Productive Economy, Contributory Economy

2Our Heritage of Experience Tested by New Knowledge

2.1. The common good as a new source of prosperity

Every civilization that is created starts from a source of wealth backed by a viable territory. Europe, barring geological and climatic accidents, is a privileged corner of the planet in terms of viability. It is practically sovereign in terms of agri-food and should be able to be so in terms of energy if the promises of our engineers are kept.

For civilizational renewal to take place, a new source of wealth must be identified, or at least an existing heritage that deserves to be developed.

The hallmark of today’s societal transformation is the need to produce fewer but better and more pleasant, useful, efficient and sustainable goods and services. But that is not all: after progress through technology, we aspire to make progress in social matters. Technology leads to social progress, as shown by the abolition of slavery in the United States, which was hard won by Northern industrialists who needed to sell agricultural machinery to the large farms of the South.

This requires a lot of knowledge, creativity and the ability to co-operate. All this is part of the intangible common good. Europe has most of this wealth, but it will not use it well as long as it insists on “preserving employment”, at least employment as we developed it in the second half of the last century.

“Creative destruction” is an oxymoron that is difficult to convey to voters and candidates for office, and ...