At a still higher level of abstraction, prices may be studied as clues to the nature of change itself. That is the purpose of this inquiry. Every period of the past has been a time of change. The world is always changing—but not always in the same way. We shall find empirical evidence of distinct “change-regimes” in the past that were often highly dynamic, but stable in their dynamism. Sooner or later, even the strongest of these change-regimes broke down in moments of what might be called “deep change.” When it did so, one system of change yielded to another. Deep change may be understood as
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