Rationalité économique et logique de précaution : quelle compatibilité ?

Why are we growth-addicted? The hard way towards degrowth in the involutionary western development path

“…In doing so, they join and reinforce a very problematic development path, for it results in the general diffusion of the capitalist rationality together with the expansion of the property economy, the widening of social inequities and ecological degradation. 14 Contrary to monetary Keynesianism that assumes no scarcity of state debtor's money, property economics considers that property-based creditor's money, as a derivative of assets, is necessarily limited. 15 '' Veblen (1904:158) distinguishes several organisational levels of interests in decision-making: (i) the interest of the community, (ii) that of the corporation, and (iii) that of the corporation's directorate.…”

“…In most cases, creditors will support a secure capital market that provides them with a stable source of revenue assuring their long term cumulative enrichment. However, because of the finite nature of money as a derivative of property, 14 and with the advent of managers whose interest diverges from both the society's and the proprietors', 15 competition enters the capital market. In particular, in order to get access to and engross the most profitable technology with the best pecuniary conditions in the shortest term, capital managers will promote a competitive credit market in which business entrepreneurs have to compete with one another to access external capital.…”

“…Such an examination was recently carried out by two German economists, Gunnar Heinsohn and Otto Steiger [4][5][6][7], and was elaborated further by Steppacher [8][9][10][11] and van Griethuysen [12][13][14][15], who integrated property economics findings into the analytical framework of critical institutional and ecological economics. We summarise their argument here and elaborate on some of their findings, adopting an evolutionary perspective much in the same vein as the precursory analysis of capital developed by Thorstein Veblen in the early 20th century [16][17][18].…”

“…This results from the contractual obligations debtors must fulfil once they have engaged property as collateral in a credit contract: refund the loan and pay the interest in due time. Altogether these obligations impose the following requirements for the debtor [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]:…”

Property, possession and natural resource management: towards a conceptual clarification

“…The exercise of property rights entails particular property duties which a superior authority is supposed to enforce: to refund the borrowed money at a fixed rate of interest within a specified period of time according to a standard defined by the creditor (Heinsohn and Steiger, 1996, 2000). 8 These duties, in turn, bring about particular economic pressures that jointly constitute the specific formal (or economic) rationality (Weber, 1978 [1922]: 26, 85) prevailing in capitalist societies: the pressure for exponential growth imposed by the obligation to pay a rate of interest, cost pressure imposed by the obligation to ensure a rate of profit (to repay money with interest), and time pressure imposed by the obligation to refund money plus interest within a stipulated period of time (Binswanger, 1991, 1994, Griethuysen, 2004, Steppacher, 1999).…”