Faut-il un gouvernement mondial?/ Do we need a World government?

Jacques Attali has published recently a book entitled "To-morrow, who will govern the world?", in which he advocates for a world government. International agencies, such as the United Nations, WTO, IMF, the World Bank, already existand despite their present limitations already play a big role. In the future, in order to meet world challenges, it will be necessary to reinforce cooperation and coordination at the world level. Still, do we need to expect or to hope a world government, according to the wishes expressed by Jacques Attali?
It does not seem quite clear, due to the risks that would involve any initiative for instauring such a world government, Furthermore, is a traditional government, with a President and a capital city, the appropriate solution for coordinating a World-system more and more complex? The creation and reinforcement of international bodies connecting a network of members in all the countries of the world, would seem able to provide such a coordination, in a more flexible and efficient way. Such bodies could be supported by research teams working throughout the world.  But in order to implement the right bodies a shift of the representation system is needed.

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Jacques Attali a publié récemment un ouvrage intitulé "Demain, qui gouvernera le monde?", dans lequel il appelle de ses vœux la mise en place d'un gouvernement mondial. Des instances internationales existent déjà. Le rôle est important, en dépit de toutes leurs limitations et faiblesses. La simple existence de l’ONU, comme instance internationale de concertation, est en soi un fait essentiel. L’OMC, le FMI, la Banque Mondiale jouent un rôle effectif dans la coordination des activités économiques au niveau mondial, même si on peut reprocher à ces organisations de demeurer strictement dans le cadre du système de représentation actuel. On peut s’attendre à ce que ce niveau de gouvernance va se renforcer dans l’avenir, pour aller vers un fonctionnement de l’ensemble des économies mieux coordonné au niveau mondial. Faut-il pour autant escompter ou espérer la mise en place d’un gouvernement mondial, comme le souhaite Jacques Attali ?

  

Vers un nouveau capitalisme?/ Towards a new capitalism

According to Margaret Thatcher, "There Is No Alternative". It seems indeed that capitalism is the only economic system which suits our modern democratic societies. It is only by adopting its methods that China was able to perform its huge economic leap forward. But there are different forms of capitalism, which can contribute either to reduce or to increase social inequalities.

  During the eighties a new form of capitalism has been introduced. The hyperliberal financial capitalism has replaced the "entrepreneurial capitalism". In the fordism conception of the economy, there was a joint interest of the entrepreneur and the workers. This is no more the case with the financial capitalism, which looks for locating production in places where workers accept the lowest salaries for producing goods that they will not be able to buy themselves. Speculation, on the other hand, which is the dominant mechanism of this financial capitalism, can bring no added value and has only a destructive effect, by no means creative.

Therefore, the question of an alternative form of capitalism is raised. Two possible scenarios can be considered. A first scenario is a change of politics, with the risk of radical movements, advocating for simple and populist decisions. The other scenario would be the transformation of the system itself. Financial speculation can lead only to failure. More and more people will realize that they cannot trust such a system. Therefore new forms of "distributed captalism" might result, which would enable individuels to finance firms through non speculative, transparent mechanisms. It is one of the areas where innovation is most required.

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"There is no alternative" disait Margaret Thatcher. Effectivement, on ne voit guère d'alternative au capitalisme, qui apparait comme le seul mode de fonctionnement de l'économie dans les pays démocratiques. C'est en se ralliant aux méthodes capitalistes de gestion des entreprises que la Chine a pu , depûis Deng Xiaoping effectuer un formidable bond économique en avant. Toutefois, il n'existe pas une forme unique de capitalisme. En fait, le terme de capitalisme qui s’applique à toute économie moderne dans laquelle les moyens de production sont assurés par des intérêts privés, recouvre des réalités très diverses. Certaines formes de capitalismes peuvent contribuer à réduire les inégalités et d’autres les accroître.

Renforcer la résilience du système économique / Improving the resilience of the economic system

Improving the resilience of the economic system is needed tfor helping huma, communities to cope with disruptions and crisis. Limiting the potential impact of an energy and /or ecological crisis is one of the priorities. Different initiatives exist already in order to achieve this goal. Among these, the "transition network", created by Rob Hopkins, is most important;
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Renforcer la résilience du système économique doit permettre à la collectivité de faire face à des ruptures et à des crises. Limiter l’impact potentiel d’une crise énergétique et / ou d’une crise écologique constitue une priorité à cet égard. Il s’agit de bâtir une « économie de la transition » .  Le mouvement des "initiatives de transition" créé par Rob Hopkins, regroupe plus de 150 initiatives dans le monde, et notamment en France.

Holons

The concept of "holon" has been introduced by Arthur Koestler for describing systems which are able to operate in an autonomous fashion, but which can be assembled within a wider system. A system can therefore include successive levels of assembly. Such a concept is therefore directly connected to the theory of complexity. It can be applied to a wide range of systems: living organisms, but also machines, which include components which are composed of smaller components. Like the concept of "memes", the concept of "holons" is somewhat dangerous, as it can lead to a pseudo-scientific way of thinking, which can even become quite irrational.

An illustration of such a risk appears when reading "A brief history of everything" by Ken Wilber. The Twenty tenets which he presents in the Appendix of his book for describing holons seem inspired by the vision of "hypostasis"  from neo-platonicism, rather than by a scientific vision.  "Reality as a whole...is composed of holons". "Holons display...self-preservation, self-trancendence and self-dissolution"." Each successive level of evolution produces greater depth and less span". "The greater the depth of a holon, the greater its degree of consciousness"

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Le terme de holon a été introduit par Arthur Koestler pour désigner des systèmes capables de fonctionner de façon autonome, mais qui s'assemblent dans un système plus vaste. Un système peut ainsi comprendre plusieurs niveaux de complexité, chaque niveau d'ordre n  faisant interagir des sous-systèmes (holons) d'ordre n-1. Ce concept qui est directement relié à la notion de complexité ne pose pas de problème majeur d'interprétation. 

Mèmes et mémétique / Memes and memetics

The concept of memes has been introduced by Richard Dawkins in 1976. It is already a comparatively old concept, but it is only recently that it has met a wide success, largely due to the fact that it helps to give a scientific flavour to any analysis about the evolution of cultures or societies. It is based  upon an analogy with the concept of genes, considering that ideas and opinions can be transmitted and combined like genes. An opinion propagates through the transmission of a "meme" like an epidemy through the transmission of a virus. As the pyschic world is complex, it has been necessary to distinguish diferent btypes of memes and for instance to introduce the concept of "vmemes" for the memes of value.

Richard Dawkins is a brilliant scientist, but the concept of memes corresponds to his reductionnist and materialistic views. It seems much too schematic and mecanistic, at a time when scientists try to understand more deeply the reality of conscience. Therefore, memetics as a scientific theory might become outdated, precisely at the time when it has at last reached a wide audience.

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La notion de mème a été introduite par Richard Dawkins en 1976. Elle est donc déjà  ancienne, mais son succès est relativement récent et se trouve à présent fréquemment citée, du fait qu'elle permet de donner une tournure scientifique à tout discours portant sur l'évolution des cultures ou des sociétés.

Le concept de mème s'appuie sur une analogie avec celui des gènes. Il consiste à considérer que les idées et les opinions se transmettent et se combinent comme les gènes et que c'est un tel mécanisme qui peut expliquer l'évolution des mentalités et des cultures. Les mécanismes de sélection naturelle s'appliquent dès lors aux idées,

Les grandes représentations du monde et de l'économie de René Passet

The book written by René Passet presenting the "Worldwiews" and their relationship with the economy during the ages is a remarkable essay inspired by an interdisciplinary approach, associating economy, history and philosophy. The four Parts of the book describe the successive phases of the history of humanity.  The first deals with the age of myths until the development of the scientific thinking. The second shows how at the age of the philosophers of the XVIIIth century, the world is viewed as a clock, governed by newtonian laws. The third explains how at the age of the industrial Revolution , the economy has been inspired by thermodynamics. The fourth and last part analyzes the mutations which have occured at the information age, the growing role of complexity and the need for a bioeconomic approach.

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L'ouvrage de René Passet sur les grandes représentations du monde et de l'économie est un remarquable essai conçu selon une démarche transdisciplinaire, qui montre comment l'organisation de l'économie est étroitement associée à une représentation du monde. Les quatre grandes parties de l'ouvrage couvrent quatre périodes succeives de l'histoire de l'humanité:

Complexité et résilience/ Complexity and resilience

The model of adaptative cycles  shows that in the case of an ecosystem such as a forest, the increasing complexing due to a growing interconnection between the different parts of the ecosystem during its development, leads to a loss of resilience, which  results in its final destruction. Is this also what happens in the case of human societies? Joseph Tainter has supported the idea that the increase of complexity is one of the major factors contributing to the collapse of civilizations and has interpreted in such terms the fall of the Roman Empire. In fact, it is a matter of choice. If the complexity is driven only by the will to maximize the exploitation of the environment, it contributes to a loss of resilience. But an improved resilience can also be decided. It implies more diversity, a lower consumption of natural or external resources, more redundacies, storage options. Increasing the resilence contributes to increase the complexity and the two concepts are therfore not contradictory, but increasing resilience has a cost. It can be only the result of a deliberate choice for reducing the risk of final collapse.

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Le modèle des cycles adaptatifs de Holling montre que dans le cas d'un écosystème tel qu'une forêt, l'interconnexion croissante entre les différentes parties de l'écosystème, qui accompagne son développement, se traduit par une perte de résilience qui conduit à la destruction de l'écosystème, avant sa reconstitution. Dans ce cas, la croissance de la complexité, résultant de l'interconnexion croissante entre les différentes parties du système, conduit donc à une perte de résilience. La question se pose dès lors de savoir s'il en est de même dans le cas d'un système technico-économique: la progression inéluctable de la complexité au cours du développement du système, le conduit-t-elle  inéluctablement à rendre le système fragile et peu résilient?