Blog Roll: Switzerland

 

June 14, 2026 Switzerland Rejects Measure to Cap Its Population at 10 Million NY Times. The referendum was about limiting migration after the number of residents rose by more than a quarter since 2000, but it was framed around affordability and sustainability.

The video above

• A Steady State Economy for Switzerland  It could happen if growth rates are reduced.
• How Does the Economy of Switzerland Work? CH has an Export Controlled Economy.
• Population Forecasts for Switzerland Steady State or Collapse?

Notes

Wikipedia Links

• Economy of Switzerland a highly developed free-market economy. The Swiss economy has ranked first in the world since 2015 on the Global Innovation Index and third in the 2020 Global Competitiveness Report. According to United Nations data for 2016, it is the third richest landlocked country in the world after Liechtenstein and Luxembourg.
• Politics of Switzerland a federal state with representative democracy.
• History of Switzerland the Swiss Confederation has been a federal republic of relatively autonomous cantons, some of which have a history of federation that goes back more than 700 years, putting them among the world's oldest surviving republics.
• Geography of Switzerland a mountainous landlocked country located in Western and Central Europe. 
• Demographics of Switzerland has 9 million inhabitants, as of June 2024. Its population quadrupled over the period 1800 to 1990 (average doubling time 95 years). Population growth was steepest in the period after World War II (1.4% per annum during 1950–1970, doubling time 50 years), it slowed during the 1970s and 1980s but has since increased to 1% during the 2000s (doubling time 70 years).
• Cartography of Switzerland Switzerland has had its current boundaries since 1815, but maps of the Old Swiss Confederacy were drawn since the 16th century. 

Blog Roll: Automating Government

 

From my perspective, the attempt to automate government started in serious after the 911 Terrorist Attack and the need to connect the dots between law enforcement and National Intelligence in the War on Terror.

Note: I've worked in TECH all my life and I find all this unsettling. I've also worked in Government most of my adult life and find Bureaucracy unsettling.

 

Notes

Stalcup, M. (2009) Connecting the Dots. Intelligence and Law Enforcement since 9/11

Gamerman, A. (2026) Elon Musk is Colonizing Earth.

Wikipedia Links

• 911 Terrorist Attack colloquially known as 9/11, were a coordinated series of suicide attacks perpetrated by the Islamic terrorist organization al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. 
• War on Terror a global military campaign initiated by the United States in response to the September 11 attacks in 2001.
• DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) a second Trump administration initiative in the United States. Despite its name, it was not a federal executive department.
• Elon Musk a businessman and former public official known for his leadership of Tesla and SpaceX. 
• Business Process Automation the technology-enabled automation of business processes.

Process Automation

The front-end vision for government automation seems to be that every government function (paying taxes, getting a driver's license, getting a passport, voting, etc., etc.) could be done with a cell phone mobile app. Behind the front-end is the difficult problem of business process automation. The graphic above summarizes Elon Musk's five step process used at SpaceX and Tesla, basically break things quickly and simplify before automation.

Video

• Don’t Automate a Mess: Scaling AI and Automation in Government
• The Algorithm Elon Musk Will Use To Take Over The Government

Blog Roll: Steady-State Economies

 

For much of Modern History, a Steady-State Economy (see definition below and video above) is thought of as a system state that might or might not happen at some point in the future. The history of the concept is basically that Classical Economists thought (reasonably) that economies would eventually become stationary. Neoclassical Economists, starting in the 20th Century, assume that, as a practical matter, monetized economies can grow forever, given unlimited Technological change. In the Late 20th Century, Ecological Economists viewed the economy as embedded in a Finite Natural System creating a Limit to Economic Growth.

What is missing from this Theoretical History of of the World-System are economies that are in a demonstrable steady state. For that, we need models and Systems Theory provides general models that can be used for this purpose. Neoclassical Economic models confuses Economic Stagnation with a Steady-State Economy Stagnation is a short-run condition while the steady-state is a long-run position of systems with certain characteristics, essentially system stability. Neoclassical economic models do not have enough feedback loops to create long-run stability.

This Blog Roll presents statistically estimated models of Steady-State Economic systems:

• A Steady-State Economy for Germany  The German economy has basically been in a steady state since 2010. Commentators keep mischaracterizing the steady state as growth stagnation.
• Western Europe: Growth and Collapse? Growth peaked sometime before 2016.
• A Steady-State Economy for Israel A stabilized model does not reach a steady state until 2150.
• A Steady State for Italy The economy has essentially been in a steady state since the turn of the Century.
• US Steady State or Collapse The US economy is predicted to reach a peak in 2060. Is this a threat to the World-System?
• World System Steady State and Collapse The World System is predicted to peak in 2060.
• IPCC Scenarios all predict growth and collapse.
• Portugal's Poor Performing Economy Actually heading for a steady state.

Notes

Wikipedia Links

• Steady-State Economy an economy made up of a constant stock of physical wealth (capital) and a constant population size. In effect, such an economy does not grow in the course of time.
• Classical Economists a school of thought in political economy that flourished, primarily in Britain, in the late 18th and early-to-mid 19th century. 
• Neoclassical Economists an approach to economics in which the production, consumption, and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model.
• Ecological Economists a transdisciplinary and an interdisciplinary field of academic research addressing the interdependence and coevolution of human economies and natural ecosystems, both intertemporally and spatially.
• Finite Natural System all biotic and abiotic things occurring naturally, meaning in this case not artificial.
• Limits to Economic Growth the possibility of exponential economic and population growth with a finite supply of resources, studied by computer simulation.
• World-System a socioeconomic system, under systems theory, that encompasses part or all of the globe, detailing the aggregate structural result of the sum of the interactions between polities. 
• Systems Theory the transdisciplinary study of systems, i.e., cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or artificial.
• Economic Stagnation a prolonged period of slow economic growth, typically measured in GDP per capita growth or median income growth, which is usually accompanied by high unemployment. Under some definitions, slow means significantly slower than potential growth as estimated by macroeconomists, even though the growth rate may be nominally higher than in other countries not experiencing economic stagnation.
• System Stability the stability of solutions of differential equations and of trajectories of dynamical systems under small perturbations of initial conditions.

 

Blog Roll: The Middle Ages

Why should we be interested in the Middle Ages? Right after the Fall of Rome (500 AD) the Middle Ages (500-1500) started with a period that used to be called the Dark Ages, a period after Societal Collapse. Since the publication of the Limits to Growth in 1974 that predicted collapse of the World System by 2100 due to resource exhaustion (see graphic below) and environmental degradation (IPCC), the possibility of Societal Collapse can no longer be ignored with wishful thinking.

The Dark Ages and the Middle Ages are our best example, from Western Society, of what a period of collapse might look like.

This blog provides a listing of my postings on the Middle Ages. I have estimated State Space statistical models of the World System, the major World Regions and countries (see the Boiler Plate for data sources and how the models were constructed).

• What If We Slid Back Into the Middle Ages What it would be like living in a societal Random Walk

Notes

Wallerstein, I. (2003) The Decline of American Power: the U.S. in a Chaotic World.

Galor, Oded (2011). Unified Growth Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 

Boulding, K. (1955) The Malthusian Model as a General System

For more information about data sources how the state space models were estimated see the Boiler Plate.

You can run the W_MA BAU Model on my Google Site here. Instructions in the  R-code explain how to modify the model.

Wikipedia

Middle Ages the medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to late 15th centuries, comparable with the post-classical period of global history. 

Crisis of the Late Middle Ages  a series of events across Europe during the late Middle Ages. These events involved extensive demographic collapse, political instability, and religious upheaval. Collectively, they marked an end to a centuries-long period of relative stability in Europe, and reshaped regional societies. This crisis period coincides with a shift in the regional climate from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age.

Dark Ages a term, now deprecated by most historians, for the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th centuries), or occasionally the entire Middle Ages (c. 5th–15th centuries), in Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which characterises it as marked by economic, intellectual, and cultural decline.

Nationalism in the Middle Ages Several scholars of nationalism support the existence of nationalism in the Middle Ages, mainly in Europe.

Christianity in the Middle Ages the history of Christianity from the fall of the Western Roman Empire (c. 476). The end of the period is variously defined - depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottoman Empire in 1453, Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas in 1492, or the Protestant Reformation in 1517 are sometimes used.

History of Science  Protoscience, early sciences, and natural philosophies such as alchemy and astrology that existed during the Bronze Age, Iron Age, classical antiquity and the Middle Ages, declined after the emergence of modern sciences during the Scientific Revolution.

High Middle Ages Key historical trends of the High Middle Ages include the rapidly increasing population of Europe, which brought about great social and political change from the preceding era, and the Renaissance of the 12th century, including the first developments of the rural exodus and urbanization. 

Late Middle Ages Around 1350, centuries of prosperity and growth in Europe came to a halt. A series of famines and plagues, including the Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death, reduced the population to around half of what it had been before the calamities. Along with depopulation came social unrest and endemic warfare.

Black Death a plague pandemic that occurred in Europe from 1346 to 1353. It was one of the most fatal pandemics in human history; as many as 50 million people died, perhaps 50% of Europe's 14th-century population. The Black Death was the second great natural disaster to strike Europe during the Late Middle Ages (the first one being the Great Famine of 1315–1317).

Agriculture of the Middle Ages the farming practices, crops, technology, and agricultural society and economy of Europe from the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 to approximately 1500.

Outline of the Middle Ages The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the early modern era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: classic, medieval and modern.

Economic History of the World  the development of human economic activity throughout time. 

Feudalism a combination of various customs and systems that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.

Capitalism an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit.

Late Capitalism the new social order which emerged in the aftermath of World War I.

European Science in the Middle Ages Western Europe would see a period of scientific decline during the Early Middle Ages. However, by the time of the High Middle Ages, the region had rallied and was on its way to once more taking the lead in scientific discovery. Scholarship and scientific discoveries of the Late Middle Ages laid the groundwork for the Scientific Revolution of the post-medieval period.

Common Misconceptions About the Middle Ages  State fragmentation and competition characterized much of the history of medieval Western Europe, and that trend would remain true for a long period of history afterwards.

Medieval Medicine in Western Europe following the fall of the Western Roman Empire, standard medical knowledge was based chiefly upon surviving Greek and Roman texts, preserved in monasteries and elsewhere.

Western Europe The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean world, the Latin West of the Roman Empire, and "Western Christendom". 

Medieval Music the sacred and secular music of Western Europe during the Middle Ages, from approximately the 6th to 15th centuries. It is the first and longest major era of Western classical music and is followed by the Renaissance music.

Medieval Technology After the Renaissance of the 12th century, medieval Europe saw a radical change in the rate of new inventions, innovations in the ways of managing traditional means of production, and economic growth.

Medieval Demography  the study of human demography in Europe and the Mediterranean during the Middle Ages.

Blog Roll: The Long Nineteenth Century

 

We are still suffering from problems poorly resolved at the end of the Long Nineteenth (L19) Century. Systems models look at the L19 as extending from 1800 until well into the 20th Century. My approach is to estimate L19 models on the data from 1800-1899 and then run the models into the 20th Century as if events such as World War I (WWI), the Great Depression, World War II (WWII), the Cold War and other minor Wars of the 20th Century had not happened. In other words, if you had some kinds of models (mental models, mathematical models, whatever) and made 20th Century predictions from these models, what would you have seen. Another way to say this is that if World War I (WWI), the Great Depression and World War II (WWII) had not happened, what would have been the course of 20th Century? These Counterfactuals suggest that the Catastrophes of the Early 20th Century were not inevitable and would have allowed is to live in a very different World today.

Notes

Blog Roll: World-System Dynamic Component Models

The purpose of my blogs is to estimate Systems Models, specifically Dynamic Component Models, on historical data. My reason for the project are: (1) The historical data is widely available, (2) current analysis is largely based on mental models and (3) no one seems to be applying Systems models. The reason for point three is that historical data are highly correlated and co-linear. My contribution is to use Principal Components Analysis to implement the Satet Space and solve the co-linearity problem using correlations.

The unique aspect of my blogs, Google sites and work over the last 50 years is that I have estimated State Space Dynamic Component Models (DCM) for all the major countries and regions in the World-System from the year (0) until the present (for more information about periodization,  data sources and how the models are constructed, see the Boiler Plate). 

The video above explains State Space Systems models which are commonly used in Engineering (not Economics, History or the Social Sciences). What is unique about the DCM models is the definition of System state and how the State Space is constructed:

The state of any system is the collection of independent variables that predict the time path of the system from t1 to tn. 

 

In DCMs, the state space is constructed using Principal Components Analysis. In the video above, the x are the state variables and the y are the indicator variables. For macro-societal analysis, the scope of the system is defined by the Kaya Identity, the same identity used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

DCMs can be run using R-code on my Google Site, which is organized basically by regions of the World-System, by topics and by time periods (for example, the Long Twentieth Century).

• WL20 World System
• WL20 Eastern Europe EE
• World System Models
• World System (1950-2000+) Late Modern Period
• WL20 European Union
• World-System (1900-1950) World in Depression
• World in Depression
• World System Forecasts
• Sub-Saharan Africa
• World System Steady State or Collapse
• Middle East Africa (MEA)
• USL20 (and more)
• East Asia Pacific (EAP) Region
• WL20 Asia
• World-System (1900-2000+) The Long Twentieth Century
• Latin American Region (LAC) Long Twentieth Century
• The Long Nineteenth Century (1789-1914)
• World-System Policy
• The Long Twentieth Century (1950-2000+) Geopolitical Alignments
• World-System Technology
• World-System Cycles
• Early Capitalism (1500-1800)
• World-System (500-1800) Middle Ages
• World-System (1300-1450) Late Middle Ages
• World-System (1150-1300) High Middle Ages
• World-System (0-500) Roman Empire
• World-System (1640-1815) Long Seventeenth Century
• World-System Long 16th Century (1450-1640)
• The Long Eighteenth Century (1688-1815)
• World-System (0-2000) Long Duree
• Policy Space and the AD-AS Market Model One useful extension of the Kaya Identity.
• Causal Macro Systems See a simulation of the Kaya Identity and compare it to other macro-models.
• Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) 
• North America (NAC)
• The Classic Economists Interestingly enough, the Classical Economists had more affinity with Systems Theory than do the Neoclassical Economists. Classical Economic models can be easily translated in Systems Theory.
• Dynamic Component Models R-code for estimating, testing and simulating DCM models (all models are implemented in the R programming Language).

Notes

Kalman, R. E. (1982) Dynamic Econometric Models: A System-Theoretic Critique

Wallerstein, Immanuel (1974). The Modern World-System. New York: Academic Press

Annales (2015) Debating the long Duree

Pasdirtz, G.W. Instability and Late Nineteenth Century German Development

Please see the  Boiler Plate for more information on periodization, data sources and DCM Construction.