Social cycle theory
Social cycle theories are among the earliest social theories in sociology. Unlike the theory of social evolutionism, which views the evolution of society and human history as progressing in some new, unique direction, sociological cycle theory argues that events and stages of society and history generally repeat themselves in cycles.
Such a theory does not necessarily imply that there cannot be any social progress. In the early theory of Sima Qian and the more recent theories of long-term political-demographic cycles, an explicit accounting is made of social progress.
Historical forerunners
Interpretation of history as repeating cycles of Dark and Golden Ages was a common belief among ancient cultures. Kyklos is a term used by some classical Greek authors to describe what they considered as the cycle of governments in a society. It was roughly based on the history of Greek city-states in the same period. The concept of the kyklos is first elaborated by Plato, Aristotle, and most extensively Polybius. They all came up with their own interpretation of the cycle, and possible solutions to break the cycle, since they thought the cycle to be harmful.Later writers such as Cicero and Machiavelli commented on the kyklos. The more limited cyclical view of history defined as repeating cycles of events was put forward in the academic world in the 19th century in historiosophy and is a concept that falls under the category of sociology. However, Polybius, Ibn Khaldun, and Giambattista Vico can be seen as precursors of this analysis. The saeculum was identified in Roman times. In recent times, P. R. Sarkar in his social cycle theory has used this idea to elaborate his interpretation of history.
Plato
describes his cycle of governments in his work Republic, Book VIII and IX. He distinguishes five forms of government: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny, and writes that governments devolve respectively in this order from aristocracy into tyranny. Plato's cycle of governments is linked with his anthropology of the rulers that come with each form of government. This philosophy is intertwined with the way the cycle of governments plays out.An aristocracy is ruled by aristocratic people whose rule is guided by their rationality. The decline of aristocracy into timocracy happens when people who are less qualified to rule come to power. Their rule and decision-making is guided by honor. Timocracy devolves into oligarchy as soon as those rulers act in pursuit of wealth. Oligarchy devolves into democracy when the rulers act on behalf of freedom. Lastly, democracy devolves into tyranny if rulers mainly seek power. Plato believes that having a philosopher king, and thus having an aristocratic form of government is the most desirable.
Polybius
According to Polybius, who has the most fully developed version of the kyklos, it rotates through the three basic forms of government: democracy, aristocracy, and monarchy, and the three degenerate forms of each of these governments: ochlocracy, oligarchy, and tyranny. Originally society is in ochlocracy but the strongest figure emerges and sets up a monarchy. The monarch's descendants, who lack virtue because of their family's power, become despots and the monarchy degenerates into a tyranny.Because of the excesses of the ruler, the tyranny is overthrown by the leading citizens of the state, who set up an aristocracy. They too, quickly forget about virtue, and the state becomes an oligarchy. These oligarchs are overthrown by the people, who set up a democracy. Democracy soon becomes corrupt and degenerates into ochlocracy, beginning the cycle anew. Polybius's concept of the cycle of governments is called anacyclosis.
Polybius, in contrast to Aristotle, focuses on the idea of mixed government: the idea that the ideal government is one that blends elements of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy. Aristotle mentions this notion but pays little attention to it. Polybius saw the Roman Republic as the embodiment of this mixed constitution, and this would explain why the Roman Republic was so powerful and why it remained stable for a longer amount of time. Polybius' full description can be found in Book VI of his Histories.
Cicero
describes anacyclosis in his philosophical work De re publica. His version of the anacyclosis is heavily inspired by Polybius' writings. Cicero argues, contrary to Polybius, that the Roman state can prevail and will not succumb to the harmful cycle despite its mixed government, as long as the Roman Republic will return to its ancient virtues.Machiavelli
, writing during the Renaissance, appears to have adopted Polybius' version of the cycle. Machiavelli's adoption of anacyclosis can be seen in Book I, Chapter II of his Discourses on Livy. Although Machiavelli adopts the idea of the circular structure in which types of governments alternate, he does not accept Polybius' idea that the cycle naturally devolves through the exact same pattern of governments. He mixes the concept of the "cycle of regimes" with the cycle of civilizations, which are two separate and distinct concepts.19th and 20th century theories
conceived of history as though it were a phoenix, growing and dying in stages akin to the seasons. He saw the French Revolution as the ashes or winter of European civilisation, and that it would necessarily build out of the rubble.Russian philosopher Nikolai Danilewski in Rossiia i Evropa, differentiated between various smaller civilizations. He wrote that each civilization has a life cycle, and by the end of the 19th century the Roman-German civilization was in decline, while the Slav civilization was approaching its Golden Age. A similar theory was put forward by Oswald Spengler, who in his Der Untergang des Abendlandes also argued that the Western civilization had entered its final phase of development and its decline was inevitable.
The first social cycle theory in sociology was created by Italian sociologist and economist Vilfredo Pareto in his Trattato di Sociologia Generale. He centered his theory on the concept of an elite social class, which he divided into cunning 'foxes' and violent 'lions'. In his view of society, the power constantly passes from the 'foxes' to the 'lions' and vice versa.
Sociological cycle theory was also developed by Pitirim A. Sorokin in his Social and Cultural Dynamics. He classified societies according to their 'cultural mentality', which can be ideational, sensate, or idealistic. He interpreted the contemporary West as a sensate civilization dedicated to technological progress, and prophesied its fall into decadence and the emergence of a new ideational or idealistic era.
Alexandre Deulofeu developed a mathematical model of social cycles, that he claimed fit historical facts. He argued that civilizations and empires go through cycles in his book Mathematics of History, written in Catalan, published in 1951. He claims that each civilization passes through a minimum of three 1,700-year cycles. As part of civilizations, empires have an average lifespan of 550 years. He stated that by knowing the nature of these cycles, it could be possible to modify the cycles in such a way that change could be peaceful, instead of leading to war. Deulofeu believed he had found the origin of Romanesque art, during the 9th century, in an area between Empordà and Roussillon, which he argued was the cradle of the second cycle of western European civilization.
Literary expressions
Much of post-apocalyptic fiction depicts various kinds of cyclical history, with depictions of civilization collapsing and being slowly built up again to collapse again and so on.An early example is Anatole France's 1908 satirical novel Penguin Island which traces the history of Penguinia—a thinly disguised analogue of France—from medieval times to the modern times and into a future of a monstrous super-city—which eventually collapses. This is followed by a renewed Feudalism and agrarian society, and a gradual building up of increasingly advanced civilization—culminating with a new monstrous super-city which would eventually collapse again, and so on.
A later example is Walter M. Miller Jr.'s A Canticle for Leibowitz, which begins in the aftermath of a devastating nuclear war, with the Catholic Church seeking to preserve a remnant of old texts, as it did in the historical Early Middle Ages, and ends with a new civilization, built up over two thousand years, once again destroying itself in a nuclear war. A new group of Catholic clergy again set out to preserve a remnant of civilized knowledge.
In the future depicted in October the First Is Too Late, a 1966 science fiction novel by astrophysicist Fred Hoyle, the protagonists fly over where they expected to see the United States, but see no sign of urban civilization. At first assuming they were in the pre-1750 past, they later find it was a future time. Humanity is doomed to go through repeated cycles of industrialization, overpopulation, collapse—followed by rebuilding, and then again industrialization, overpopulation and collapse and so on, over and over again. In the far future, a civilization which is aware of this history no longer wants progress.
Contemporary theories
One of the most important recent findings in the study of the long-term dynamic social processes was the discovery of the political-demographic cycles as a basic feature of the dynamics of complex agrarian systems.The presence of political-demographic cycles in the pre-modern history of Europe and China, and in chiefdom level societies worldwide has been known for quite a long time, and already in the 1980s more or less developed mathematical models of demographic cycles started to be produced . At the moment there are a considerable number of such models.