Dialectic & 'Problem–Reaction–Solution'

The 'problem–reaction–solution' frame (often loosely tied to a popularized 'Hegelian dialectic') says: a crisis generates public demand for action, and a pre-prepared 'solution' — which expands power and would have been rejected in calm times — is then accepted. There is a real, documented kernel here: crises DO reliably expand state and corporate power, and actors of every stripe exploit them ('never let a crisis go to waste' is a bipartisan adage). The historian's caution: this frame becomes UNFALSIFIABLE when stretched to claim every crisis was deliberately manufactured by a single hidden hand — a claim that explains everything and therefore explains nothing. Honest use [Speculative where it asserts intent]: treat opportunistic exploitation of crises as well-supported, and orchestrated manufacture of them as a hypothesis requiring specific evidence in each case. The genuine Hegelian dialectic in philosophy (thesis–antithesis–synthesis as a logic of historical development) is a separate, academic idea often conflated with this popular political frame; we keep them distinct.