Virtuous circle

[T]he less our agriculturists are interfered with by the importation of foreign corn, the more money have they to spend with their manufacturing brethren, who, in turn, secure of their steady profits at home, are able to ship extensively to distant markets with little apprehension as to the result. In political economy there may be "vicious circles," but there are "virtuous circles" too, and this is one of them.

State structuration, in effect, was characterized by the maintenance of a ‘virtuous circle’ from the post-feudal period to the middle of the twentieth century. This virtuous circle, however, must not be mistaken for inevitability. The state is neither universal nor a higher stage of some sort of teleological evolutionary process. Should other structures […] prove superior in structural capacity in a phase of stress and change, and prove capable of acquiring sufficient legitimation, […] then the virtuous circle could conceivably be broken and the modern state superseded.

Successful social entrepreneurs go through a cycle of growth in several linked stages. At each stage they could fail and the organisation could go into decline. […] We call this complete process the ‘virtuous circle of social capital’ because it starts with the inheritance of social capital and ends with the returns from the investment of social capital.

We can explain these differences in terms of a virtuous circle of positive feedback in response to market stimulus or a vicious circle of defensive and negative feedback that reinforced anti-market orientations associated with their administrative heritage before the advent of economic reforms.