On June 15th, 2015, Jeb Bush, the 43rd Governor of Florida, announced he would run for president of the United States. His father, George H.W. Bush, was the 41st president of the United States. His brother, George W. Bush, was the 43rd president of the U.S.. He quickly raised well over $100 billion for his campaign from the Republican donor class. Jeb had the full support of the Republican establishment, the wealthy, white elite that run most of America. Barrack Obama, the first black president, was ending his second term. The economy had been growing, but growing very slowly, since early 2009, a weak recovery from "The Great Recession" of 2008. Jeb's only competition would be former First Lady, senator from New York, and Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton. Most of America sighed, it was going to be another boring election between two political dynasties, neither of which most Americans liked very much. Same ol', same ol'. Nothing ever changes... It's hard to remember now, but that was the mainstream America feeling in June of 2015.
Written by Steve Emig, The White Bear
Written by Steve Emig, The White Bear
P. R. Sarkar's Law of Social Cycle
In an earlier chapter, I shared the most basic idea of the Toffler's concept of the Third Wave, a long transition from an Industrial-based society to an information-based society. That was the first of the three big theories, that I think explain where we are now, and where we're all going. This second theory is one virtually unknown in the United States. As I mentioned in the last chapter, I know P. R. Sarkar's Law of Social Cycle from one chapter in Ravi Batra's 1989 book, The Great Depression of 1990. It's written about in much more detail in Sarkar's second volume of Human Society, a book I've never been able to get my hands on to read. Yet, it was that one chapter in Batra's book that really stuck in my head. It's the chapter that gave me a sense of where America was heading, not only back in the 1990's, but much farther in the future, including now, 30 years later. It was that one book chapter that explained to me why Jeb Bush, who seemed to have every aspect of political force behind him in June 2015, didn't have a shot in the 2016 presidential election. Most people now, don't even remember Jeb ran for president. The Law of Social Cycle helps explain why. So what is the Law of Social Cycle? Let me explain how I understand it.
Sarkar's Law of Social Cycle states that there are four basic mentalities in any society. These are the Intellectual, the Acquisitor, the Laborer, and the Warrior. Sarkar comes from India, which had a very defined caste, or class system, that greatly defined people, by and large. But he saw that some people were able to move to another level of society, despite the caste they were born into. The four basic mentalities are not traditional classes, they are based on the way an individual makes their way, and earns a living, in the world.
The Intellectuals use their brains, their high intelligence, to earn a living. They are exactly who you'd expect; professors, teachers, scientists, engineers, doctors, clergy, writers, artists, and similar professions. The Acquisitors are also quite intelligent, but they focus their smarts on making money. They are the landlords, investors, financiers, stock traders, and large business owners. In most earlier cultures, they would also be the entrepreneurs. I think some of today's entrepreneurs also share characteristics of two other categories, I'll get more into that in a bit. The management in various businesses could be either Intellectuals or Acquisitors, and at the lower levels (like the assistant manager of your local 7-11), part of the Laborer mentality. I think it depends on the particular business. In most traditional businesses, I think upper management is primarily Intellectuals, but when you get into Wall Street's investment banks, real estate, and the world of stock, commodity, and bond traders, those management people are most likely Acquisitors.
With a high concentration of successful business people and real estate investors, this is an Acquisitor heavy area. Newport Harbor, Newport Beach, California. Photo by Steve Emig
The next group is The Laborers. These are the everyday working people, like the great American middle class (what's left of it), the low wage service workers, the farmers, and in ages past, the proletariat or the serfs. This is, by far, the largest of the four groups. The Laborers are the vast majority, by numbers, of any nation or society, and most of the time they work for whatever group is leading society at that time.
The last mentality is the Warriors. The Warriors make their living using physical strength and ability, and raw courage. They do the physically demanding work that's also scary and highly dangerous. In most earlier societies this group was made up mostly of actual warriors, the soldiers, professional hunters, and perhaps a few professional athletes (fighters or boxers), and those in some other daring and dangerous professions, like sailors in the days of sailing ships. The explorers who trekked to new lands would also be a part of the Warrior mentality. In our modern society, the Warrior mentality includes soldiers, police, firefighters, professional athletes in traditional sports, and some of the more dangerous construction professions, like riggers and iron workers, for example. I think those crab fishermen in Alaska, and others who do similar, highly dangerous jobs, also qualify.
I also believe there are a lot of people in today's society who have the warrior mentality, but may do something else for their living. In these cases, their lifestyle is centered around physical feats and courage, but they may have to pay for that lifestyle with Laborer or other types of jobs. I believe the hardcore action sports athletes, like surfers, motocross riders, skateboarders, snowboarders, BMXers, rock climbers, parachuting enthusiasts (sky divers, BASE jumpers, proximity fliers), and and the other action sports qualify as having the Warrior mentality. As a long time BMX freestyler myself, I've seen that most of these people don't make a living at these sports, but their lifestyle is based on one or more of these sports, making them part of the warrior mentality.
I also think all the people seriously involved in adventure racing, like participants in the Raid Gualoises, mud runs, Spartan races, and even hardcore crossfit people, all have the Warrior mentality. Even closer to the actual notion of "warriorship," martial artists and mixed martial arts (MMA) fighters, are part of today's Warrior mentality. In today's world, there are many people whose lifestyle is centered around physical fitness, physical abilities, and courage-based activities, though they might not actually make a living at these things. I consider all of these people part of the modern Warrior mentality. If you go to a Crossfit gym three times a week for fitness, that doesn't make someone with the warrior mentality. But it your entire lifestyle is based around crossfit, or Spartan races, or rock climbing, or any of these other activities, that does make you part of the Warrior mentality. Also, being part of the Warrior mentality doesn't make you a warrior, in the traditional definition of the word. If you're a pro snowboarder and go up to a Navy SEAL in a bar and say, "I'm a warrior," you're going to get your ass kicked. But at some level, these two, and the rest named, share many traits and outlooks on life.
World War II soldier, riding a motorcycle at speed, one handed, while aiming a Thomson submachine gun. It doesn't get much more Warrior mentality than this. Public domain photo.
Another aspect of the Warrior mentality is activists. It takes great courage to stand up, usually against some large and powerful establishment institution or organization, and call out corruption, or other things that pose threats to some group of people. While it make not take physical skill to hold a protest sign, to stand up against a major force in society, often with threats of their well being or even of bodily harm, or to stand up for the rights of others who can't stand for themselves, does take great courage. Again, marching with 10,000 people holding a sign doesn't qualify you for the warrior mentality. But the initial activists, and activist leaders, do need a great deal of courage, and I think some of them qualify as another aspect of the warrior mentality in modern society.
So those are the four mentalities in P.R. Sarkar's Law of Social Cycle. The theory states that at any given time, one of these mentalities dominates society. That mentality favors a certain type of government, influences the business structure, and many of the social organizations. That mentality is what most people want their children to grow up and be. In an Intellectual society, people want their kids to be a professor or scientist or engineer. In a Warrior society, people want their kids to be a soldier, a cop, a firefighter, or maybe a pro athlete. In an Acquisitor society, people want their kids to grow up and make a lot of money, maybe be a businessman, an entrepreneur, a real estate mogul, or maybe Kanye, Diddy, or a Kardashian.
Another aspect of the Law of Social Cycle is that people can change from one mentality to another. That means that even in a highly structured society with a set class or caste system, like India, some people can learn a different role, and move up in society to a position outside their traditional class. A intellectual can get int mountaineering, and go try to climb the world 7,000 meter peaks, shifting to the warrior mentality.
A good example from today's world is Joe Rogan. He was a long time, very hardcore, martial artist, with black belts in tae kwon do and jujitsu. He first became well known as a commentator for the UFC fights, early on in that franchise's history. So he was definitely a part of the Warrior mentality, no doubt about it. But then he went on to become a stand-up comedian, which is an Intellectual, through and through. Then he built a podcast, and has become a Larry King level interviewer, to a generation, most of whom don't know who Larry King was. Joes podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, had over 190 million downloads a month, as of April 2019. Again, his podcast is a serious Intellectual pursuit, but also a very successful and lucrative business. At this point, he's probably more a part of the Intellectual group, as far as the mainstream influence of his work, but he's really a Warrior/Acquisitor/Intellectual. In today's weird, internet powered society, I think we're seeing a lot of people who are mixtures of the mentalities, though at any given time, one will be the dominant.
The eras when one of these mentalities dominates a society, can last for decades, or even hundreds of years, there's no set time period. During these times, the dominant mentality will filter down through and shape, all of society. It affects the type of government, the sports and games people play, the social organizations, the business world, and every aspect of society. When a nation or society changes from one dominant mentality to another, it's a long, sticky transition, it doesn't happen overnight. It can be a very chaotic time during that transition.
Here's the kicker for P.R. Sarkar's Law of Social Cycles. The four mentalities always rise to prominence, in a certain order. That order is Intellectual, Acquisitor, Laborer, Warrior, then back to the Intellectuals.
So where is the United States in this cycle? For that we go back to economist Ravi Batra's 1989 book, The Great Depression of 1990. After looking at many societies in history, to check this theory out and validate it, Batra concluded that the United States has been in the Acquisitor age since the colonial days. We were a country built by enterprising entrepreneurs. Over the 400 years since the Pilgrims landed, this has been a country where business was highly influential. We've run the arc of the Acquisitor age, and in the late 1980's, Ravi Batra saw us in the late stage of the Acquisitor era, a time when corruption rise dramatically, and the living standard for workers stagnates. That was Batra's assessment in his book, in 1989.
So what happens after that? The next mentality to rise up is the Laborers, the everyday working people. Things are a bit different with the Laborer era, than with the other three mentalities. This era, in Sarkar's theory, is called the Acquisitor cum Laborer era. In effect, the society gets so incredibly corrupt, and the conditions for average people get so bad, that the Laborers rise up in a major populist uprising. So that's what Batra saw coming in the future of the U.S., way back in 1989. Now his focus in The Great Depression of 1990, was on the economic situation happening then, not on a populist movement sometime far off in the future. So he combined Sarkar's Law of Social Cycles with the 30 year and 60 year economic cycles, and predicted a Great Depression happening in 1990. Instead, as I mentioned in the last chapter, we got a long, drawn out, "double dip" recession during that period.
I watched most of what Batra predicted actually happen in the early 90's, though not to the depth he expected. I also started paying close attention to the financial markets. But I was a BMX freestyle guy, living cheap with other BMX guys. I worked on TV show crews in the summer, and worked all sorts of odd jobs the rest of the year, and just scraped by financially. Riding my bike as much as possible was the priority. Batra's ideas and Sarkar's Law of Social Cycles were something interesting, but not really a major aspect of my life. I checked up on the financial markets day to day, and the other ideas were in the back of my mind.
As time rolled on, and mountain biking and snowboarding popularity exploded in the early 1990's, I began to think about the future that the Law of Social Cycles predicted. I got Batra's book out, and read through it again. If the Law of Social Cycle held true, American business (and the government, influenced by big business) would get more and more corrupt, and at some point, there would be a major populist uprising. At that point, either the society collapses (bad option), or the Warrior mentality rises up to positions of leadership, and they take over society (hopefully a good option).
At some point around 1994 or 1995, I suddenly realized that the exponential growth of the action sports world, my world at the time, was an aspect of the Warrior mentality. Sarkar's theory predicted that the Warriors were drawn more to individual oriented sports, that also involved physical skill and courage. So action sports, from surfing to motocross to BMXers like me and my friends, were Warrior mentality sports. We were one aspect, of many, of the Warrior mentality growing in American society. Some sports, like skydiving, were often done by former soldiers, who were paratroopers in the military. I realized the warrior mentality was already rising in popularity, even before any sign of a populist uprising.
I also realized that the Law of Social Cycle was an ultra long term cycle. From the time I tied action sports to the warrior mentality, around 1995, it could be another 5-10-20-40 years, before the populist uprising began. So I went on with my weird life, but I kept an eye out for something that looked like the beginning of a populist uprising. In September 2011, I saw the Occupy Wall Street protests on TV.
Occupy Wall Street Protestors in New York City, getting arrested by NYPD, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street protests seemed to come out of nowhere, and they spread like gasoline doused wildfires. It started as one protest, with activists camping out, in Zuccotti Park, near Wall Street, in New York City. But within a couple of weeks, Occupy protests were taking place in dozens of cities in the U.S. and even other countries. It was haphazard and disorganized, but the theme, "We are the 99%," struck a chord with millions of workers. The protests lasted a few months total, and were stamped out by authorities as quick as they possible.
As this was happening, and I was watching these protests on TV, while living in North Carolina, and then I saw protests in Winston-Salem, a highly conservative area, where I was living. I knew it was something big beginning. I thought, "OK, here we go, this is the beginning of the populist uprising The Law of Social Cycles predicted." While the protests were met with major establishment force to quell them, and they seemed to completely disappear, something had begun. Those activists went back to their homes, some after a bit of time in jail. Many of them became local activists, working under the mainstream radar, on local issues, in their different cities. But the dissension of "the 99%," against the wealth inequality of "the 1%," grew. I sensed it was bubbling under the surface, and it would pop up again, much bigger, and much more powerful. In September of 2011, with the Occupy Wall Street protest, the Acquisitor cum Laborer age began.
As I wrote at the top of this chapter, the 2016 election cycle began in the summer of 2015, and looked like another boring, and largely hopeless, race between one status quo and the other, Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton. We all know what happened, Senator Bernie Sanders on the political Left, and Donald Trump on the political Right, sprung to popularity out of nowhere. They both tapped into huge numbers of average working people (or unemployed, formerly working people) upset with the same basic issue, the declining standard of living for average Americans. But, they tapped into different aspects of this populist movement. Finally, the beaten down working people, on both sides of the political spectrum, had presidential candidates that seemed exciting to them. Once Donald Trump got going, he quickly blew establishment Republican Jeb Bush out of the water. Hillary Clinton had a much tougher time dealing with Bernie Sanders, and things got dirty behind the scenes as she fought him off. Hillary won the popular vote by more than 3 million votes. But the Trump-infused Republican machine squeaked out some narrow state victories, clinching a solid electoral victory, and taking the Presidency, much to most people's surprise.
As I type up this chapter, on January 24th, 2020, we are just over three years into Donald Trump's presidency, and in Day 4 of the Trump impeachment trial. We are just now hitting peak corruption in the United States, as Senate leader Mitch Mcconnell tries to slip a sham trial past the American public. Time will tell how that works out, but the Laborer class are still rising, and will force massive change at some point. This is not even close to over. In the mid term, over the next 3 to 5 years, things will shift favor the political Left, the truly populist part of the populist uprising. It's going to get a lot crazier before (and if) we see something close to "normalcy" in American society.
Blogger's note- 9/12/2023- I have not changed anything in these posts since I wrote them in 2019-2020, except these notes at the bottom. I even left in the typos I initially missed. As of the late summer of 2023, I'm doing most of my writing on Substack. Check it out.
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