Will a New Bear Market Bring Eugenics Movement Back? New Study from Socionomics Institute Says It's Happened in the Past, Could Happen Again
A new study by The Socionomics Institute shows a link between bear markets and the rising popularity of eugenics movements over a span of 225 years.
"Although most people think that society has dumped eugenics on the trash heap of bad ideas," says analyst Alan Hall, "its core ideology of top-down reproductive control is likely to regain popularity in the upcoming bear market. There are already signs of resurgence."
For example, during the long bear market from 1966-1982, India sterilized more than 8 million poor people, China instituted its "One Child Policy," and sterilizations of Navajo Indians more than doubled from 1972-78. During the recent bear market that started in 2008, the more controlling aspects of eugenics have begun to reappear. In 2008, the Dutch Labor Party MP proposed forced sterilization of women deemed "unfit to procreate" (it didn't pass), and, in September 2009, Poland passed a law mandating that convicted pedophiles be castrated.
Hall finds that today's ideological undercurrents are similar to those of the early eugenics era, when popular culture and the educational system embraced the eugenics movement and many prominent people – such as Alexander Graham Bell, John Maynard Keynes, William Randolph Hearst, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Irving Fisher, George Bernard Shaw and Helen Keller – espoused compulsory reproductive control. Observing that today’s setup is similar, he identifies several popular beliefs, including environmentalism, that could form the rationale for eugenics-like campaigns in the future.
In his study for the November issue of The Socionomist, Hall explores the history of eugenics and explains how declining social mood morphed it into a method to control propagation by race and class. "The desire to improve the human condition is a positive, bull-market impulse," he writes, "but eugenics is about influencing or controlling others' reproductive choices. This reflects a desire for social control, a bear-market impulse."
In two charts, Hall shows parallels between the ebb and flow of the eugenics movement and the waves of social optimism and pessimism reflected in stock market prices. He argues that eugenics is history’s clearest lesson in how societies recast legitimate science, such as genetics, to justify class or race-based ideology during deep social-mood declines.
The eugenics movement began in the late 1800s and became a wildly popular ideology in the early 1900s. In 1893, a succession of ever-larger bear markets began. Each of these brought increasingly negative expressions of eugenics. Profoundly negative mood drove the third of these bear markets, which began in 1929 and culminated in the genocides of the 1930s and 1940s, the ultimate expression of eugenic ideology to date.
Hall argues that another bear market is due that will be larger than the 1929-1932 decline, based on Elliott wave analysis, which charts stock markets as wave patterns. Some possible results of a future depression in terms of eugenics? Euthanasia, Kervorkianism and tax breaks for signing a "Do Not Resuscitate" consent form.
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About The Socionomics Institute
The Socionomics Institute, based in Gainesville, Ga., studies social mood and its role in driving cultural trends. The Institute’s analysis is published in the monthly research review, The Socionomist. Learn more at www.socionomics.net.
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"Although most people think that society has dumped eugenics on the trash heap of bad ideas," says analyst Alan Hall, "its core ideology of top-down reproductive control is likely to regain popularity in the upcoming bear market. There are already signs of resurgence."
For example, during the long bear market from 1966-1982, India sterilized more than 8 million poor people, China instituted its "One Child Policy," and sterilizations of Navajo Indians more than doubled from 1972-78. During the recent bear market that started in 2008, the more controlling aspects of eugenics have begun to reappear. In 2008, the Dutch Labor Party MP proposed forced sterilization of women deemed "unfit to procreate" (it didn't pass), and, in September 2009, Poland passed a law mandating that convicted pedophiles be castrated.
Hall finds that today's ideological undercurrents are similar to those of the early eugenics era, when popular culture and the educational system embraced the eugenics movement and many prominent people – such as Alexander Graham Bell, John Maynard Keynes, William Randolph Hearst, Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Irving Fisher, George Bernard Shaw and Helen Keller – espoused compulsory reproductive control. Observing that today’s setup is similar, he identifies several popular beliefs, including environmentalism, that could form the rationale for eugenics-like campaigns in the future.
In his study for the November issue of The Socionomist, Hall explores the history of eugenics and explains how declining social mood morphed it into a method to control propagation by race and class. "The desire to improve the human condition is a positive, bull-market impulse," he writes, "but eugenics is about influencing or controlling others' reproductive choices. This reflects a desire for social control, a bear-market impulse."
In two charts, Hall shows parallels between the ebb and flow of the eugenics movement and the waves of social optimism and pessimism reflected in stock market prices. He argues that eugenics is history’s clearest lesson in how societies recast legitimate science, such as genetics, to justify class or race-based ideology during deep social-mood declines.
The eugenics movement began in the late 1800s and became a wildly popular ideology in the early 1900s. In 1893, a succession of ever-larger bear markets began. Each of these brought increasingly negative expressions of eugenics. Profoundly negative mood drove the third of these bear markets, which began in 1929 and culminated in the genocides of the 1930s and 1940s, the ultimate expression of eugenic ideology to date.
Hall argues that another bear market is due that will be larger than the 1929-1932 decline, based on Elliott wave analysis, which charts stock markets as wave patterns. Some possible results of a future depression in terms of eugenics? Euthanasia, Kervorkianism and tax breaks for signing a "Do Not Resuscitate" consent form.
* * * * *
About The Socionomics Institute
The Socionomics Institute, based in Gainesville, Ga., studies social mood and its role in driving cultural trends. The Institute’s analysis is published in the monthly research review, The Socionomist. Learn more at www.socionomics.net.