How do social and economic cycles about?

There are quite a few cycles studied in the social sciences, e.g.
* KondratievWave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kondratiev_wave)
* BusinessCycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cycle)

An analytic models explanation this by the dynamics of supply and demand (see (German) http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplikator-Akzelerator-Modell).

I wonder if an explanation of this based on psychology could be as follows:

Let p (n) be the number of positive (negative) ideas/memes in circulation.
With positive I mean constructive, based on cooperation, synergistic. With negative I mean destructive, exploitive, parasitic. Please note, that I do not want to value these, but characterize there mode of operation.

If you assume that
* The more positive memes there are, the more new positive '''and''' negative memes develop (constructive ideas give rise to further ideas, but also to ideas to exploit their effects).
* The more negative memes there are, the more new negative memes develop (destructive ideas give rise to new variants of the scheme).
* The more negative memes there are, the '''fewer''' new positive memes develop (because they have a less likely chance to work in a negative environment).

Mathematically:

  p' = a11*p - a12*n
  n' = a21*p + a22*n

This is a simple differential equation, that has cyclic [''do you mean periodic?''] solutions dependent on the aij.

Most variants on this scheme (e.g. non-linear) should be cyclic.

Does this sound plausible?

-- GunnarZarncke

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See also CategoryMemes, MemePool

CategoryEconomics CategoryMath