Turn of an Era. Corona, Big Data and the Cybernetic Future

Abstract

The current coincidence of business, hegemonic and evolutionary cycles is reflecting the transition from the industrial to the cybernetic principle of production. Following the scheme developed by Leonid Grinin, Anton Grinin and Andrey Korotayev (2017, 2022), it represents a major turning point in the history of humankind, comparable to the Neolithic and the Industrial Revolutions. The book refers to economic history and world-system literature on accumulation and hegemonic cycles (Joseph Schumpeter, Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi et al.), which form the background for identifying the pattern of the Cybernetic Revolution, unfolding since the 1950s and most likely reaching its final phase in the second half of the 21st century. The lead sectors of the forthcoming Kondratieff-cycle (K 6) are already taking shape in the ongoing fifth Kondratieff-B-cycle, consisting of medical, pharmaceutical and biotech sectors in combination with IT, robotics, artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. The Corona lockdown and health control regime is considered a driving force for accelerating secular change.