Tag: Sartre

Philosophy and Konratieff cycles

Konratieff cycles, also known as Kondratiev waves or long waves, are economic cycles lasting approximately 40 to 60 years, named after the Russian economist Nikolai Kondratieff. Kondratieff proposed that capitalist economies go through long-term cycles of boom and bust due to technological innovations, changes in infrastructure, and shifts in economic fundamentals.

These cycles are often divided into four phases:

  1. Expansion (Boom): A period of economic growth, marked by high productivity, technological innovation, and investment. Prices and profits rise.
  2. Recession (Crisis): The economy begins to slow down. Investments stop yielding high returns, leading to reduced growth.
  3. Depression (Contraction): A deeper slowdown where overproduction, excess capacity, and economic stagnation occur. Prices drop, and profits shrink.
  4. Recovery (Revival): The economy begins to recover as new technologies emerge, sparking new opportunities and investments.

Each Kondratieff cycle is usually driven by major technological innovations like the Industrial Revolution, railways, steel, electricity, automobiles, and the digital revolution. These innovations spur growth until their saturation leads to stagnation, setting the stage for a new cycle.

To explain Kondratieff cycles through the lens of philosophers, we can connect the four phases of these economic cycles with key philosophical ideas about history, technology, and social change.

1. Expansion (Boom) – Hegel and the Dialectic of Progress

Hegel’s dialectical method is useful for understanding the expansion phase. He argued that history moves forward through a process of thesis (an idea or status quo), antithesis (a challenge or opposition), and synthesis (a resolution or transformation into a new stage). During the expansion phase, new technologies and ideas (thesis) create rapid economic growth. The economy appears to evolve, building toward higher complexity and productivity, much like Hegel’s vision of progress toward absolute knowledge.

2. Recession (Crisis) – Nietzsche’s Will to Power and Disillusionment

Nietzsche’s concept of the will to power can describe the recession phase, where the initial optimism of progress gives way to a sense of disillusionment. In this stage, the forces that drove the boom have reached their limits, and the economy is no longer growing at the same rate. Nietzsche viewed human striving as driven by a fundamental will to dominate and overcome limitations. Here, the over-extension of economic power and ambition hits a wall, leading to a breakdown in the system’s capacity to innovate or expand.

Both Schopenhauer and Sartre offer valuable perspectives for understanding Kondratieff cycles, particularly when it comes to the experience of individuals and societies within these economic phases. Their existential and pessimistic insights highlight the human condition in response to these broader cyclical changes.

Schopenhauer – The Will and Pessimism in Contraction and Crisis

Schopenhauer’s concept of the Will, which he saw as an irrational, blind force driving all life, can be connected to both the recession and depression phases of the Kondratieff cycle. For Schopenhauer, the Will is never satisfied; it continually strives for more, leading to suffering.

In the recession phase, we see society’s collective Will in action—overreaching and pushing the economy toward crisis. Like the unsatisfied individual, the economy struggles to sustain itself, chasing growth that no longer comes. There’s a sense of exhaustion, as the economic system, driven by blind ambition, reaches the limits of its power. Schopenhauer would interpret this stage as a demonstration of the futility of economic striving—everything that seemed promising in the boom turns into frustration and decline, mirroring his view of life’s inevitable suffering.

In the depression phase, Schopenhauer’s pessimism deepens: the system collapses into stagnation, reflecting the general weariness and disillusionment he often spoke about. People experience this economically as job loss, scarcity, and social despair. Schopenhauer believed that through the recognition of the futility of the Will’s striving, one might seek ways to detach from these cycles of desire and suffering, but at a societal level, this period reflects collective burnout.

Sartre – Existential Freedom and Absurdity in Expansion and Recovery

Sartre’s philosophy of existentialism emphasizes freedom, choice, and the burden of responsibility, which aligns well with the expansion and recovery phases of the Kondratieff cycle.

In the expansion phase, Sartre’s notion of existential freedom comes to the forefront. The technological innovations and economic growth present during a boom offer societies new possibilities for defining themselves. Sartre emphasized that individuals and societies are condemned to be free—they must constantly choose their paths, even though this freedom is often experienced as a burden. In a boom, the choices seem endless, and society exerts its freedom in new directions, fueled by optimism and growth. However, this freedom also brings anxiety, as Sartre would argue, because every new opportunity carries the weight of responsibility and uncertainty about what comes next.

In the recovery phase, Sartre’s ideas about absurdity and the reinvention of meaning take center stage. After a period of depression, where the structures and values of society seem to collapse, the recovery phase can be understood through Sartre’s belief that humans must constantly reinvent meaning in the face of an absurd universe. The economy, having suffered through stagnation and crisis, begins to find new directions, much as individuals must redefine their lives after experiencing a crisis of meaning. In this sense, recovery is not just an economic resurgence but a moment of existential rebirth, where society, like the individual, takes on the freedom to create itself anew out of the chaos.

Summary

  • Schopenhauer represents the pessimism of recession and depression, focusing on the futility of striving and the inevitable suffering when growth halts and ambition falters.
  • Sartre captures the existential freedom and absurdity of expansion and recovery, where societies must confront their freedom to choose new paths and redefine meaning in the face of the void left by economic crises.

Both philosophers add a rich, existential layer to Kondratieff cycles by emphasizing human suffering and the need to confront our freedom within these long waves of economic change.

3. Depression (Contraction) – Heidegger’s Technological Enframing

In the depression phase, we can turn to Heidegger’s concept of enframing (Gestell), which describes how technology becomes a dominating force, reducing everything to a resource to be optimized and consumed. In this phase, the earlier technological innovations now lead to stagnation as they no longer provide growth but instead trap the economy in overproduction and excess capacity. The human experience of being becomes overshadowed by technology’s instrumental logic, and the economy mirrors this, becoming rigid and lifeless.

4. Recovery (Revival) – Deleuze and Guattari’s Rhizomatic Rebirth

Finally, the recovery phase aligns with Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of the rhizome—a decentralized and non-hierarchical network that spreads in unexpected ways. In this stage, new technological or economic ideas emerge unpredictably, breaking free from the old system’s constraints. These new innovations create new pathways for growth, much like how a rhizome grows horizontally, creating new possibilities that reinvigorate the economic structure. This reflects the creative destruction that brings renewal and leads to a new cycle.

In this philosophical view, Kondratieff cycles are not just economic but also shifts in the broader social and cultural logic, shaped by the underlying human drive for power, the constraints of technology, and the renewal of creative potential.

Here’s a list of Kondratieff cycle phases paired with philosophers:

  1. Expansion (Boom) – Hegel (Dialectic of Progress)
  2. Recession (Crisis) – Nietzsche (Will to Power and Disillusionment)
  3. Depression (Contraction) – Schopenhauer (The Will and Pessimism) / Heidegger (Technological Enframing)
  4. Recovery (Revival) – Sartre (Existential Freedom and Absurdity) / Deleuze and Guattari (Rhizomatic Rebirth)
  1. Expansion (Boom) – Hegel (Endless Dialectic, Great Pretender)
  2. Recession (Crisis) – Nietzsche (Power Trip, Reality Check)
  3. Depression (Contraction) – Schopenhauer (Relentless Pessimism), Heidegger (Techno-tyranny)
  4. Recovery (Revival) – Sartre (Freedom’s Burden), Deleuze & Guattari (Rhizomatic Chaos)

The Death of Recognition

People are so entangled in their own subjectivity that the Other ceases to exist as an autonomous being; instead, they are reduced to a projection, a prop in the theater of one’s self-conception. The Other is not seen as a consciousness with its own projects and freedoms but as a necessary validation of the individual’s self-delusions. When this fragile construct of the Other fails to comply—when they assert their own freedom and refuse the roles assigned to them—the projection shatters. Yet, instead of acknowledging this as a failure of their own perception, the individual declares the Other to be the narcissist, an entity whose crime is simply refusing to orbit their ego.

What we are witnessing in the contemporary dating discourse is not connection but collision: two opaque, self-contained bubbles, each seeking the Other as a mirror and recoiling in disillusionment when the reflection is distorted. The very possibility of authentic relationships collapses under this weight, for to recognize the freedom of the Other requires the relinquishment of one’s own fantasy of control. Instead, people ricochet off one another in a cycle of blame, perpetuating a Sartrean hell: a world where the Other is both indispensable and intolerable.

This pattern extends beyond the realm of personal relationships to encompass every sphere of human activity—engineering, art, and politics—all of which become battlegrounds for this existential blindness. In engineering, the focus has shifted from the creation of tools that serve collective needs to the production of objects that glorify the creator’s vision of efficiency, control, and domination. Engineers do not solve problems for others; they solve problems for themselves, projecting their own ideals onto a world that often resists them. When the world pushes back, revealing its complexity and indifference, the failure is externalized, blamed on users, nature, or “unrealistic expectations.” The engineer cannot see their tools as instruments for others, only as extensions of their own will.

In art, the same malaise dominates. The artist no longer seeks to reveal truths or explore the Other through their work but instead offers up an infinite series of self-portraits disguised as universal statements. Every brushstroke, lyric, or line of text becomes a cry for recognition: See me! When the audience resists, refusing to elevate the artist to the level of genius they imagine themselves to inhabit, the artist recoils, retreating into accusations that the world does not understand their “vision.” Art becomes an endless series of monologues delivered into the void, the Other reduced to an audience, a necessary but resented presence.

Politics is perhaps the most glaring theater of this pathology. Politicians, ideologues, and even activists operate not to serve the collective good but to impose their personal vision of justice, order, or freedom onto a world that refuses to conform. The Other is invoked as an abstract mass—the voter, the citizen, the marginalized—but never as a living subject with their own freedoms and contradictions. Policy becomes an extension of personal identity, a vehicle for self-expression rather than a tool for governance. When reality intrudes—when people resist, when systems collapse, when the unintended consequences of hubris emerge—the blame is shifted. The public is ungrateful, the opposition is evil, the world is simply not ready for greatness.

In all these spheres, the same Sartrean dynamic unfolds: a refusal to see the Other as anything but a distorted mirror. The result is a pervasive disconnection, an existential isolation masquerading as engagement. We are, all of us, trapped in our bubbles, crashing against one another, unwilling to accept that freedom exists not just for the self but for everyone. And so, the machinery of life—our engineering, our art, our politics—grinds forward, powered not by understanding but by alienation, perpetuating the same dissonance that defines modern existence.