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Introduction
As an economist, I am extremely honoured to be invited to deliver a keynote address to this conference of "World Philosophers". I wish to
recall that the founders of ‘political economy’ in the eighteen century were themselves moral philosophers, even if today an overwhelming majority of economists have forgotten this moral dimension of their role
almost completely.
I would like to start with what I consider a central paradox of our contemporary world. The paradox is in the contrast between the performances and
potentialities of our system of ‘modernity’, and the growing needs of our societies which remain unmet. The performances of our economic system since two centuries are really startling, in terms of technical
inventions and material progress, in terms of the production, accumulation and consumption of wealth, for a world population which was about 0.8 billion in 1750, 1.6 billion in1900, and will be above 6 billion in
the year 2000 (Bairoch, 1997, I p.22). According to UNDP (1997), and as measured not only by income levels, but also through various indicators of well being, world poverty has been reduced more during the last
fifty years than in the preceding five centuries. However, according to the same source, the number of people living in a situation of extreme poverty (conventionally measured by an income per capita of less than
US$ 1 per day) is now about 1.3 billion, and it is still growing. Inequalities of income and of access to basic material facilities are deepening again; acute problems of nutrition, health, housing, and education
develop in many countries, including the richest countries, among them those of the OECD. Development and under-development coexist narrowly within the same countries, the same regions, sometimes the same social
groups, regarding not just the components of material well-being, but also their social dimensions: extreme individualism instead of responsibility and social cohesion, competition and loneliness instead of
conviviality and solidarity, alienation and authoritarianism instead of social consciousness and true democracy.
All these characteristics are well-known, and I do not intend to propose a new description of this social situation of our time; I only want to
underline the contrast between the extraordinary capacities of our civilisation, which claims to be more and more global, and the fact that this civilisation seems to be intrinsically unable to solve at least some of the basic miseries of this world – to eradicate the worst forms of abject poverty, for example -, and moreover, that it tends indefinitely to create new aspirations as well as new social, economic, ecological and political problems. In other words, the potentialities of our technological and economic system have not succeeded in matching the requirements of our societies: on the contrary, they seem to aggravate them.
It is this contrast that I would like to analyse briefly in this presentation. In section 2, taking into account the fact that our social system is
basically dominated by economic preoccupations and values, I try to summarise the essential principles of the economic thinking governing the ‘development model’, or the type of social organisation, which originated
in the history of Western Europe and has been expanding through the whole planet, first under the colonial system, and then with national and international development strategies. In section 3, I suggest why, in my
opinion, this system is absurd and cannot be generalised as "globalised". In the last two sections, I raise the question: "is there anything that can be done to change this situation?"; I discard
briefly some of the current answers that are proposed, and I review some of the changes in the system of ethical values that seem necessary for the future.
Shall I confess my fear that such a proposal of change, sketched as it is here in a few pages, may also seem absurd to your audience, by simplism or by
excess of ambition? The problem of our ‘development pattern’ and of its underlying values is global by nature, however, and I find it difficult to split the reasoning if I want to propose a critical analysis of this
pattern. I am asking you, therefore, to forgive me for this ambition. I do not hope to persuade you about each of my conclusions, of course, but I would like to share with you, at least, a sort of deep anxiety about the future of our societies. This future is facing difficulties that require not primarily technical solutions, but a rethinkingof our basic values.
And such a rethinking seems to me to be the main task of a meeting of ‘World Philosophers’.
Main principles of the dominant economic thinking
Let me remind you, first, of some of the basic principles that are behind the dominant economic and social organisation of our time, that is, behind
the world economic system which is said to be in the process of being ‘globalised’, generalised to all human societies. As you will understand, I try to suggest a conceptual framework in order to explain a global
situation, and of course not to legitimate or to justify any social choice.
The basic premises of the social philosophy of the ‘Enlightenment’, which developed in Western Europe during the eighteen century, may be summarised in
the following ideas. Social progress is both desirable and conceivable, human individuals are responsible for this progress, social power and authority do not come from God but from an agreement among individual
citizens in a democratic society. The technological changes of the ‘industrial revolution’, the formidable expansion of market exchanges and the rise of the capitalist system – still reinforced, at the end of the
present century, by the failure of the so-called ‘socialist alternative’ – have translated the idea of social progress in material and quantitative terms: progress, or ‘development’, means growth of production,
exchange, accumulation and consumption of ‘commodities’ (i.e., in the logic of the market system, goods and services that are individually appropriable). Production is for consumption, to be sure. But for the
consumer, consumption is possible only if he can acquire individually the goods (or the access to services) he wants to consume, mainly through exchanges on the markets: and the main rule of the market is that he
cannot purchase a good if he does not pay a price (the price system being anonymously determined by the confrontation of the demand and the supply of all partners on all markets). On the producer’s side, and
according to the same logic of the market, goods and services will be produced if, and only if, the producer can sell them at a profitable price: production will take place, not necessarily when there is a ‘need’ –
whatever the definition, and the reality or artificiality of this ‘need’ -, but only if there is perspective of profitability. The needs of individuals who cannot pay, and more generally the ‘collective’ needs
(meaning the needs that are not met through the individual appropriation of a good, or through the individual access to a service: public health infrastructure, for example, or street lighting, or social justice)
are not taken into consideration, in principle, by a pure market economy, except when they are an indirect condition of profitability.
In this perspective, a "profit-oriented" economic system is supposed to be identical to a "need-oriented" economic system. ‘Development’ consists of an
indefinite process of growthof the amount of commodities that are produced and exchanged. The so-called ‘development strategies’ focus almost exclusively on what is thought to be the conditions of the growth
process: investment and accumulation of capital, adhesion to the market system of exchange with a minimum of ‘distortions’ (which are reputed to originate from any external intervention) systematic openness towards
imports and exports opportunities, and- most importantly – private profit maximisation. These are not only theoretical principles: even if they have to be nuanced along in different ways in practical terms,
they do form the doctrinal basis of a majority of development policies, at the national level as well as – very clearly, if you look at the basic legal texts of the Bretton Woods institutions – at the international
level.
Basic failures of the world economic system
A majority of world leaders today, in the public as well as in the private economic sphere, claim that they are proud of the system described above,
which is supposed to have solved in the past, or to be capable to solve in the future, most of the problems of ‘social progress’ – to the extent that the latter is assimilated, of course, to the progress of material
well-being through quantitative growth. Since the turn of the nineties, the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the disappearance of ‘socialism’ as a practical alternative for developing countries, this exclusive
quasi-religious faith in the market system has become the object of an intellectual systematisation and, more importantly, of a political doctrine, which is called, in France, la pensée unique.
Let me be clear: I am not intellectually or politically opposed to the use of the mechanisms of the market economy, I am not pleading for the
rehabilitation of the Soviet experience – which was, obviously, a human disaster for numerous reasons -, and I am not trying to restore any kind of statism or authoritarianism. I want only to argue that a pure
market economy leads also to some kinds of human disaster, to the extent that it claims (as many tenants of the pensée unique, especially within international organisations) to provide an exclusive
criterion of social organisation. The essence of the argument lies in the word ‘exclusive’: despite the apparent sophistication of contemporary economics, the human species and the world are too complex to be ruled by an unique and simplistic criterion. Therefore the solution must be looked at in terms of a ‘mixed economy’, combining the mechanisms of the market system with the mechanisms of the political process required by the collective aspects of the economic organisation. Here I shall explain the principle of the ‘mixed economy’ only very briefly, because in front of this audience, I think it preferable to concentrate on the new thinking in terms of the values that are needed in order to avoid the predictable ‘dead-end’ of our present world system.
I am going back to the logic of the market. I repeat that according to this logic, social progress means increased material well-being, development
means indefinite growth of the quantities of commodities, ‘better’ means ‘more’, profitability is the basic condition and also the engine of the whole economic process. I also repeat that in this perspective, ‘non
profitable’ needs (individual or collective) are simply ignored. And here we discover a new paradox of this so-called ‘logic’: the very system that ignores ‘non-profitable’ needs, is multiplying the situations of
‘non-profitable needs’ and ‘collective needs’ that, by definition, cannot be solved by the system. The reasons for this paradox are many and complex: I shall try to schematise them under three categories:
- Growth is not simply a component among others of this economic organisation. It is a basic requirement of the market economy in the capitalist system: the system cannot do without maximising growth. This explains the spectacular performances of the system in the past, and more especially the importance of industrialisation – which is a way of accelerating productivity and growth – in the historical expansion of this system. But industrialisation was, and is still based on an accelerated consumption of non-renewable resources, at a rhythm comparable to no other period on the past of humanity. The result is not only various forms of pollution, but irreversible destruction and radical changes in the availability of natural resources such as bio-diversity and climatic stability. The consciousness of past damages is emerging slowly, but – for obvious political reasons – not to the point where the content of development for the future would be conceived in radically different terms (for example regarding the consumption of energy per capita). This is the case in most of the rich countries, who strongly reject any form of change in their economic model that would imply a reduced consumption of natural resources; but it is still more the position of the so-called ‘developing’ countries, who consider themselves as under-developed by comparison to the rich countries, and who do hot see why they should moderate their ambitions and not imitate their predecessors. The ‘global’, or planetary, result of this end-less growth is precisely that the space of the human species on the earth, relatively to other species, is growing much beyond the total ‘carrying capacity’ of the planet ( Daly,1991)
- As a matter of fact, this ‘catching-up’ conception of development - which sees the development process as reproduction of the western experience, and therefore as an imitation by the developing countries of the steps of their predecessors on the same path -, this conception is still appearing as the dominant image of the development process, not only in the public opinion of a large majority of countries, but also among their governments and within the most influential international organisations, such as the World Bank or the World Trade Organisation. This conception seems to lead to a dead-end, however, not only because the catching-up process is arithmetically much longer than usually thought, but – more importantly – because the process of imitation is, by definition, an infinite – if not impossible - task (as the predecessors tend constantly to keep the distance with the successors), and above all, because of the limitations of the ‘carrying capacity’ of the planet which has been mentioned above.
- The preceding argument may be used as an introduction to the distribution issues inherent to the globalisation process of the market economy and of the dominant development pattern. A system based on the solvability / profitability criterion leads inevitably to a cumulative process of inequalities: the productive apparatus works in priority for the most profitable demands, it remunerates the owners of the most productive factors, the rich become richer and richer, and the poor become poorer and poorer. Again this is not only a theoretical conclusion, but can be proved by more and more empirical evidence: inequalities are considerably deepening in the world, not so much – at least in the last two decades – among nations than among social groups or classes within nations (Giraud, 1996).
Distribution is a major problem of our societies for economic, social and ethical reasons. In a market economy, buyers need money to buy the goods and
the services that have been produced; in most cases, the only source of purchasing power of the potential buyers is the remuneration of their labour. For short term profitability reasons, however, economic growth
needs less and less human labour, and purchasing power(i.e. demand) may become more and more concentrated: when the potentialities of export markets will have been exhausted, the risk exists of a general situation
of oversupply in the world economy, despite the fact that many basic needs remain unmet. Social cohesion and equilibrium are in trouble when disparities are increasing beyond certain limits, especially in a context where the system is valorising individual competitivity, performance and enrichment, while destroying any form of solidarity, cohesiveness and social exchange but the market: a minimum of social cohesion, however, is required as a condition of functioning of the market economy itself. Inequalities, as a matter of fact, are probably inevitable in most human societies; they raise an ethical problem, however, when they become an obstacle to human dignity and when they allow for an unacceptable relation of exploitation, dominance or eve war among social groups.
These are the reasons why one can argue that the capitalist system is generating collective needs while opposing their collective solutions. The
impossibilities of infinite growth with finite resources, as well as the tensions inherent to an extension of competition combined with a vanishing of solidarity, are collective challengesthat can be resolved
only through collective decisions, or by an institutional actor making choices in the name of the collectivity. The market ideology, however, systematically discourages (under the charge of ‘distortion’) any
intervention beyond the realm of the market, except if it may serve directly the functioning of the market: for example, public health, or democracy, will be of no interest for the decision-makers on the markets,
except to the extent that they may increase productivity or public order, which are needed for the functioning of these markets. It is essential to understand, of course, that these challenges are the result, not of
the use of market mechanisms as such by the economic system, but of an exclusive use of these mechanisms, and of the systematic subordination of all collective mechanisms towards market mechanisms. It is not d difficult to demonstrate, for example, that the so-called ‘new’ role of the State as defined by the World Bank in the ‘World Development Report1997’ is a ‘Subordinate State’, a State almost totally dependent vis-à-visthe market (Comeliau, 1998b).
We can conclude on this point. The tendency towards an exclusive generalisation of the market system as an exclusive rule of organisation for all
relations in all human societies on the whole planet is absurd, impossible, and in any case unacceptable, even if limited. Absurd because it confuses need-orientation and profit-orientation, i.e. the ends and the means of economic activity, because it multiplies collective problems while rejecting collective solutions, and above all because it ahs no other engine but infinite growth in a limited earth. Impossible, for the same reason of limited resources (who can pretend that the present level of energy consumption per capita in North America or Western Europe can be generalised in a population of six, ten or twelve billions of inhabitants?", and also because distance and disparities are an indispensable component of the imitative process.
Finally, why should this pretention be considered unacceptable if its fulfilment is impossible in any case? I believe there is a precise reason for
that: both the logic and the ideology of the system require its expansion without limits to the whole planet; even if probable, or at least plausible, the contention that the system cannot be generalised is not
acknowledgeable publicly by its proponents. The only solution for them is to behave as if the existing system could be generalised as such, and simultaneously, at least for a transition period, to organise a sort of ‘politically acceptable exclusion’ of those who have to be excluded in any case. I credible, this hypothesis might provide a reasonable explanation for the presently fashionable ‘struggle against poverty’. But obviously, this sort of trick remains totally unacceptable on ethical grounds.
What is to be done?
Can we go beyond this negative attitude of radical critique? What can we do, if we consider, not that the actual system should be saved for its own
sake, but that the present and the future of humanity are facing considerable difficulties regarding the sustainability of the societies themselves and the survival of a majority of human beings (maybe of all of
them), and if we consider that, even if they are sustainable, most of the components of the actual system are not acceptable for ethical reasons?
One of the main arguments, in my interpretation of our present economic and social system, is its exclusive reliance on the market mechanisms to
organise and regulate our societies in economic terms, and therefore in social terms, since we live in a context where economic preoccupations are overwhelmingly predominant. The solution, therefore, must be looked
at in a ‘mixed economy’, which would combine the individual efficiency of the market mechanisms and the social efficiency of the political process; but as I have suggested, this is not the place to make long
explanations about the possible content of such a system, as I have done elsewhere (Comeliau, 1998a). here I shall make only three kinds of observations, and I shall develop briefly the third one as a general
conclusion.
The first observation is about the need for a political debate about the future of our societies. By ‘political’, I do not mean only ‘collective’; more profoundly, a ‘political debate’ is a collective debate about the ends, the goals, the finalities of our societies, that is, the characteristics that they want to acquire as their own form of social progress or improvement. Political debates are not fashionable, however: notwithstanding many declarations in favour of democracy, the management of our societies, especially their economic management, is basically technocratic, authoritarian and politically irresponsible. The first requirement for such a debate its to organise a way of placing ‘politics’ first – in the etymological sense of ‘the government of the city’ – and of subordinating economics and technology to politics, rather than the present situation which takes the other way around.
The second observation aims at rejecting some common false solutions, for the reasons of absurdity, impossibility or unacceptability that have
been mentioned above. Among these false solutions: development conceived as a catching-up process and an imitation of the western experience; the contention (frequent in international circles) that the failures of
the present system are due to an incomplete or inadequate application of its rules rather than to the rules themselves, and therefore the recommendation for a more radical implementation of the logic of the market;
the belief that growth is always ‘the’ solution to all economic problems, especially to the problems of employment and its consequences, and therefore that growth should be increased or maintained at any cost,
socially and ecologically; and finally the belief that the struggle against poverty, in the terms in which it is presently organised, can be an acceptable solution for the structural problems of our societies,
economically, socially and ethically.
Conclusion: towards a different system of values?
As announced, the third observation- or rather the third series of observations – is the most important. It raises the question of a different system of values.
There is preliminary difficulty, however: is the emergence of ‘universal’ values possible in our world? Is it desirable? The answer is complex and rather paradoxical.
On the one hand, the ‘globalisation’ of, at least, some economic relations- in the realm of production technologies, for example, or of trade, or of
finance – is not just an ideological contention anymore, by now it has become a real fact. In more general terms, the ‘development’ process can be analysed as a diffusion of a referential development pattern,
originating in Western Europe, with the basic criteria which have been mentioned above (efficiency, profitability, competition, etc.; and also, social progress = economic development = economic growth), and
therefore as the diffusion of a core of basic values (such as individualism, material enrichment, acquisitiveness, aggressiveness, efficiency, consumerism…). Hence the question: are not these values in the process
of being universalised anyway?
On the other hand, the diffusion of this development pattern through different societies is confronted with different cultures and social structures,
and therefore with different social and cultural reactions: globalisation cannot mean perfect homogenisation. In this context, imposing western values may be viewed as a mark of unacceptable ethnocentrism or even
cultural imperialism. The present discussions about the social clause in international trade, about the desirability of reducing fecundity rates within poor populations, about the concept of poverty, or even about
the various interpretations of human rights, are examples of those social and cultural reactions. As a provisional conclusion, we can consider that there is a process of progressive and tendencial universalisation
of some values, especially regarding the basic conditions of the world economy: it is far from sure, however, that this core of values can - and should – be developed much beyond a sort of ‘functional minimum’.
This being said, the issue at stake – the necessity of a new thinking about the future of the world economy and of world society – is not that of a
clear-cut choice between accepting or rejecting the whole western system of values (how defined, anyway?): it is rather to make a selection among those values. And the principles of this selection are clear: it should be made in order to make the selected values socially
acceptable, economically efficient, ecologically sustainable and politically appropriate in relation with the orientations resulting from the political debate.
But naturally, such a formulation is excessively complex, and may not seem very realistic, at least as long as it is not applied to a specific social
and cultural context. In order to make this a little more practical, let me link it with the central argument developed above: after all, the major problem of the present system is not so much in its reliance on the
market mechanisms and its system of values, but in its exclusive reliance on these mechanism and values, and in the fact that it does not accept any other kind of criteria. The problem of the selection of new values
is therefore to discard the exclusiveness (or the monopolistic status, if you prefer) of criteria such as consumer sovereignty, acquisitiveness, competition, short-term profitability, and so on), and to combine them with more collective criteria. Three at least of these collective criteria can be mentioned here:
- individual liberty, not only in the sense of autonomy of the consumer’s choices, but more profoundly as the possibility of an emancipation from the narrow limits of the mind of the homo oeconomicus,
and from an economic globalisation process from which there would be ‘no place to hide’, in the words of William Greider (1997.p.15); you may call this a search for ‘transcendence’
- a sense of solidarity and social cohesion, recognising the right of all human beings to a decent life, as individuals and members of a group;
- and, more generally, a sense of social responsibility – in the global perspective defined, for example, by Hans Jonas (1993) -, "for the small group as well as for the human species, for the present as well as for the long period and for the future generations".
I do not think it necessary to continue with a long enumeration of desirable values for the future. The above list may look trivial: in reality, it is
at the very opposite of the common values accepted by the dominant proponents and by the major actors of what the West has named, rather strangely, ‘the development community’. The challenge is not to make a list,
anyway: the challenge is for all human societies, to debate about their finalities, about what they think to be the foundations of a more desirable social life, and then to translate these basic principles into
the solutions that they will try to find out for the major practical issues of the present time. These practical issues are, for examples, the following: how can human needs and aspirations be expressed, within the framework of the present economic organisation and beyond, and more specially beyond the obvious limits of the market economy? What is the future of human labour and employment? What is the most desirable role of the State in the mixed economy and, more broadly, in the society? What kind of means should be used, if money, profit and capital accumulation are not considered anymore as the major incentives of development, and what can be, in particular, the developmental role of institutions and institutional change?
Let us repeat it again: the debate is political by nature. The economic thinking should serve the political and ethical thinking, not the other way
around. But the political debate is more urgent than ever.
References
BAIROCH, Paul (1997): Victoires et déboires. Histoire économique et social du monde du XVIème siècle à nos jours, 3 volumes, Folio-Histoire,
Galllimard, Paris
COMELIAU, Christian (1998a): Les impasses de la modernité (to be published)
COMELIAU, Christian (1998b): "L’Etat subordonné", dans: HUFTY, Marc (sous la direction de - ): L’Etat subordonné et la nouvelle gestion
publique, Nouveaux Cahiers de l’IUED, Collection "Enjeux", IUED, Genève et PUF, Paris (to be published)
DALY, Herman (1991): Steady-State Economics, Island Press, Washington D.C., 2d edition with New Essays.
GIRAUD, Pierre-Noel (1996): L’inégalité du monde. Economie du monde contemporain, Folio-Actuel, Gallimard, Paris
GREIDER, William (1997): One World, Ready or Not. The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism, Simon and Schuster, New-York
JONAS, Hans (1993): Le principe responsabilité. Une éthique pour la civilisation technologique, Editions du Cerf, Paris
UNDP (1997): Human Development Report 1997, United Nations Development Program, New-York
World Bank (1997), "The State in a Changing World", World Development Report 1997, Washington D.C.
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