World-System Cycles and Chaos
Friday, March 20, 2026
Tuesday, March 17, 2026
Monday, February 16, 2026
Sunday, November 23, 2025
Thursday, November 13, 2025
Friday, October 31, 2025
World-System (1950-2025) Edge of Chaos in Swirtzerland.
Nov 14, 2025 The New York Times reports (here) that "The United States and Switzerland said on Friday that they had reached an agreement to lower a punishing 39 percent tariff on Swiss goods to 15 percent..."
The agreement with the US was particularly important because: (1) Switzerland has an unstable, cyclical relationship with the US and (2) There are no stable Geopolitical Alignments for Switzerland (even the BAU model, see the Notes below, requires stabilizing the Export-Employment controller).
The CH_LM System Matrix (see the Boiler Plate) shows that the system is unstable cyclical and the main source of instability is the Export-Employment Controller (F[2,2] = 1.02993562).
This post looks specifically at the US and Germany (DE) economies and their impacts on the Swiss Economy.
Deterministic Chaos in socio-technical systems is a situation where a model of the system is deterministic but the future path of the system cannot be predicted because it is chaotic. I have always assumed that Chaos in social systems is so dysfunctional that it could not persist over time. Indeed, the "best" models (using the AIC), I have found, in macro social systems are often unstable but not chaotic. Here is an example for Switzerland.
Two of Switzerland's biggest trading partners are the US and Germany (DE). However, the CH_LM model driven by outputs from the USL20 and DE_LM models are on the Edge of Chaos (see the graphic above). Here are the System Matrices for the two models:
and the Germany (DE) model:
One thing to notice is the large coefficient values. Values over 1.0 on the diagonal of the System Matrix indicate instability. Large values > 1.0 on the off-diagonal elements of the System Matrix indicate potential chaos.
I have pointed out in an earlier post (here) how the Trump II Administration is tinkering with a World Trading System it does not understand. The tinkering might involve pushing trading partners to the Edge of Chaos.
You can experiment with the CH_LM BAU model here.
Notes
ChatGPT
CH_LM Model
The CH_LM Measurement Matrix (see the Boiler Plate) has three components that explain 100% of the variance in the indicators: (1) the Overall Growth Component (93% of the variation), (2) The Export-Employment Controller (0.687 X - 0.618 HOURS, 7% of the variation), (3) The Urbanization Controller (0.547 U + 0.275 N - 0.566 HOURS - 0.446 X, >0% of the variation).
CH_LM System Matrix
World-System (1960-2150) Tech Cycles in France
The current 2025 Noble Prize in Economics offers another hypothesis. History teaches us that new technologies and Creative Destruction will eventually break steady states and send Economic Systems on to new Attractor Paths. The hypothesis is the essential argument of Kondratiev Wave Theory (here) and is embraced by World-Systems Theory. An alternative forecast for France is that the Steady State will not happen due to La French TECH.
The graphic above plots two historical forms of French Technology: Productivity (TECHP) and Efficiency (TECHE) (see the Notes below). Notice that they are both cyclical (echoes of Schumpeter's Creative Destruction model which is also cyclical but unstable). Notice also that TECHP (productivity) peaks before TECHE (efficiency): once a productivity peak is reached, focus turns toward efficiency until all gains are exhausted.
Unfortunately for France, both of these technological peaks (at least in my model which is estimated from World Development Data) are going to be reached in the near future: (1) reinforcing the steady state or (2) creating more instability and a search for new technologies to put the economy on another growth path. Since we do not know the Future, nothing is guaranteed.
For more on Stable French Technology Cycles see the post here. Schumpeter's Creative Destruction model predicts unstable Creative Destruction cycles and the French Technology Cycles are stable.
Notes
FR TECH Measurement Models
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Nov 14, 2025 The New York Times reports ( here ) that "The United States and Switzerland said on Friday that they had reached an agre...
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The 2025 Nobel Prize in Economics ( here ) was awarded for having explained the role of innovation and Creative Destruction in Sustaine...
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The Kondratiev Wave is an important element of World-Systems Theory . The graphic above is taken from Andreas Goldschmidt and gives h...
