The Four Seasons of Sustainable Wealth

Abstract

The author suggests that the slogan describing an inevitable loss of private wealth in three generations (“shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”) should be replaced by the positive one: “the four seasons of sustainable wealth.” As with the four seasons of a single life and the four seasons of a year in nature, each has its own priorities and its own contributions to the future season. Moreover, she argues that the four generation rotation, described by Strauss and Howe, can be used as a analogy for a cycle of four generations of private wealth, repeating themselves in the same order, cycle after cycle.