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Preface

Streamlining the way we produce and consume is becoming a matter of course. This is becoming possible thanks to digital technology. But, as a result, the social pact, developed in Europe over time, must change radically. This requires us to take up three challenges:

 – the first concerns the restructuring of the “productive” economy, which is dedicated to the satisfaction of the primary needs of individuals;

 – the second is the recognition of the “contributory” economy, which is dedicated to the common good. We must reorient our value creation capacities towards contributory tasks such as the family, knowledge, the environment, democracy and spirituality. We must take up this challenge because developing the common good becomes a factor of competitiveness;

 – the third concerns the development of the new model of society that is taking shape and that recognizes several forms of value creation1. But its implementation will require a great deal of determination because the current model is marked by our “deep past” inherited from sedentarization. A huge effort of understanding and audacity is needed to develop our tools of governance, including the social pact and currencies. Imagine, model and experiment with a more complex, but more mature economy: let’s go for it!

Read as you wish: start with the first or second part. The cross-references allow for a tour of the many facets of this change that everyone is talking about. To understand it, you have to go into the details, sometimes invisible or forgotten. Without this understanding, the cuttings to make our model evolve will not be effective.

About the contributory economy

The concept was proposed by the author in the 2010s in a circle gathered around Michel Giran (Les Nains de Jardin), then reproposed in the CSOEC Sustainable Development Commission gathered around Muttiah Yogananthan, but finally deepened through other more informal circles and in reaction to Bernard Stiegler’s remarks who used the term by backing it up with a less precise concept: free contribution, presented by him as a social phenomenon.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to all those who exchanged with me, and provided reading recommendations and audiovisual documents, during the gestation of this publication starting in 2018 in Cameroon and finishing in 2021 in France.

Special thanks to Claude Périgaud and our network of friends, to the members of Forum Atena, La Fabrique du Futur, MFRB (Mouvement français du revenu de base, French Basic Income Movement), FAIR, etc. and many other think tanks that opened their doors to me, as well as to those who listened to my lectures and read my work.

February 2022

1 1 Productive, contributing and empathetic.