Kondratiev Long Waves

Overview

Nikolai D. Kondratiev (1892–1938) was a Soviet economist and statistician who, in his 1925 study The Major Economic Cycles, presented empirical evidence for long waves of roughly 40–60 years in prices, wages, and production across major capitalist economies, driven by successive clusters of technological innovation (steam and textiles; railways and steel; electricity and chemicals; and later, automobiles and mass production).[1] Kondratiev's finding that capitalism exhibited self-renewing long cycles rather than terminal Marxist crisis contributed to his fall from favor under Stalin: he was imprisoned in 1930 and executed during the Great Purge in 1938.[1]

Georgist land-cycle writers treat the Kondratiev long wave as a companion cycle operating on a different timescale from the 18-year land cycle. Fred Harrison, in The Power in the Land (1983, Ch. 1), cites Kondratiev's long waves as a popular long-cycle theory but — per the wiki's discovery notes on that book — critiques it as lacking a clear causal mechanism, in contrast to Harrison's land-speculation account of the shorter cycle. Akhil Patel (2023) integrates the two more explicitly, arguing each 55–60 year Long Cycle spans roughly three 18-year real-estate cycles, and that land booms coinciding with the final years of a Long Cycle upswing — as in the 1920s and (Patel argues) potentially the mid-2020s — produce the largest speculative peaks (Patel, The Secret Wealth Advantage, Ch. 11, pp. 217–232).

See Also

• 18-Year Land Cycle — the shorter Georgist cycle that Kondratiev's long wave is said to modulate
• Boom-Bust Cycle — the general concept both cycle theories address
• Patel, The Secret Wealth Advantage — integrates the Kondratiev cycle with the land cycle (Ch. 11)
• Harrison, The Power in the Land — cites and critiques Kondratiev's long wave (Ch. 1)

Sources

1. Nikolai Kondratiev, Wikipedia. Nikolai Kondratiev · Kondratiev wave — used for biographical facts, dates, and the long-wave definition (basic-facts source per wiki sourcing rules).
2. Akhil Patel, The Secret Wealth Advantage: How to Profit from the Economy's Hidden Order (Petersfield: Harriman House, 2023), Ch. 11, pp. 217–232 — used for the integration of the Long Cycle with the 18-year real estate cycle; see wiki summary.
3. Fred Harrison, The Power in the Land (New York: Universe Books; London: Shepheard-Walwyn, 1983), Ch. 1 — used for the critique of Kondratiev's long wave as lacking a causal mechanism; see wiki summary.