For once, I won’t talk about boardgames. I’ve studied economics. It was long ago, and since this time, I didn’t really care about keeping updated with the last theoretical – and probably too theoretical - developments. I’ve spent more time these last years on matters more important, or which should be more important, such as History, Literature and Gaming. Anyway, since many of my friends now ask me what I think of the great economic mish-mash around, here’s my rough and unassuming analysis. It’s neither really original, nor very optimistic.

For decades, we have been told that we were entering the era of the limited world. We are now definitely in. There’s global warming and all sorts of pollution; there’s the forecasted, or already started, depletion of critical natural resources; there’s an overpopulated earth where everyone can more or less survive, but where everyone can’t live on “modern standards”. Our way of life is becoming unbearable at the exact moment when it’s becoming copied in the whole world. While the ecological concerns brings back the old Malthusian fears, the economic debate is still structured by old ways and largely obsolete systems. Free-marketeers refuse to see that the invisible hand doesn’t work in a finished world, and that even with convoluted cap and trade systems, the market cannot deal with the collective negative externalities of  individual actions. Keynesians sound nicer and even sympathetic – that’s’ why I’ve long been one - but there’s no sense in looking for more economic growth when this growth has become unbearable – and the fact that this growth must be bought on credit really isn’t the main point here. Others plead for a planned decrease in economic output, for negative growth, for un-globalization, for local solidarities. History has taught me to be wary of the “back to mother earth” discourse, and I’m not excited at the prospect of a new Middle-Ages on the ruins of the Western Empire.

Ooops ! I almost forgot about the talk of the day, Europe, the debt and all that stuff. Well, history shows that all the debt crisis so far have been dissolved by inflation. This will probably happen again. It will be painful for ants, a bit less so for grasshoppers. The only debt inflation cannot cancel is the one we owe to “mother nature”, and we won’t pay back what we’ve taken so far from her.

The rough truth is that the richest among us have understood the issue and are already dealing with it, trying to safeguard their own interests. They made the best of Keynesian amphetamine economics, becoming much richer while leaving generous crumbs to all, at least to all in the North, but they know that fast growth won’t come back – or only in a last suicidal and decadent gasp (which would at least have some style). They were the first warned of the new limitations, they went first into Malthusianism, and hope to save their stake while imposing all the restrictions on others. They were the first to understand that the good old days are over, that the only thing that matters now is how to share what’s left, while there’s something left, and they want the best part of the sharing-out. Their only program is back to class warfare – and they intend to win the war cheap and fast, with soothing words if possible, with water cannons when necessary, with guns if need be. In Europe, like in the USA, mass unemployment is becoming again the best way to put wages down – like in the good old days before the welfare state.

So what ? If we still have a collective future, it needs bring together two trends which usually don’t seduce the same people – modesty and technology. Technology, not to produce more unnecessary stuff, but to produce cleanly and efficiently, and may be a bit less, to travel lighter, and may be a bit less, and to win back the time to read, to play, to learn, to meet – to live important and human things, not just work and spend. Not very original ?  Feels a bit like peace and love, fresh water, little birds and cute flowers, but with the internet ? Yes, I know, but doesn’t it sound cool ? And, anyway, I’ve nothing better or more realistic to suggest at the moment.

January 2012