Political Contagion Does not Need Central Command

Guest Post by Martin Armstrong

When our model had forecast the fall of Communism in 1989, the general press was attributing it to modern communication since the Berlin Wall fell a few months later. I pointed out that the same time difference took place when in Rome they overthrew their king in 509BC and within a few months in Athens, they overthrew their tyrants and began Democracy. In my research, it was not that modern communication led to the me-too reaction that caused the fall of the Berlin Wall. The question is not how fast information travels, but how long it takes to filter through society to cause political change.

When we look back at the Communist Revolutions of 1848 a notable observation emerges. Here too Europe was engulfed as they occurred in dozens of the then-European states, countries, and empires without any kind of international coordination. It was the same sort of contagion that spread. Historians have pointed out that the gains were short-lived, and the repercussions of rising socialism indeed prevailed over the course of several decades.

In America, there was the Mexican-American War which erupted in 1846 and continued into 1848. The reason for the war was the Mexican refusal to accept Texas independence clashing with the desire of Texans for statehood that was feeding into the American desire for westward expansion. Thus, this became the first offensive war in the History of the United States.

Indeed, as Wave #915 began in 1848, while the Mexican-American War was subsiding, Europe erupted in a Communist Revolution that was spontaneous without a unified core directing it. However, the Communist Manifesto was written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in 1848 just before the Revolutions of 1848 engulfed Europe. It has been argued that even rumors of this work contributed to the uprising. The victorious counter-revolution brought court proceedings against Marx, but he was acquitted on February 9, 1849. Nevertheless, Marx was then banished from Germany (May 16, 1849). At first, Marx went to Paris, yet he was again banished after the demonstration of June 13, 1849. This time he fled to London, where he lived until his death. This is his entry to the British Museum Library in 1873.

While there were various debates over the causes of the 1848 Revolution, it was clearly a Revolution against Republicanism, that was precisely on schedule for our Revolutionary Cycle of 72 years from 1776, which was against Monarchy. 1848 was clearly against the corruption of Republicanism. In particular, the Revolutions of 1848 in France, the German states, the Austrian Empire, the Italian States, and Denmark were not coordinated and we find the same pattern in the fall of Communism in 1989.

Interestingly, there was no central coordination or cooperation for the 1848 Revolution. It also came on the long-term 172-year Revolutionary Cycle and at that time it impacted over 50 countries. Since the revolutions occurred in so many places and in so many countries, it was clearly just the time for revolution as we find ourselves ever since the 2020 election. The defeat of Trump, regardless of your opinion of Trump, sparked a great division in the country from which there will be no return.

Just as in 1848 when it is impossible to attribute a single general reason or theory as to why so many countries erupted, other than the Revolutionary Cycle incorporates the simple basic desire for change. In the United States, there was the rise of the Nativism Movement against immigrants that erupted in gun battles on the streets of Philadelphia.

Clearly, what contributed to this was the Hard Times of the 1840s following the Sovereign Defaults of the States (not Federally) in the USA after the Panic of 1837. This was the period known as the Hard Times and the shortage of coinage led to a wealth of Hard Times Tokens often of a political nature. They were even striking tokens in Europe as well.

It certainly seems that the Sovereign Defaults that produced the Hard Times also sparked a religious upheaval as took place during the Roman Empire following the Great Monetary Collapse of 260-270AD. That is when they were blaming Christians for angering the gods leading to Christian Persecutions which reached a peak during the reign of Diocletian (284-305AD). Here, we see a similar movement against Slavery with a distinct religious undertone that the Hard Times was a punishment from God for the use of slaves in the South. Clearly, there was a similar religious upheaval in Europe without the slavery issue.

The 1848 Revolutions were throughout Europe. The “mood” seems to have led to the American Civil War as well. Some historians have argued that the Revolutions of 1848 were largely caused by two factors: economic crisis and political crisis. Others have argued that social and ideological crises cannot be discounted. In many of the affected countries, nationalism was another catalyst for the revolutions. What we see on a global correlated basis were similar events that seemed to be inspired on a collective basis.

Over in China, we have the Taiping Rebellion was a revolt against the Qing dynasty in China, fought with religious conviction over regional economic conditions, and lasted from 1850 to 1864. Even if we turn to Japan, the Dutch had a monopoly on trade dealing with Japan.  In 1844 the Dutch sent a diplomatic mission urging them to open the country, but the rulers refused this suggestion. The question of dealing with foreigners was a rising problem in Japan at the same time. They called the foreigner Gaijin meaning really a foreign devil some have tomes down to outsiders or foreigners. It was in 1854 that the United States Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry’s expedition opened Japan to global commerce through the implied threat of force. The Boshin War, also known as the Japanese Revolution or Japanese Civil War, was a civil war in Japan fought from 1868 to 1869 between forces of the ruling Tokugawa shogunate and a group seeking to seize political power in the name of the emperor.

It is fascinating that we see similar periods of political unrest for different reasons on a global scale. Was there just something in the water that made everyone go to war? Who knows. But we seem to be coming into this similar type of global problems between 2023 and 2032.

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