The March of Western societies towards material welfare was not peaceful

A book that is, by its subtitle, an "introduction to economics", expected that it exposes us the vocation and the tools of the "dismal science", as was the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle. Daniel Cohen offers anything else: an extensive overview of the history of men, the Neolithic in the digital age. It is part of these economists recognize that their discipline is not universal key and cannot remain isolated from other human sciences. The most striking evidence is provided at the beginning of this "species Odyssey": after having long believed that the birth of agriculture had preceded and provoked the settling and development of religious feeling, prehistory specialists now have serious reasons to reverse chronology. Contradicting the Marxist schema, the spiritual "superstructure" preceded the physical infrastructure...

The economy has more reasons to test that the meaning of his message is periodically the agonizing revisions object. Thus, we have been accustomed to associate the idea of happiness of growth. Yet the work of Richard Easterlin, among others, have shown that the accession of material prosperity companies had no impact on their answer to the question: "are you happy". It is that we said Daniel Cohen, growth is "like a drug": addiction to the emergence of new property does not create a supplement of happiness, but the decline of this race to wealth, when growth stalls, becomes a pain. Another perverse effect: the expansion of the postwar decades allowed the construction of the welfare State, but this construction distended direct solidarity links between individuals and between generations. Today, the crisis, making more difficult the financing of social protection, accelerates the disintegration of societies converted to individualism.

An evil put myth

As disillusionment in the geopolitical sphere: growth is traditionally regarded as a factor for peace, especially because it entails the development of international trade - "sweet trade" referred to by Montesquieu. Specific historical studies have undermined this myth: the economic slowdown phases are rather peaceful, expansions are Warrior, because they give to the nations the means of their ambitions - the first world war followed a quarter of a century of remarkable expansion in Europe. The March of Western societies towards material welfare was not peaceful. How could we ensure, today, that the rise of China and the India happen without violent convulsions, the measurement of the size of their populations and the speed of their internal deployments

The current financial crisis is obviously the best justification for pessimism expressed by the title of the book: traders bonus give the extent of the "prosperity of vice". However, if the economists did not see come the crash, the lessons of 1929 were not unnecessary to limit the consequences: rescue of the banks to avoid the collapse of the credit, in accordance with the requirements of Milton Friedman, injection of public money to counter the depressive spiral described by Keynes. But the context has changed, and the "new economy" is not more virtuous than the old: fiscal leads to the increase in inequalities and the digital economy, characterized by increasing yields, promotes the creation of monopolies, at the same time strengthening the cultural domination of the United States.

Of this story, the reader out with printing better understand the complexity of the world, but not assured. Now, the threat ecological, radical novelty, compels humanity to "mentally go the opposite direction which Europe has followed since the 17th century, and moving from the idea of an infinite world to that of a closed universe". It is possible, says the author, life-saving awareness occurs, helped by the digital technologies that accelerate mobilization of opinion. Possible but not certain.