Productive Economy, Contributory Economy. Genevieve Bouche

and there, initiatives are taking shape, ideas are circulating, values are being established and, at the same time, the dangers of centralization and its daughter, dictatorship, are threatening. It is this duality that interests us in the following pages.

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      Adapt or Dare?

       1.1. Accepting to evolve

       1.1.1. For a shared Europe

      Everyone feels the changes that are shaking up our institutions: our usual ways of thinking are increasingly challenged. Europe is perceived as an area of renewal, yet hampered by a governance that is still seeking its effectiveness. It must find a way to preserve what has made its strength: quarrelsome kingdoms, in constant emulation.

      It is the cradle of key words of the previous change, such as “capitalism”, “socialism”, “communism”, “liberalism”¹, “ecology”, etc. But in the four corners of the continent, these words do not have the same resonance, which makes dialogue sometimes complicated.

      With the development of mobility tools, it is becoming the socially and economically sound area that has the right scale to dare a new model of society. It can achieve this by seizing the technological shift in digital technology and energy production.

      When it comes to innovation, it is futile to chase the one who has become the leader. It is better to watch for the next innovation and seize it. That’s what’s happening right now in energy, but especially in digital technology.

Digital is not just a technology. It is an amplifier for the model of society. The new digital, which we will discuss here, is the main springboard for 21st century Europe.

      It can do so because its people want it to. It does not have to adapt to the changes that the leaders of the 20th century were trying to impose on it.

      The 19th and 20th centuries were marked by technological innovations that excited those who could benefit from them. But they were abused. Now comes the time for rationalization, that is, the time to put things into perspective and to rebuild a more mature model of society with a more complex governance, despite the defenders of Cartesian thinking who are used to treating our problems in silos, even if this has been our strength until now. To do this, we have to broaden the range of talent that is needed to steer the ship that is Europe.

      A learning process understood by the greatest number is required. A necessary and desired metamorphosis, but not too fast if we want to do it in depth for a lasting result.

      There is nothing to prevent this. Europeans are very good at thinking by themselves and for themselves. They have a particularly continuous societal heritage. It is deep and solid, but difficult to maneuver … unless a surge of enthusiasm is triggered. Understanding this continuity is already laying the foundations for our renewal because ideas are more easily forged in cultural continuity, which facilitates gradual evolutions rather than revolutions.

       1.1.2. For a real respect of Gaia’s internal rules

      Gaia is the “mother goddess” of the ancient Greeks. In the 1970s, the English ecologist James Lovelock used her name to convey the idea that the Earth is not a mere rock, but the active support of life, and this life includes human beings: we walk on the Earth and live in Gaia.

      Gaia is alive: she never stops changing. The real effect of human actions on her evolution remains unknown, but the active presence of humans in the life of Gaia is undeniable.

      Gaia’s life is not a succession of coincidences, but a chain of reactions articulated around a few principles:

      – life is stronger than death: humans can disappear without life disappearing. Humans, currently outnumbered on this planet, represent less than 5% of living matter and our bodies are in fact a complex of living matter capable of surviving itself;

       – life evolves along a trajectory that goes from the material to the spiritual: this trajectory travels around obstacles. Nevertheless, the search for efficiency in terms of energy consumption remains one of the predictable points of choice;

       – life cannot live without diversity: it maintains its dynamics by combining cooperation and competition between all living elements, all of which are in constant evolution. Too much competition leads to regression, and too much cooperation leads to stagnation and then regression. These excesses end up in “crises”. These crises promote progress.

      The last strictly manmade event that shook almost all of humanity was the last world war. The fifth generation after this event is about to take action. It no longer feels concerned by the ideologies that created this crisis, nor by the arrangements that were imposed on the majority of men, as a way of resolving this tragedy. However, in the long run, these arrangements are no longer acceptable and they prove to be dangerous for Gaia.

      Humans have the desire to reconfigure our “living together”. It is in these periods of profound change that opportunities arise for the most determined to act on their desire for renewal. And there are three major opportunities: the evolution of energy, data and money.

      Human life has gradually been organized into geopolitical zones. These zones are rivals and this rivalry is a source of progress for humanity. All of them can take up the challenge of the renaissance that is offered to us. Everything depends on their will.

      So, down with the defenders of collapse, the discouraged, the stooges and the opportunists specializing in the defense of their personal interests. The turn that humanity is taking will not be taken with them.

      Collectives are springing up everywhere to reflect and try to take action, but they have to reckon with those who hold the current situation in their hands and wish to prolong it. They are practitioners of soft power, which consists of frustrating the agreements that could bring about the renewal we feel we need.

      They hide the denials that hinder evolution. They have invented the novlanguage² for this purpose.

      When they are not using novlanguage, they are using fear and guilt.

      Faced with this, rigorous thinking is therefore necessary in order to draw up proposals based on correctly argued logic.

The last world war archives are being opened, and our elders, before leaving, are giving us their testimonies. This leads us to note that there are no geopolitical zones that are more intelligent and others that are more backward. But some of these zones are preventing others to flourish and are appropriating their wealth, all kinds of wealth: extractive, human and now immaterial. Opening the archives and letting the elders speak is a way of allowing human life to resume its evolutionary course, to reset priorities and to recreate creative diversity.

      We know what to base this renewal on: a new architecture for the production and distribution of energy, another for the collection, processing and distribution of data and a third for the creation, distribution and destruction of money. Because life is energy and information, and therefore also “vehicles” to promote exchanges.

      It is this triple system that we must revisit in light of our new worldview to ensure that we are no longer dangers to Gaia, but facilitators to make her healthier than ever.

      Science has already told us too much for us to be satisfied with simplistic thinking. We are forced to move to complex thinking, but we have the means to do so, at least more than our elders.

       1.1.3. Saving the planet, jobs or our civilization?

      Honestly, we do not think about Gaia, we think about our planet because we have the feeling that it is at our service. But she worries us. She changes and forces us to change. But