Involution – What is it, Definition and Concept

Involution refers to a process or a situation that extends over time. In this period, the subject or element that suffers from it loses positive attributes and characteristics and acquires negative properties.

 

Involution is the antonym of evolution; it implies the opposite. Thus, it is a process by which a person, thing, or situation loses positive attributes, each time going towards a worse situation than the previous one.

This involution can have two paths, the first towards the previous or starting position; the second towards a new scenario.

Involution is a concept that can be applied to many fields and disciplines of study, including the human being in particular. In addition, it can present very different periods, from centuries to a few years.

Types of Involution

As this concept can be applied to numerous areas, we will establish a typology that covers each of them, including some examples.

Political Involution

Political involution occurs when a country or territory experiences a curtailment of its political rights or civil liberties. It can occur within the regime. Thus, this would entail a shift to an autocratic regime in a more extreme case.

This is a very common case throughout history. You have to see the states through which the democracy. It arose in Athens in Ancient Greece, and, after being conquered by Macedonia, democracy was not experienced again until it appeared in some Italian city-states of the Renaissance.

Finally, we see it with contemporary democracies. During the 20th century and the expansion of democracy as a form of government, these changes between democratic and non-democratic regimes have been very recurrent. We have examples in the Spain of the Second Republic and the subsequent Francoist authoritarianism, Weimar Germany and its end after Hitler’s victory, and Cuba after the 1940 Constitution and its change after the blow of Batista.

 

But political involution does not only refer to this intermittent historical appearance of democracy, nor recent regime changes in some countries. It also occurs within countries where the government system. For example, we appreciate the loss of freedom behind the law of citizen security in Spain.

Also, the constitutional modifications carried out during the Venezuelan chavismo granted more can to the central government.

This process has also been seen in some Arab countries. After revolutions, these states have curtailed some of the existing freedoms and have installed in their place regimes inspired by the Koran and Sharia, whose freedoms are null.

Economic Involution

Economic involution occurs when a given territory experiences a negative evolution of its economic indicators. Such indicators can be the rate of unemployment, GDP and the GDP per capita, public debt, the public deficit, inflation, foreign trade, etc.

The setback of these indicators usually occurs in periods of economic recession, which consists of the negative variation of the GDP during two consecutive quarters. The GDP is one of the most global indicators; generally, when it falls, it indicates that the rest of the indices are also falling.

Although referring to economic involution is synonymous with the crisis, there may be a slight or partial involution, whose effects are not so negative.

Examples of economic involution are also very clear in recent years. With the global crisis of 2008, all developed countries experienced a strong involution: growth in unemployment, increase in public debt, and loss of purchasing power were some of the consequences of this period.

In Argentina, the large increase in public spending and indebtedness during the late 1990s and the withdrawal of investments caused the playpen Argentinian. The citizens saw their withdrawals limited for fear of bankruptcy banking.

The recent crisis of Covid-19 health has also caused a global involution of economic indicators. But thanks to the openness and good policy implementation, many affected economies are recovering apace.

In Biology

Natural involution has been very common in recent years. It has a double explanation: the improvement of medicine and, as a consequence, the increase in life expectancy. In earlier times, where life expectancy was thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty years, the mind and body reached their end more “whole.”

In recent years, thanks to advances in medicine, we have lived so many years that, on many occasions, the latter are of poor quality. Alzheimer’s, osteoarthritis, cardiovascular diseases, and many others have increased due to living longer.

This means that in our last years of life, we experience a natural involution. In addition, it should be noted that the body ages naturally, according to some studies, from the age of 34. With which, to a greater or lesser extent, from that age, we begin to regress.