There are two major events that could be added to it, events of omission of action that could have been taken.


 * Canada's Rebellions of 1837–1838 The US passed up on helping the Canadian rebels even though such an action would have made possible an objective of some previous wars:
 * Continental Army in 1775, it tried to invade Canada.
 * War of 1812 the US tried to invade Canada.
 * The Scramble for Africa Some European nations divided up Africa among them, and the US was notably absent.

Both of these omissions happened during periods of introversion, the early 19th cy. and the late 19th cy. ones.

What makes the Klingberg cycle run? I have some speculations on that, speculations parallel to what makes the Schlesinger cycle run. But I have not put them into the article to avoid violating NOR. Extroverted phases always end in some big war, and usually an unsatisfying big war. Introverted phases often end as a result of real or perceived challenges from abroad.

--Lpetrich (talk) 03:53, 25 November 2021 (UTC)

Here is a table of each liberal era's reforms. I have not put it into the main article because I am concerned that it may violate NOR, even though all of its content can be backed up by references to the appropriate articles.

What sets of reforms:
 * Gov: government structure
 * Reg: government regulation
 * Wfr: welfare-state measures
 * Env: environmentalist measures
 * Lab: labor issues: unions, regulation
 * Rac: race-relations issues
 * Fem: feminist issues

What's in the table:
 * Gov: Revolution and creation of Constitution, Jacksonian expansion of franchise and spoils system and opposition to 2nd Bank of US, (Prog) popular election of Senators, ballot initiative and recall for states, (60s) lowering voting age, expansion of primaries
 * Reg: (Prog) antitrust, food and drug purity, (NwDl) Securities and Exchange Commission, etc. (60s) consumer-product regulation
 * Wfr: (CvWr) Homestead Act, land-grant colleges, transcon RR, (NwDl) Social Security, (60s) Medicare
 * Env: (Prog) national parks, (NwDl) Civilian Conservation Corps, (60s) Environmental Protection Agency and the like
 * Lab: (Prog) work-hours restrictions, minimum wages, child-labor restrictions, (NwDl) National Labor Relations Board
 * Rac: (CvWr) the Civil War, abolition of slavery, Reconstruction, (60s) the civil-rights movement
 * Fem: (Prog) early feminism, votes for women, (60s) revival of feminism

Lpetrich (talk) 00:35, 12 December 2021 (UTC)