In 1997, William Strauss and Neil Howe came up with the provocative idea that history is not a straight path, but a series of repeating cycles. According to them, Western, and especially American, history repeats itself in cycles of about 80 years, and each cycle can be divided into seasons: spring, summer, autumn and winter. And winter is always the time of crisis, wars, regime changes, financial and social collapses.
The bad news: it’s winter now. The good news: after winter, spring always comes.
Strauss and Howe already wrote in the 1990s that around 2005 a new ‘fourth turn“, an era that culminates in a major crisis and fundamentally reshapes society. Looking back, it is quite clear where the string broke in 2008 with the global financial collapse of Lehman Brothers. From that moment on, we no longer lived in the same world, we just tried to pretend that it was so.
The crisis that was not resolved, only covered up
After the 2008 financial crisis, we did not do what the textbook prescribes, that is, we did not allow poorly managed institutions to fail, we did not clean up the system. Instead, they simply print more money. The Fed’s balance sheet grew from $900 billion to $4 billion in a few years, and during the corona crisis it rose to more than $9 billion. The US national debt has risen from 10,000 billion to 37,000 billion in a decade and a half.
If an average person made a mistake, he paid for it. If a major bank had failed, it would have been bailed out with taxpayer money. The reward for a bad decision was money and a bonus, hardly a punishment. This caused not only economic disruption, but also a moral collapse. The belief that the rules apply to virtually everyone has been shattered.
The crisis of institutions
After the financial world, the credibility of almost all major institutions has diminished. The US government, media, education, healthcare, security and intelligence services are all in serious crisis of confidence.
During the COVID-19 epidemic, people saw the CDC, i.e. the American Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and other authorities making contradictory and rewritten statements, trying to disguise politically charged decisions under the guise of health care, and often restricting content that later turned out to be true with the label “disinformation” on social media. This is no longer the usual left-right political debate. This is a loss of institutional legitimacy.
The new face of control technology
One of the major differences of the current fourth round compared to the previous ones is that the battlefield has moved from the physical world to the realm of information, data and money. Since Snowden, we know that for years the NSA has collected virtually everything: emails, phone calls, metadata.
In the form of facial recognition, camera networks and artificial intelligence-enabled profiling, technology can already openly monitor people. In China this is part of the social credit system, and in the West the world is freer on paper, but in practice, for example, London has more cameras per person than in many Chinese cities.
And with the digitalization of the COVID era, the introduction of QR codes, tracking applications and vaccine passports, it has become common to think that normal life requires consent. These control mechanisms rarely disappear. And power rarely gives back what it once acquired.
The money that controls you
One of the scariest innovations is digital central bank money, or CBDC. At first glance it seems innocent, in fact it is simply the digitalization of money. In reality, however, it is much more than that. Money becomes programmable, conditions can be attached to transactions, restrictions can be placed on certain sectors, products or people, and the money can even have an expiration date, if you don’t spend it on time it will simply be lost.
Imagine that fuel purchases are only allowed up to a certain CO2 limit, that your food purchases are tied to your BMI, or that your money is frozen because you said something ‘bad’ or protested.
In China, the digital yuan and social credit system are already on this path. The EU, the ECB and the Fed are officially investigating the possibilities, but in practice they are preparing the implementation step by step. This is the highest possible synthesis of financial and social control.
The Role of Bitcoin: Freedom or Sophisticated Trap?
Bitcoin was born from the ashes of 2008 and the message of the genesis block was clearly a manifesto of systemic criticism. Financial sovereignty is therefore only possible together with technological sovereignty. But the question arises: have we really hacked the system, or has the system actually outsmarted us?
Some interesting facts: the NSA as far back as the 1990s explored the possibility of digital cashone of the first Bitcoin developers, Gavin Andresen, gave a talk at the CIA in 2011, and the Bitcoin blockchain itself is completely public: every transaction can be traced forever.
In practice, however, most of the mining industry is concentrated in the hands of a few huge pools, a significant portion of trading takes place on regulated exchanges, and more and more Bitcoins are in the hands of institutional players, such as ETFs or BlackRock.
The original goal was decentralization, but the reality is increasingly shifting towards centralization. Perhaps Bitcoin, once a symbol of freedom, will eventually create a transparent financial system where even the current system seems opaque – except we have no control over it.
Geopolitical fault lines
As the US bursts from within, the world is also being rearranged. America’s unique dominance, the so-called “unipolar moment,” has quietly come to an end. The close cooperation between Russia and China is practically building a parallel world order, without dollars and SWIFT. With the expansion of the BRICS countries, the entry of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and others, almost half of the world’s population and a third of global GDP are already affected, and new, alternative financial and trade routes are opening up. Saudi Arabia buys Chinese fighter jets, prices oil in yuan and coordinates with Russia. This is a major change from the American federal system that has existed since 1945.
A side effect of the sanctions against the dollar is that everyone started thinking about how we could become less dependent on the dollar. And capital, energy and trade find their own way, just as water always finds a way.
Morally bankrupt in the West
After the Second World War, the West dominated not only with money and military, but also with moral authority. He defeated fascism, rebuilt Europe and represented a story based on human rights. Today, this stable foundation has been significantly weakened. In the case of Ukraine, we talk about democracy and sovereignty, while for decades we have ignored Russia’s security concerns and pushed NATO to its limits. In the case of Gaza, war crimes and possible genocide are being investigated at the international level, while Western weapons and diplomatic cover are arriving.
Much of the world no longer pays attention to details. The West often does what it wants and says what can best be communicated. In the eyes of many, the rules-based system is just an empty slogan.
What does the future hold until 2035?
If the logic of the fourth turn works, we could reach the peak of the crisis sometime between 2028 and 2033, and the actual resolution could last until the mid-2030s. This does not necessarily mean a world war, but it could involve a financial reset such as debt restructuring or new monetary systems, a geopolitical realignment where US power declines while Asia grows stronger, and an institutional shift where old structures fall apart and new institutions are born.
According to one pessimistic scenario, the US could de facto break up: along the lines of interstate conflict, the weakening of the federal government, and a dollar crisis approaching hyperinflation. This may be too bleak a picture, but the fact that his idea is being seriously discussed is itself indicative.
But history shows that winter never lasts forever. After the fourth phase, there always comes an era when social cohesion is strengthened, new, credible institutions are born and the economy grows dynamically for a while.
It is likely that the coming spring will no longer be based on American or Western dominance, but on a multipolar world. And technology, if it is possible to curb the tendency towards total control, can once again be a liberating force. Open-source artificial intelligence, decentralized networks, strong cryptography and technologies that enable local production, such as 3D printing or new energy models, can all become instruments of freedom.
What does this mean for the average person?
This is not just political, but a structural change. It is not determined by elections, but at the end of a cycle. It’s not enough to simply diversify your money; it’s also important to consider what systems you’re chaining yourself to. Physical gold, silver, proprietary Bitcoin, cash, sustainable food, medicine, tools: the less exposure there is to attack at any given time, the safer you are.
Skills will also become increasingly valuable in the coming years. Basic skills in healthcare, food production, tool use, digital security and crypto usage, as well as the ability to collaborate, teach and organize, will all become increasingly important.
Without community it doesn’t work. In a crisis, those who have someone to unite with do well. You don’t have to think about military-style groups, but about a few trusted neighbors, friends or relatives that you can rely on.
Finally, you should treat turn four as a marathon, not a sprint. This is a years-long process, so don’t panic. Let’s be prepared, but at the same time don’t forget to live.
This is also part of history, not the end of the world
We are between the end of an era and the birth of a new era, a chaotic and dangerous time, but also full of opportunity. If Strauss and Howe’s cycle theory is correct, the fourth round will end around 2035. In the meantime, the question is not whether we will get the old world back, because we will not, but to what extent we can remain sovereign in an era based on control, what means we can use to protect ourselves technologically, financially and humanly, and what role we will play in the future. We may be wandering statisticians, or those who understood in time that it is now winter, but we can start preparing for spring now.
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