In an effort to save bandwidth, I won't quote anyone at all. But
I did want to weigh in on the possibility of economic cylces causing
TL fluctuations. I do not think this is likely except under extreme
and prolonged circumstances because moving to a lower TL would require
NEW INVESTMENT. The point has been made many times on sci.space that it
is not possible to ressurect the Saturn V because the whole TL 6 infra-
structure of suppliers would have to be recreated. This costs money, some-
thing one doesn't have a lot of in an economic down-turn. To use another
example, lets say this country was in a severe depression and GM wanted
to cut costs. Since it already had an existing TL 7 production plant, it
is not immediately going to switch to TL 6, because this would involve
retooling. However, if this depression continued long enough the might
stop replacing their robot welders, and might start using people again.
GM also might begin designing "low-tech" cars that would eliminate a lot
of the cost of a car. But again, it wouldn't do this quickly because
it would require them to retool their factories. Also, GM would only do
this if they thought conditions would exist long enough to make the
investment worthwhile. This whole process depends on how long their old
plant lasts until it wears out and how much it costs to go "low-tech."
The above situation is unlikely to come about through the normal
business cycle because there are so many "automatic stabilizers" in
economies that keep recessions from getting too deep or lasting too long.
Feudal Technocracies are likely to have even more of these stabilizers
than we do. Life-time employment means that people will not quickly
lose their jobs, which will buoy consumer spending, for instance.
To recap, TL decline through economic decline will only occur
through non-economic shocks like war, Virus, etc. and even then will only
occur when people have reason to believe that the economy will remain
depressed for some time to come.