Productive Economy, Contributory Economy presents an analysis of the factors affecting the evolution of our societal model, emerging from sedentarism, which culminated in the industrial age. To further this evolution, we must allow the common good to prosper: family, knowledge, innovation, democracy and spirituality. This book presents a dual contributory and productive economy to be put into place, as well as the synergy that can be established between these two spaces of human contribution. It also studies the instruments of governance that we will need, such as smart money, as well as the conditions of their success.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Marc Luyckx Ghisi xi
Foreword by Éric Seulliet xv
Preface xvii
Part 1 The Driving Facts of Change 1
Introduction to Part 1 3
Chapter 1 Adapt or Dare? 5
1.1 Accepting to evolve 5
1.1.1 For a shared Europe 5
1.1.2 For a real respect of Gaia’s internal rules 6
1.1.3 Saving the planet, jobs or our civilization? 8
1.1.4 Going through “a good war”? 10
1.1.5 Expanding our field of certainty 11
1.2 Change seen from afar to better understand it 13
1.2.1 Being an actor in our own novel 13
1.2.2 The cybernetic futurology approach 14
1.2.3 The temporality of civilizations 16
1.3 Known risks of our model 19
1.3.1 No tolerance thresholds 19
1.3.2 A specific model for each geopolitical zone 21
1.3.3 From the Anthropocene to the symbiotic, an opportunity for Europe 23
1.3.4 Solzhenitsyn syndrome 24
1.4 Better than a revolution 28
Chapter 2 Our Heritage of Experience Tested by New Knowledge 31
2.1 The common good as a new source of prosperity 31
2.1.1 “Employment and GDP”: words of the 21st century 32
2.1.2 An inclusive model by necessity 33
2.1.3 On the 21st floor, take the cultural elevator 34
2.1.4 Care of our idiom/logobiota 35
2.1.5 The economy between cooperation and competitiveness 39
2.1.6 The consequences of this development 42
2.1.7 Breaking out of the dictatorship of short term 52
2.2 Liberating values 53
2.2.1 No longer possessing, but disposing 53
2.2.2 From consumerism to the search for cooperation 56
2.2.3 Complementarity, the wealth of the community 58
2.2.4 Educating for cooperation 59
2.2.5 Organization: from the pyramid to the organic structure 65
2.3 Respect for life course 68
2.3.1 The continuity of love and knowledge 68
2.3.2 The times of life from the 20th to the 21st centuries 69
Chapter 3 The Change of Era Beyond Our Will! 73
3.1 This new era: symbiotic or chaotic? 73
3.1.1 Overcoming the right/left duality 73
3.1.2 Revisiting the institutions 74
3.1.3 The energy of revolt 76
3.1.4 The time of think tanks 78
3.1.5 Towards male/female complementarity 79
3.1.6 Learning transparency in a fuzzy universe 80
3.2 AI, the eye of Cain and democratic benevolence 80
3.3 Sovereignty in the 21st century 82
3.3.1 The layers of power 82
3.3.2 Power through data 83
Chapter 4 The Traces of Our Future Inscribed in Our Past 85
4.1 Controlling your destiny 85
4.1.1 The invention of the image 85
4.1.2 Smart, but fragile 85
4.1.3 Not above the laws of nature 87
4.2 Creative and responsible 88
4.2.1 The homeostasis of our democracy 88
4.2.2 Europe: hierarchical with its kings, but organic with its communities 90
4.2.3 Towards a cooperative democracy 91
4.2.4 No more ideology 93
4.2.5 Escaping the clutches of massive influence 94
4.2.6 Neither colonizer nor colonized, only responsible and competitive 98
4.3 World view and transmission of knowledge 99
4.4 Europe, a civilization in reconstruction? 100
4.4.1 At the forefront of the need for renewal 100
4.4.2 Taking into account social creatives 102
4.4.3 Preparing for change with the right tools 109
4.4.4 The dangers of a collapse of the West 111
4.5 More technology, therefore more humanity 115
4.5.1 Towards a new form of governance 115
4.5.2 Making society now 116
4.5.3 The end of one model, the beginning of another 118
4.5.4 No global without local 119
4.5.5 Demography, a taboo subject 124
4.6 Digital technology, a weapon but also a tool 129
4.6.1 Digitized financial warfare 129
4.6.2 Influencer wars 131
4.7 Workaholics forever? 133
4.7.1 Before sedentarization: to each his own tribe 133
4.7.2 Since sedentarization: a place for submission 133
4.8 Sedentarization, spiritual at first 134
Chapter 5 “To Make Society” Therefore “To Exchange” 137
5.1 Exchanges and specializations 137
5.1.1 The end of the fear of missing out? 137
5.1.2 Strengths and weaknesses of the concept of ownership 139
5.1.3 Beginning and end of patriarchy? 142
5.1.4 Exchanging to prosper 142
5.2 Financial instruments over time 143
5.2.1 Symbols to record exchanges 143
5.2.2 Money and financiers 144
5.2.3 Church/State and social classes 147
5.2.4 End of social classes? 148
Part 2 Avenues to be Explored 149
Introduction to Part 2 151
Chapter 6 The Inevitable Reworking of the Social Pact 153
6.1 The world of work in revolution 153
6.1.1 Fewer and better educated citizens 153
6.1.2 Collapse of the middle class 154
6.2 Occupation/job and skills/talents/knowledge 159
6.2.1 Rise of competence 159
6.2.2 Disappearance of professions and knowledge strategy 159
6.2.3 Emergence of jobs and networks 160
6.3 End of the Jules Ferry school of thought 161
6.3.1 Certification courses 162
6.3.2 Sloping entry and exit from the labor market, an avenue to be explored 163
6.3.3 Inspirational heroes 163
6.3.4 Regulated professions with regulated missions 163
Chapter 7 New Reward Tools 165
7.1 The end of liberalist doxa in favor of reciprocity 165
7.2 Shifting the focus between private property and the commons 166
7.2.1 Dependence on the productive and the common good 166
7.2.2 The dual economy: productive and contributory 167
7.2.3 Basic income: yes, but… 169
Chapter 8 Smart Currencies 173
8.1 Institutional money and contributory money 173
8.2 Monetary biodiversity 175
8.2.1 Currency diversity as a source of stability 175
8.2.2 Incentive money: recurrent and melting 177
8.2.3 Already smart currencies 178
8.3 Moving to the sandbox 179
8.3.1 Responding to the collapse of the middle class 179
8.3.2 Objectives of the multicurrency experiments 181
8.3.3 Urgency? 181
8.4 Do not deny the history of our currency 182
8.4.1 From melting money to mortgage credit 182
8.4.2 Central banks 185
8.4.3 The financing of industry 186
8.4.4 Conquering finance 188
8.4.5 End of a certain finance 191
8.4.6 Pressure, depression, renewal 192
8.4.7 The dangers of “helicopter currencies” 193
Chapter 9 The New Priorities 195
9.1 Return of feminine values 195
9.2 A different relationship to innovation 196
9.3 Preparing for the “aftermath” of transnational corporations 198
9.4 Going digital 0.0 199
9.5 Data as important as money 200
9.6 A renewed idea of liberalism 201
Chapter 10 Transition Without Chaos? 207
10.1 More complicated than sedentarization 207
10.2 A global but differentiated shift 208
10.2.1 Alternately at the forefront of human history 208
10.2.2 Europe at the forefront of the societal shift 208
10.3 Productive-contributory: Siamese economies 209
10.3.1 Civilization’s stampede 209
10.3.2 From the “middle” to the “active” class 210
10.3.3 Towards higher levels of satisfaction 212
10.3.4 Economy at the service of people and the common good 214
10.3.5 Democratic coordination 215
10.4 Tasks dedicated to the common good 217
10.4.1 The different contributory tasks 217
10.4.2 Empathic tasks 226
10.4.3 Status of contributory and empathic tasks 230
10.4.4 All citizens and actors of the economic and social life 231
Chapter 11 No Societal Transformation Without Digital Sovereignty 233
11.1 Protecting land, but also souls and knowledge 233
11.2 The European opportunity 234
11.3 Data as important as money 235
11.4 The European digital age of the 21st century 236
11.4.1 A place for Rina 236
11.4.2 Platforms and the platform State 237
11.4.3 The time of digital castles 243
11.4.4 Providing the means 243
Conclusion 245
References 255
Index 259
