Neil Howe: Crisis Looms Now That The Fourth Turning Is Here

we go back and actually look at this and what's interesting is we see today um Adam the same Specter of both Civil War and external War Rising right in America I I have been putting out to people that you know I ended Microsoft I look at surveys all the time and 10 years ago no one even surveyed the question is a civil war likely in America right now uh that question is uh asked all the time at about half of the Americans think it's likely but you also have the prospect of geopolitical conflict obviously both in the Western Pacific you know with the with the threat from China and obviously a major land War now happening in in Europe um and these I think have also focused the mind of a lot of people we are entering into an era uh where we see the prospect of major history happening both internally and externally and as I point out this is exactly the incontinence of what we usually see important hearings we usually see both things happening at once [Music] welcome to wealthyon I'm wealthy I'm founder Adam Taggart it's said that history unfolds in cycles that civilizations and societies boom bust and then rise Anu to repeat the pattern a pattern that's surprisingly predictable in both its timing and trajectory today's guest expert is demographer Neil Howe co-author of the book The Fourth turning a seminal work in which he and his fellow researcher William Strauss laid out the evidence for these seasons of societal change that they referred to as turnings when that book first came out in 1997 Howard Strauss warned that the next societal winter the next fourth turning to use their label would begin early on in the New Millennium in his brand new sequel the fourth turning is here hell reveals that we are now indeed deep within a fourth turning that started roughly in 2008 commensurate with the global financial crisis our current Society has entered the bust part of its cycle where the status quo falls apart often chaotically what should we expect from this period of disruption are there steps we can take to improve our odds of persevering and perhaps more importantly how can we position ourselves to play a constructive role and possibly Thrive as this fourth turning concludes to be replaced as history suggests by a new and hopefully better order now it's time to hear from the author himself Neil thanks so much for joining us today hey Adam it's great to be here well look I'm so excited to talk to you we've had a lot of people asking for you to come on this channel they're super excited to hear about your new book which I have a copy of right here very thick you can see the immense amount of work that went into this um lots to talk about here Neil incredibly germane to the times that we're living in before I get into the detailed questions here can you just give our audience a quick summary of your your generational Theory and its archetypes and turnings this is just for folks that may not have you know been familiar with your previous work uh Bill Strauss and I developed uh originally back in the late 1980s we did a book called Generations uh retelling the story of America as a sequence of generational biographies really starting with uh the the Puritan generation coming to New England in the 1630s The Great Migration going all the way up to uh what at that time was the 14th American Generation Um Millennials who at that time were little kids uh they didn't have a name yet in fact at the time we wrote even Generation X did not have a name so uh we we thought these these kids we expected would be the high school class of 2000 so we named the Millennials so if you want to know where the name Millennial comes from uh there it is uh 1991 in our in our book Generations um but that was a method and we were not interested Adam originally in looking at cycles of history we were really interested in patterns of generational change uh and we noticed the generation did come in patterns you know certain kinds of generations always followed others for instance after a very um you know idealistic uh utopian a generation uh uh rebelling against the institutions of their parents like Boomers they're always followed a more cynical materialistic survivalist generation like exers this is not the first time this happened it's happened repeatedly in American history you look back at the generation of Abraham Lincoln and Ralph Waldo Emerson and and um uh uh uh Walt Whitman and they were followed by a generation of metal and muscle this would have been George Armstrong Custer and Ulysses Grant they weren't big talkers they but but you know they did they did the Dirty Work right they got big jobs done and then similarly following these wild Generations come much more protected Generations as we've seen about Millennials following Exodus it but you understand my point there's certain rhythms in generational change and these rhythms are actually associated with corresponding rhythms in history itself and that was something we noticed at the end of generations but we made it the leading thesis of the book we wrote in 1997 called the fourth turning and that was that the something that many historians have noticed that the great periods of Civic upheaval of public mobilization uh great Wars and uh the kind of reconstruction of our national outer world politics economics infrastructure and so on occur about the length of a Long human lifetime apart and we had a famous period in the late um 17th century the period of the Glorious Revolution and Bacon's rebellion and you know I I I King Phillips war and so on yeah a notorious period of rebellion in the colonies and then roughly a half roughly a Long human lifetime afterwards we had the American Revolution and then a Long human lifetime after we had read the Civil War and then we had the Great Depression World War II and then here we are again today Adam um you know foreign the next the next great period of disruption and roughly halfway in between these civica people we have the great Awakenings of American History where we reconstruct the inner world of values religion um literature art and so on and these are uh very conveniently in American history we number them we call it the first Great Awakening the Second Great Awakening and so on and and so we've had those two and many historians think of the late 60s and 70s As Americans fourth or fifth Great Awakening depending on when you want to start your count but these this alternation between inner world and outer World um leads to a a a set of um archetypes and others different Generations that are differently situated in history some generations are are you know come of age during Awakenings like Boomers some generations are raised as children during Awakenings like exers some generations are born and raised after Awakenings in a much more protected environment like millennials and some generations are the children of the next Crisis these are four archetypes and they correspond with the four turnings of History which we liken to Seasons if you think of America after World War II uh we all you know often refer to William O'Neill the historian talked about the American High which was the presidencies of Truman and Eisenhower John Kennedy uh late 1940s 50s early 1960s uh that would have been America's first turning right the beginning of the secular following the last crisis right and that was that's uh the springtime of the secular and that's when uh institutions of strong individualism is weak uh Society appeals a very strong sense of collective purpose about where it wants to move even though individuals don't feel very um Freedom move within that system right I mean there's a strong Conformity that surrounds people the second turning which is the summer season is The Awakening and that's when we throw off all those social obligations right we and that's when the the prophet archetype is coming of age like Boomers leading that leading that charge you know we no longer want to dress to please others we no longer want to choose careers to please others we want to do whatever the hell we want to do and it and uh in the last instance it started in the culture uh particularly on college campuses often in inner cities and it ended really with the economy we we uh we want to tax cuts deregulation on every front we wanted just to do our own thing right um and it led to a period of increasing individualism in American society a widening gap between rich and poor obviously I think Boomers have been very uh um uh very tolerant of increasing differences between social classes remember the one thing Boomers hated most coming of age was this huge oppressive middle class and they hinted that Pleasant Valley Sunday everywhere right and so they wanted more freedom for people to just go and move in different directions and it's interesting you have uh so Boomers hated the orderliness of that world and it's and it's funny because today you have almost an opposite reaction you talk to Millennials today and it's like middle class they say it sounds great where do I set up uh I I don't see it I don't see that either um so so that's what happens now The Fall season is like the we call it the the third turning and that would have been you know the late 1980s the 1990s the early oos and that's a period That's the opposite of the high that's a pretty Rising individualism weakening Pacific trust weakening institutions if you think a famous third turning decades it would have been the Roaring 90s or the Roaring 20s where the 1850s or the 1760s these were all Decades of cynicism and Bad Manners and sort of um weak attachment to Civic life generally people didn't really care too much about it I think in the late 1990s along with the.com bubble the light motif of those years was Francis fukuyama's end of History remember that individualism is triumphant markets are a triumphant all the great causes of History were over and government would just sort of melt away leaving individuals around the world just to self-actualize and to enjoy the diversity of all their choices right no sense of community whatsoever well the fourth turning is when we ReDiscover community and the and the generation coming of age instead of wanting less order wants more order and that really is what causes the cold front to move in right you think about the weather analogy right it's not like a worm front moving in it's like a cold front moving in and um and exploring exactly what it's worth turning is and exactly how it transpires and in which stages is something I try to do in this book in a lot more close detail than I did in the earlier book that I did with Bill do you remember because at that time the fourth training was still way out there you know we only had vague analogies to draw upon now we're really in it right um so there's I think more to say more detail to draw out and and one last thing Adam and that is um as you know from reading the book I spend a fair amount of time talking about the world we're going to move into because in a way it's it's where we're headed this first journey and one way to really understand the overall trajectory is to look at this coming world of the first journey and you think about this maybe I'll just uh stop this with one analogy think about how America changed from the late 1920s I mean uh you know a decade when young people were Rum Runners and the gym gin fizz crowd and they were you know they're all crowding on top of flagpoles just doing xanium I mean the whole country it was kind of crazy it was that the Movable Feast celebrity circuses it was a wild time in America very weak sense of Civic life think about a change from then until the early 1950s wow what a change and the culture in the role of government in our society and our economy in the sense of the national Community uh the sense of America's role in the world what a change what would it be like going from the early OS you know that time of um where the.com bubble or just any time around then the the mortgage Mania do you remember that time everyone was buying houses and kind of the stupid era to the mid or the late 2030s and that's really what I'm thinking about how is that world and and I think that's a really great um just just as the the last decade decade and a half we've seen has been a lot like the 1930s in so many respects socially economically geopolitically around the world um I think where we're going uh the analogy also holds and I think that's an interesting way to think about overall trajectory uh wow Neil that was uh that was a fantastic uh intro to the whole discussion here so um I do want to get to what you see coming in the the new first turning you know after this fourth turning um because that's what really matters right uh and also that's really where the Hope in the story lies right uh but I've I've found as I'm sure you have too where if you tell somebody all right you're going to take some pain to get some gain later on you really have to talk to them about the pain before they even open their mind to what the gain is going to be so um let's let's dive into sort of what you see coming in the rest of this fourth turning but before we do um really quickly I should have mentioned earlier when I held up this book it's just recently made the New York Times bestseller list so first off I want to congratulate you on that impressive accomplishment um but I'm curious like you know you you wrote this seminal work back in in 1997 uh it has largely played out as predicted um what parts about how this has unfolded have felt validating to you like oh we really nailed that part right and and what parts if any of how things have unfolded have surprised you is this fourth turning really has arrived in in full force well that's that's an interesting question I I I think what what's most fulfilling to me is is really um is following our generational method I think how each of the generations has turned out is very close to what bill and I originally foresaw that is to say a boomer generation entering you know old age seeing itself as a generation of visions and values you know often you know very principled uncompromising um uh you know whatever you know wherever they are whether in the red zone or the Blue Zone and in in in in churches or in college campuses right um and then there's very kind of pragmatic low self-esteem kind of um low profile gen xers gen xers were still the same yep still still kind of uh lurking you know not quite deciding whether they really want to tune in often pleased to see arguments between Boomers and Millennials because that way they still get to sort of you know remain in the background a generation very slow as we predict it to uh rise into public life this generation is slower to assume leadership as Governors members of Congress and and uh uh you know obviously the presidency then any other generation in American history uh we we expected that we expected that uh we also expected that it might be ideologically a little bit out of sync uh Gen X it shows every science particularly the adjustment for their age being the most Republican generation today you know um this is the generation that most supported Trump you know after the after the 2020 election uh they are the generation that um that uh that that that that you know feels it one with the with the with the left out crowd you know those who were sort of overlooked by all those with all those fancy credentials and so on a little bit of a um uh that that wounded sense of grievance you know the Gen X's have often had uh uh I I think however that this generation has will become as as all other Nomad archetypes have been in midlife absolute Folker that this that this gen this country will rely upon to move into the better era we've seen it again and again this is the generation without complaint actually gets the big things done right because they're in mid luck I mean they're the uh they're the generals they're the CEOs they're the people actually making decisions in the midst of the crisis rumors are moving on and Millennials are not yet in those top positions yet and focusing on how this generation actually behaves in in midlife is actually you know as you know one big part of the discussion in my book right who are who is this generation midlife and when have we seen this type of generation before and how do they approach uh kind of midlife leadership even if gen xers don't really think of themselves ever as Leaders right um and then and then Millennials which I think is the generation that we always foresaw even when they were small children you know special confident very protected very risk-averse uh and very Community oriented I mean this is a generation obsessed with doing things in groups uh fomo is their middle name right fear of missing out they always want to do things with every with you know with each other and they always want to do things as a big group uh you know that's in investing I mean how do how do Millennials invest well it's a you know Define define the contribution uh retirement plans right now you know opt out rather than opt-in right so that they're all the sort of automatically funneled into these things and they go to Target take funds which essentially has a bunch of experts manage their funds all into some huge um you have you know ETF that represents everything right so they're basically crowd funding themselves and what that means is it if the market goes down they all they'll go down with each other which is great for malayas because there's no fomo the worst fear of millennials is going down without your peers right so if they all invest in the same thing and and actually that's what we saw actually with with John Steinbeck and and a lot of the uh early wave GIS who were born in the first decade of the 20th century commenting on the 1930s they said actually that the Great Depression wasn't so bad because we were all poor together we could all go down I mean John Steinbeck is just talking about going down to the Orchard and you know they just took apples off the trees and you know we had a lot of time we talked about life uh we weren't burning ourselves out trying to be accountants and lawyers anymore because they weren't any jobs for that uh but that sense of having the pressure taken off I think that sense that exers never had of being in this very large group that's all going somewhere together they don't know where it is yet whereas exers of course always separated into little niches of winners and losers right extra is the only one that got the edge on their peers right but we always felt like latsky kids no matter what happened right we were just yeah and the difference is too is that extras are all spelled their entire generation is going to be total traffic accident anyway this could be total loss so you figured if you alone are successful that was your one you know to do better than your peers was the one way to get out of this catastrophe presenting Millennials are always told that they're going to do very well right you're the hope of America's future so that their best bet was to try to crowd in with each other very different we and so I would say one of our one of my big discoveries and and sort of the one ways in which we've sort of adjusted the theory is just to this this dilation of of uh generational lengths and and the secular life a little bit so and it's interesting because if you look back historically over the sort of entire anglo-american history going way back the the secular and the turnings used to be a little bit longer and they got shorter you know in the in the 19th century the early 20th century Generations came of age at younger ages they got married at younger ages uh uh uh a growing economy allowed people to leave home at younger ages and get you know very productive careers and so actually generational leadership with some accelerated people people became presidents actually at younger ages around you know 1900 1910 1920 then they did you know a century earlier but I think today it's beginning to revert right um and I think that the the economy today for a young adult has more in common with the economy of I don't know 1700 than the economy of 1900 or 1950. in the sense that as in the early modern era when you know uh kind of an agrarian economy did not grow very fast right and it took a while to set up a new household people left home uh back in the late 17th century early early 18th century they left home in their late 20s uh nutrition was poor women weren't fertile until they're late teens I mean you have to remember how different this was and no one had you know uh pregnancies out of wedlock you really had to get married to have kids and you had to leave home to have kids and you had to set up a new household the Trinity you needed landing and tools you had to wait right to start families and and as a demographer I know this but a lot of people don't know this I I know when I talk to people they often think you know three centuries ago we all bred like rabbits you know what I mean we all you know everyone married in their teens they said absolutely not start to interject on this but so I grew up in New England and and there was something called a bed board that when you got married if you were his husband was still living at home you would often sleep in the same bed as the parents and there would be a dividing board between the parents side of the bed and The Newlywed side of the bed it just sounds awful but to your point like it was taking people a lot longer to eject from the house and create their own a lot longer and in fact the the norm was you really weren't allowed to get married while you still lived at home and that was actually a a Hallmark of sort of Western Europe the whole Western European Asia was a little bit different and Asia had faster demographic growth you know particularly in those centuries but Europe was different and Europe actually had very slow demographic growth during those centuries mainly due to very low fertility because it took a lot longer for families to um to uh you know fully economically come of age um and obviously you know child mortality was higher we know everything else was was obviously very different but um I do think that we're we're slowing down a little bit in the pace of the cycle and and that just means adjusting a little bit you know Bill and I thought about something that you know if we're turning would would climax in the mid 2020s and now we're sort of saying well maybe you know at least I'm saying you know 2030 or early 2030s you know what I mean a little bit later than before that's an interesting adjustment and I and I think uh young people are really aware of that you know the fact that older people are are still just you know incumbents they're still monopolizing all these these places uh a lot of extras keep wondering when are it when are these Boomers could just get leap you know retire so they can move up I mean every it's like musical chairs right I mean people have to leave so other people can can uh can can move up and and be decision makers and of course that speeds up the pace of history as younger people you know move up into those uh into those higher leadership roles all right um interesting so well first congrats on nailing the archetypes and interesting that sort of the the expansion of the the turnings of the seculum is is one of the things that caught your attention especially because like you would think you know with technology and everything it feels like everything's speeding up and it is to a certain extent but apparently not in the duration I often you know ask people about this whole technology speeding up and and it's amazing we always we always focus on the speed of whatever we're paying attention to so today you know it's this gadget I've got right here right you know it does amazing things so this is what I think of as speeding up right and yet everything else in my life as I slowed down to like zero I mean I'm I'm driving the same internal combustion automobile that that I just that my parents are driving when I was a tiny kid the same highways the same Bridges all the external infrastructure not only the same type of bridges I mean the same I mean even the thing hasn't changed it was built by the GI generation during and just after World War II and it literally hasn't changed ever since so much of our life is stationary you know in terms of our public technology in terms of how we actually live and land use and all the rest um I sometimes ask people if you had taken a look at the life cycle of say someone born in the late 1880s say um say um Eisenhower right say Ike let's take Ike's lifetime so he he was born in the in the in the late 1880s um he grew up in a world where kings and queens do rule of Europe uh words carrots drew things on cities there were no such thing as uh you know telephones that hardly been invented obviously were never used uh most Americans still used outhouses uh we had no planes we had no wait we you just think of the kind of world we live in right uh people hauled huge pieces of ice up tenements you know to put in their refrigerator I mean the way we live there's ice box yeah icebox by the time Eisenhower was in a second term of president he was flying in a in a 707 I think that was the uh that was that was your first one back then he was flying at a jet airplane and he was renting memos about the future plans to land and this is actually just prior to to Jack Kennedy's arrival in the white house he was writing memos about plans to put a man on the moon I mean you want to talk about a lifetime of change I mean let's talk about his lifetime and then say how many of us have lived through those changes right right um and I I think it gives us a sense of humility I think we always think that our lifetime is filled with such changes well um you know maybe maybe not uh and in any case I do think that when he was you know a fully coming of age and when he was acting upon the world uh America was it was a was going through a period of tremendous rapid growth and people were actually uh uh moving into their careers moving into marriages at younger ages than today and it and it makes you wonder about you know is if life is rushed today for young people what do we call it back in 1960s you know when people are moving into buying houses and Automobiles and had their first child on the way at age 21. that was not unusual um anyway this is Food For Thought and and I I do have some Reflections on that in the book and I think we tend to get skewed a little bit in how we view the pace of change okay all right well look I I want to get to where all this is headed and and really the whole topic of rebirth I want to end on you know both the optimism element of that but also just if that's where the Puck's headed like how do we prepare for that but but first let's get to the the Devolution of the current order because fourth turnings is really where the status quo falls apart and is then replaced by the new seculum right um so do you see the you know we're here in 2023 this may last into the early 2030s as you mentioned um is this sort of like an exponential decline where it's sort of falling apart falling apart but then there's sort of a watershed you know where just everything just sort of you know blows up and then a new system Rises From the Ashes do you see something different um so I'll let you answer this any way you like but I think the question most people have in their mind is Neil how bad is this going to get um it it it it it will get worse but but then it gets better and I think the the point to remember is conflict right I mean that's how the creative destruction of public institutions take place it takes place through conflict um and one of the things this is true of all fourth earnings um is true in in other countries it's true and certainly in our own history all of the total Wars we have fought have been in fourth earnings and in fact all of our you know uh all of our fourth earnings have had total words and others is a perfect correspondence going back um and it's one one question that people ask which I think is a good one I spend a fair amount of time talking about that is is the conflict meaning internal or external or is it some combination of both right um and and I I discussed that at some length and I I do think that's a it's a question of um uh degree is very often both at the same time in a in a really odd way um and you'll start certain interrupt just to help people understand by external you mean maybe like geopolitical conflict a foreign war with as an Invader that we have to deal with or an internal one might be like a crushing wealth divide disparity right Civil War or a revolution or just something that's internal um and and what's interesting is when you look at it um Civil Wars always have an external Dimension external Wars other than an internal Dimension and both usually Loom during a four attorneys it's interesting that the uh Great Depression World War II which climaxed with World War II uh started with a decade of intense polarization uh of America in terms of politics right I mean we had you know FDR uh one in 1932 and huge victory in 1936 and polarized America I mean if you if you talk to to Democrats or those who favored the popular front and the New Deal uh they called the 1930s the fascist decade and in fact Fashions were taking over many countries around the world um I but if you would talk to conservatives and Republicans they called the 1930s the red decade you know because there was that going on as well you know in the 1930s and and what thing what they had in common was there was no middle ground everyone was giving up on Democracy democracy was finished right I mean that was people's opinion uh liberal democracy and capitalism was done for it was either communism or fascism take your pick and if you had asked to uh an American most Americans probably in the late 1930s when we were still signing the Oxford pledge you know young people signing the Oxford pledge I will never you know it passed by my country to fight in a war I will not fight you know what I mean it was still The Hangover of World War One isolationism um and you would ask them if you told them we're gonna have a huge crisis in this country in a few years what will it be they probably would have said a civil war right I mean they would have looked at it they would have looked in right versus left they were FDR and his enemies in fact um a Sinclair Lewis wrote a wrote a novel how they can't happen a year about a fascist Takeover in America you had Huey Long you had father Coughlin you had these demagogues that were Rising you had an intensely polarized and and um an intensely mobilized electorate you had everyone voting in the 1930s and we've seen the same thing by the way recently in America we we now have it had in in in 2020 2022 to 20 uh 2018 we've had the highest voter participation rates in a century uh say say what you might about Donald Trump he certainly has solved the problem of voter apathy in America I mean think about it I mean everyone's mobilized everyone's going to vote again everyone thinks that the fate of the country rests on it we've had some of the closest elections too at this volume which speaks to the the polarization you're talking about is that actually intensifies the polarization I think the size of FDR's Victory actually intended to Tamp down the polarization a little bit because they gave one side so much more leverage than the other um I I do think that um so many other parallels as well I mean we had uh the according to vdam and Freedom House the the share of the world living in in in Freedom and democracies you know Pete in 2007 just before the DFC and it's been falling ever since the share of global trade as a share of Global Production peaked in 2007 just before the GFC well this is exactly like the 1930s right we had we had uh 1930s it was when dictatorships are taking over um you know from from Germany to uh to Eastern Europe to Spain to to my gosh I look at South Asia and what was happening in Asia at the time but we we see some of these same Trends um the the rise of populism and authoritarianism around the world the decline of the concerted Nations you know which managed world affairs and the complete breakup of the League of Nations we see the same thing today right people wondering who's gonna guide Global Affairs well there's no consensus anymore and the dividing up of the world into different spheres we now see what the sentence program after the Ukraine um you remember the Japan's co-prosperity sphere in the late 1930s and so forth and the desperate search for Commodities in these different areas of the world where we speak for Commodities I mean Hitler going east to find oil and Japan wanting to go through the Philippines down into China for oil of course eventually giving us Pearl Harbor in World War II but but these are Trends we see today right um there's so much that Echoes and and uh that also is is is it is something I talk about but I think what's interesting to point out is that it's almost miraculous and and crazy that after all of that division suddenly America mobilized itself for an external threat and I actually talk about that I go through and talk about how that happened in the Civil War which obviously was a Civil War I mean that was about as internal as you get typically what happens in Civil War is one side of the other usually the losing side wants to go after external allies right uh The South was after Spain and France to get into war almost succeeded I think of Robert E Lee at one at Antietam he could have done it um a Lincoln not only uh won that battle but uh issue the Emancipation Proclamation yeah a week afterward and I think that completely eliminated possibility that France or England would would side with uh Richmond um in the American Revolution which we think of as an external conflict at the time it was thought of as a civil war it was an internal conflict the most of the deaths were American colonists killing other American colonists particularly in the South who is an absolutely vicious Guerrilla War right among Americans uh namely you know back country you know loyalists versus the you know the the Grande's who are mainly on the Patriot side um and and as you know the weaker side Washington tried to get in Alliance with France did it it's one of the reasons why why Britain gave up the struggle but we go back and actually look at this and what's interesting is we see today um Adam the same Specter of both Civil War and external War Rising right in America I I have been putting out to people that you know I'm a demographer I look at surveys all the time and 10 years ago no one even surveyed the question is a civil war likely in America right now uh that question is uh asked all the time at about half of the Americans think it's likely right uh when you look at the mood today and the complete non-cooperation in legislatures in Congress I mean you know it's it's a little bit like the 1850s I mean you know the the Democrats and Republicans don't talk to each other anymore I mean there's there's really nothing left to talk about um that you have that and the upcoming Prospect of another you know Trump candidacy and all the risks but you also have the prospect of geopolitical conflict obviously uh both in the Western Pacific you know with the with the threat from China and obviously a major land War now happening in in Europe um and these I think have also focused the mind of a lot of people we are entering into an era uh where we see the prospect of major history happening both internally and externally and as I point out this is exactly the incontinence of who we usually see important hearings we usually see both things happening at once as we saw during the 1930s all right those uh so obviously that's very concerning right you know we we hope that it is concerning but here's the thing that in these moments of duress uh is when we become most creative publicly and uh there's a there's a chapter in the book I think it's chapter eight where we talk about the social transformations of opportunity and and obviously the major theme is from individualism to community I mean that's sort of the overarching thing right from beginning to end but the themes in addition within that from privilege to equality we've become a more equal Society by the end of our fourth turning and that's very important to remember uh when um when Thomas picketty wrote his book Capital you remember this a few years ago you know big tell them came out and he said that well you know because the rate of return at Capital O's exceeds the rate of economic growth the rich always get richer you know all these little stuff um but he said oh yeah there was a great exception during the 1930s 40s and 50s you remember that you know that the great compression is what economists call it when incomes became more equal during the 30s 40s and then during the 1950s really during the fourth turning in the first turning and this happens again and again in history um during great crises we'd become more equal and and once this crisis further heats up we're going to see that happen again um uh these are you know Walter scheidel wrote a wonderful book called um the great leveler and really talking about equality and history how societies Urban societies at peace and prosperity always become more unequal they only become more unequal more equal when they hit crises right Revolution State failure Total War epidemic I mean he goes down the list right it sort of sounds like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse but that's always going to become more um not only during the crisis itself but during the social reconstruction that follows we become more equal and then peace and prosperity complacency we become less equal this is the pattern of the sacrum and we see it in American history time and again so we see this is another thing which is which is I think positive people regard that it's positive not just more equal in terms of income and wealth in a kind of Genie coefficient sense but the ethic of social equality you know just the whole idea that we shared in a common struggle we all went through it together um thinking of ourselves more as Citizens I the when the gis who came out of World War II the greatest Generation Um I I think it wasn't just that they were you know all lived in didn't mind all living in similar houses in the suburbs right uh little little boxes that all look the same uh but they also treated each other as equal they they they they dress similarly they're what they consumed was similar they they didn't want to stand out particularly in that way there was a social ethic that didn't just have to do with dollar numbers there's another aspect I think one one further thing I talk about is the the transition from deferring problems to solving long-term problems right and that's another thing that happens if you ask most people particularly policy analysts when's the best time to actually reform our whole now all of our policies when's the best time to reform our policies right do everything rational they do solve all these problems quit quit buying off you know the the big lobbyists and you know paying people off to do stupid things why don't we just solve things for the sake of the common good and if yes most people they say you know best time to do it is a time of prosperity on a sunny day you know there's no recession you know we got surpluses built up it's perfect time to do it and that may be the reasonable approach but history shows that's never but nobody does it that's not human nature yeah exactly it's not in our nature and his speech says it never happens that way we always make our biggest boldest longest term decisions on a dark stormy day when our backs are up against the wall and and even the short-term future of our Republicans in doubt that's when we frame the new constitutions you know during the Civil War when when Congress itself thought occasionally it would it would you know it might be attacked by Confederates you know that's when they you know develop the income tax they they nationalize the currency they they uh legislative Transcontinental Railroad they they you know set up uh set up land-grant colleges in the states um uh and obviously they've they you know passed the 13th 14th and you know the 15th amendments right I mean they they granted the equality into the Constitution but all of these things were done at the worst possible time and and and similarly during the New Deal uh the the uh sort of the legislation of the whole new political economy of the of the of of the post-war America was legislated at a time when an unemployment rate was in the double digits uh GDP was declining I'm thinking of the legislation of the of the Cornerstone of the welfare state which we have today which is not just Social Security and SSI and you know TANF and just all these State local program and all of that stuff from food stamps to God knows what was all originally legislated in 1935 with with budget projections going up to 1975 and 1980. this was a time when when the economy when particularly when it was being discussed in 1934 you look just horrible we saw governments in in Europe that were falling to fascist dictatorships we had negative GDP growth we had double-digit unemployment we still had people in food lines on and yet here was planners actually implementing these huge long-term programs these huge long-term Frameworks and and typically coming out of for attorneys is when we undertake our largest infrastructure growth right as we did coming out of World War II um so I these are the positives and when anyone says well that's a really dangerous time you know people have you know Nations have nuclear weapons now you're talking about conflict this looks really dangerous I say yes it will be a dangerous time and it's very important how we navigate through it but think about this what could be worse than an indefinite continuation of current trends I mean if you want something depressing right um the ultimate evolution of everything right where you have uh increasing loneliness and despair in the cities you know what I mean and just increasing sense of hopelessness about any national Community or anything and and um a sense of total public dysfunction in which we can't do anything at all publicly and a uh a complete sort of degradation of the political economy where you know major industries are are are kind of claiming markets for themselves you know major incumbents whether it's uh you know the banks or whether it's the airlines or whether it's a big Tech and so on with no sense of national Community whatsoever if you think about current trends indefinitely extended I think that's worse uh that's worse than a fourth thing and and I think that's what most Americans will realize that they say yeah a period of of a right of passage historically through to a new era it sounds painful but where we're going I mean that just sounds hopeless right because there's no destination there all right boy that's a great point and certainly you know a lot on this channel we talk a lot about these sort of societal ills uh that are becoming increasingly clear here right and and you're you're right if we just continue with these trajectories uh you just lose hope the further along you you go along them especially if you're not in the top zero one point percent of of the uh of the populace that seems to be hoovering up all of the opportunity as time goes on here um what I hear you saying is sort of like um you know you're it's the doctor delivering the good news which says look you got cancer but we're going to cure it for you we're going to get you into remission you're just going to have to go through a really painful process to get there there's going to be maybe surgery radiation and chemo so so get ready for this it's not going to be a fun Journey but you're going to be in a better State at the time we get through it I'm also reminded of a uh of a Churchill quote I'm sure you've heard it the one about Americans I love Americans they they always do the right thing after they've exhausted every other possible option and it seems like that's how we sort of face fourth turnings right where all the big reforms that we know we need to do we don't really do them until we're actually forced to do them by circumstances but we do do them and and we set the stage for for a better uh future there so let me let me let me ask you um two questions here um one is uh okay does history give us any guidance as as just a citizen knowing that you're going through a fourth turning and maybe this is the First Citizens we have that that is conscious of this this seasonality to to society uh is there any any kind of tips best practices for the average person just going through this to try to not become collateral damage of the unwinding of the fourth turning well I I think the first I mean one thing is more sort of internal the other is external I think I think by the internal thing is to realize that it's it's good to know I think it's constructive you know maybe even comforting to know that there are longer term patterns which we participate in they give us roles which we can perform well or badly right we're not just dangling randomly out at the end of history with no idea what follows um and and I often talk to historians most historians believe that history is completely random um you know the the uh the 1960s followed the 1950s but it could have been the other way around right the 1950s could have followed the 1960s and I'm wondering you know I actually don't think it works that way I think uh that's kind of like water moving uphill you know water regathering at the top of a waterfall there are certain historical processes that only work one way and much of what I talk about and particularly in my my discussions on complex systems in nature and likening uh uh generational rhythms to a complex system that there are things which only happen one way um if we want to go from a a third turning a fall to a spring you have to go through a crisis that's the only it's the only route you can't go backwards you can't go back and through an Awakening to a first turn you know what I mean it doesn't yeah that's just not an option uh times Arrow only moves one way the laws of entropy only move history one way and we see again and again processes in nature like this um forests need fires you know sometimes in order even for certain seeds to germinate they have to get hot for new things to germinate Rivers need floods you know to clear themselves out and society's need these periods of creative destruction they are necessary um and before before getting the sort of you know personally what you can do um I do quote um a William James in the book I think he was a great thinker I think he was a great man uh he once gave a famous speech at Stanford in 190 1906 1907 near the earthquake uh anyway they're at Stanford University he gave a speech a famous speech which I think most Americans have heard of it's called the moral equivalent of the war and he and he talks about how war is necessary for inculcating all of the Civic attributes that are positive about State creation you know the the it trains people to think about you know the Commonwealth sacrifice for the common good you know to uh recognize that they're fellow citizens you know they have duties to them and they have and they have uh they they they're reciprocal duties um it trains people to face adversity and you go through all these positive things he says we can't imagine um and uh I'm telling you all this because uh uh he himself was a pacifist you know he did not fight during the Civil War uh very very different from uh um uh uh Oliver Wendell Holmes you know sort of his his Peer who obviously did serve and gave many speeches as well on work but he imagined he said is it possible to do these things without a without a war and he kind of goes you know says could we have a moral equivalent for you know to teach all these things to the next Rising generation and he he sounds less convincing uh when he says that but in this speech in other words he's not totally convinced that it's possible I think if you actually read this speech I don't think it's full of convince that that's possible but he said something fascinating I thought he basically asked people and you have to remember when he's saying this in 1906 he said I want to ask all of you if you think it would have been better if America had never gone through the Civil War that was kind of interesting right many people went through this so we're still in the audience and certainly their parents are still that you were living and he immediately answered his own question he says I'm sure almost no one in the audience would say it would have been better we could hardly imagine the sense of progress in America the industrial progress the unification of the nation you know the guarantee of right then he went lists all of the things that positive that came out of the Civil War we couldn't imagine that right of course we we're we're glad that we went through that period of Crisis it made us a much more powerful and better Nation and then he asked this next question if I were to ask you all whether you at all want to go through that again a few years from now he said I imagine all of you would say no and and he said isn't that a paradox now I think that that Paradox is no different than our personal life so I I ask you Adam think of a period in your life I don't know you were divorced you lost a loved one your career went to hell I mean you know we all had moments that we went through and then you ask yourself would you ever added and you didn't go through that and amazingly enough I think most of us would say no I actually grew from that I became a better person I became a stronger person I actually was able to Marshal certain resources I never would have discovered had it not been for that right and I think it's very much the same for Nations as is with people but if you ask most people hey do you want to go through that again next year most of us would say you're crazy of course not right but this is how we Face rights of Passage it's the same for us collectively as it is for us individually now you ask what should we do as individuals I think a few basic rules um the first thing I tell people is that during fourth earnings uh the generosity of government is cut back so a lot of the things you expect and benefits and guarantees and insurance and everything else will get cut back because during the peak of public mobilization um uh you know your your ordinary benefits you know the stuff that seems important to you now will not seem important in the priorities of of the country right so you would best get prepared for that and so I tell people is very important to get to know better your family your community uh and everyone around you because those things always become more important during fourth turnings and you know when I when you know I may not like I'm I'm a financial advisor that's what I do as a day job I mean I work for Hedgehog risk management and uh you know as individuals people say you know what can I do for a long-term care insurance and I just said to the market for long-term care insurance hey why are you being sane actually paying those premiums you're not going to be satisfied with the benefits anyway should you have to use them you said do your long-term care insurance is your family just face it I don't care if you like them or not you better come to terms with them because that is the bottom I mean you understand that Adam it's just the truth or it's your surrogate family it's your intentional family it's something right that you need to create that sense of community uh that's my first lesson to people going forward it's not going to be like the 1990s dream that we could just have our you know laptop and our Starbucks and move around the world being complete really autonomous disconnected those days will not be those days those that dream will not be happening at the climax of the four experience I think otherwise when it comes to finances um look I tell people it's going to be a very challenging time uh by the late 2020s the entire economically relevant World by that I mean the entire High income world plus all the Emerging Markets will actually be experiencing a decline in their working age populations in the aggregate that's extraordinary that's the first time that's happened since Adam Smith wrote about you know uh The Wealth of Nations and and the the first glimmerings of in of the Industrial Revolution this is something that we're not used to dealing with and I think that's the backdrop and something that's pretty a generational crop you know another the generational rhythm is going to be bad anyway you know what I mean on top of that and and so I think it's gonna be a challenging time volatility has been extraordinate it will be extraordinary diversification is obviously key not just nominal diversification in terms of style factories but real diversification I mean completely different kinds of Assets in geographically diverse places but make sure you can get your money back that time of Crisis from those places I think uh fixed nominal assets you know like bonds and so on um uh our Ro is toast in a fourth turning uh inflation is always one of the means by which government recaptures the real value of its debt right I mean that's always how it pays back part of its indebtedness that happened in the Civil War happened in American Revolution it happened in it happened in World War II obviously and and so that combined with financial repression in other words the inability you won't be able to sell those things you won't be able to get out of those bank accounts you'll be forced to accept you know a rate of return far beneath the rate of inflation and so getting out of those things and investing in real assets becomes very important Commodities always do well um I think the manufacture of things remember in the fourth turning we're rebuilding the outer world I know I know in the 1990s and the last decade we talked so much about experiences you know everyone's into experiences well Believe Me In the Heat of before turning it's all going to be about things excuse me building things having Commodities so these these very unsexy parts of the s p that you know no one loved you know like materials when was the last time anyone was excited about investing in the material sector not the s p manufacturing well we've seen defense defenses already on our care and that's going to go up Premiere every country every major country in the world was spending more on defense now we're running out of we're running out of missiles and bombs already just from the Ukraine um uh and as you know the predictions are that if you know a major flare-up in the in the Western Pacific uh the United States would be out of bombs and missiles in 48 hours I mean we have nothing left so there's an enormous new agenda building up for this and and I think materials building up the material world is going to be something that's going to be huge in this new era we're entering a time at which I think what the rising generation wants is not so much experiences they want to build a real world from the top down on a large scale and they want to scale it up and it better be a better world that works and this is going to involve um this is going to involve parts of our economy that we haven't thought too much about and obviously uh near Shoring and home Shoring and all those Trends are okay continue um uh so if you're if your economic bet depends upon an acceleration or continuation of globalization you might want to rethink that all right Neil that was uh scary but fantastic that's exactly the kind of direction that I was looking for and very practical guidance that people can sort of take those main themes you mentioned and figure out okay how do I potentially start allocating my investments maybe a little bit differently than just the traditional you know paper-based Investment Portfolio um gosh I I I've got so many questions about the fourth turning I'd still like to ask but we're beginning to run out of time I want to be respectful and I do want to get to that we can we can do another show Adam some point great well I'd love to be back on and and do a full one just on the the coming SEC new seculum the new first turning but let's let's end talking a bit about that here and as we as we transition into um as the dust begins to settle from however the destructive elements of the fourth turning play out um if the sun comes up uh the new uh hero avatars begin to uh you know create the the new dawn which I think you just discussed describe as a high right that that first turning is usually a High um I I I'd love to have you sort of talk about sort of you know what are the key elements of that that you see coming I mean you can't predict with exactitude but you have a sense of the types of Reform to expect let me ask you this question if you could just wrap it into your answer which is um I'm curious as to where the new leaders are going to come from and and the spirit of this question is in a lot of the the great turmoils of the past um whether they happened in a fourth turning or not um uh you had a lot of great voices that came out and they had a platform and they built a following around and then it it drove changes and and you know I'm even thinking as recently as the late 60s with the civil rights movement and the women's movement and whatnot equal rights movements we'll call it um uh you had a lot of great uh leaders and new voices come out of that but I kind of look around right now I don't see very many and I don't know if I'm just missing them or if this isn't the part yet in the Turning where they emerge or if we just have a a bad batch this time around so you know Henry Kissinger who I believe just had his 100th birthday I mean he's right about there right and he's a member of the the GI generation you know and and recalls Germany and the Warren you know everything right um he was once asked this question about what worries him most and he gave an interesting answer which I think Echoes a little bit what the spirit of your question and he said what worries me most is the quality of leadership today our interview with Neil will continue over in part two which would be released on this channel tomorrow as soon as we're finished editing it to be notified when it comes out subscribe to this channel if you haven't already by clicking on the Subscribe button below as well as that little bell icon right next to it and be sure to hit the like button too while you're down there and if the challenges Neil is detailed in this interview have you feeling a little vulnerable about the prospects for your wealth then consider scheduling a free no strings attached portfolio review by a financial advisor who can help manage your wealth keeping in mind the trends risks and opportunities that Neil's mentioned here just go to wealthyon.com and we'll help set one up for you okay I'll see you next over in part two of our interview with Neil Howe foreign [Music]

Channel: Wealthion

Views: 130,193

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Id: Da6bcMEjNj4

Length: 66min 17sec (3977 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 03 2023