Socionomics: The Science of History and Social Prediction
Robert R. Prechter, Jr. (1949-) began publishing his insights with respect to social causality in 1979. His two decades of work culminate inSocionomics: The Science of History and Social Prediction, which presents a number of startling interconnected conclusions. Prechter contends that the stock market is a sensitive register of social mood, which has countless other modes of cultural expression. The stock market is patterned according to a model of financial price behavior called the Wave Principle, which confirms that social mood is endogenous and independent of outside influence. Since social actions follow changes in the stock market, the social mood changes behind it must determine the character of social action. That social events are the result, not the cause, of social mood change is a radical idea. Prechter defines this idea as "a principle, which means that there are no exceptions to it, ever." Prechter then observes connections between the Wave Principle and biological forms and mentational processes via fractals, spirals and Fibonacci mathematics, linking what appears to be happening in society to its biological and mental origins.Prechter graduated from Yale in 1971 and worked as a Technical Market Specialist at Merrill Lynch in New York in the 1970s. In 1978, he co-authored, with A.J. Frost, Elliott Wave Principle - Key To Market Behavior, in 1979 he founded Elliott Wave International and in 2002 founded The Socionomics Institute. During the 1980s, Prechter won numerous awards for market timing as well as the United States Trading Championship, culminating in Financial News Network (now CNBC) granting him the title, "Guru of the Decade." He has served on the board of The Foundation for the Study of Cycles and the Market Technicians Association, including a term as president on 1990-1991. Prechter has written 12 books. He is a member of Mensa, Intertel, The Shakespeare Oxford Society and The Shakespeare Fellowship.