WHICH INDISTRIES STIMULATE ECONOMIC GROWTH

According to Russian Economist Nikolai Kondratieff the global economy develops in overlapping cycles or 'long waves'. To start of each of these waves is a basic innovation i.e. an innovation that causes a fundamental structural change and influences the whole of society. The new technology is invested in for forty to sixty years and thereby stimulates the economy, until the mode of production reaches it's limits and there is no more growth. The search begins for a new innovation which heralds the next cycle.

The first Kondratieff was triggered by the invention of the steam engine and innovations of the textile industry. Steel and the invention of the railway marked the second Kondratieff. These two cycles were dominated by Great Britain. The third Kondratieff, electrical engineering and chemical industry was dominated by Germany and America. During the fourth Kondratieff the automotive and petrochemical Industries, the USA established itself as a global power. It was the Apex of industrial society. The oil crisis marked the changeover from an industrial zone to an information society: The fifth Kondratieff. With the global recession of 2001 2003, the sweeping potential of this technology declined. At the same time the six cycle was being established: the health market including biotechnology and psychosocial sector (eg therapies) as well as environmental technology. Here's Leo A Nefiodow, and expert on Kondratieff cycles, on the sixth cycle: The health cycle isnt really about health care, it is just called this. More than 97% of the financial capital is spent on research into and diagnosis therapy and management of diseases. In fact it's an illness cycle.

The length of the cycles their triggers as well as their impact are contentious. An important indicator for judging a Kondratieff cycle is volume of work that it generates. In developing countries the industry is creating as many new jobs as the health sector.

'I think that nowadays it is health, not sex that acts as a form of moral ie social control. It's all about controlling the body: staying slim, staying fit, eating properly'. Paul Strasburg