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Economic Growth and Its Price

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Bernard Lassudrie-Duchêne
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Economic growth and progress are the two major themes of our society, representing mankind's wish for well-being and for greater, true equality. It is a spiritual hope as well, because the idea is well-established that a rise in the standard of living is related to a society's cultural, moral, and spiritual progress. If there were doubts about the beneficial character of wealth at other times, such doubts cannot be taken too seriously today when the wealth is that of the society. Starting from this general direction, previous social beliefs have tended to lose their focus or to reorient themselves. Let us take some examples:

For the moment at least Socialism seems to be deserting its original model and some of its values. It is really only a question of organizing the economy in a more or less Socialist fashion to provide the maximum of economic efficiency with the speediest rise in the standard of living of the largest number of people.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 14 , Issue 56 , December 1966 , pp. 1 - 19
Copyright
Copyright © 1966 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 See the statement of the French bishops on economic growth in Le Monde (March 5, 23, and 24, 1966).

2 The appearance of the idea of underdevelopment in international con ferences and the diffusion of this idea in world opinion goes back to Point Four of the Truman Plan of 1948. The first studies and theoretical articles to develop the idea systematically (Nurkse, Frankel, Sauvy, Colin Clark) were published between 1952 and 1954.

3 Le grand espoir du XXe siècle (PUF 1952); Machinisme et bien-être (1951); La civilisation de 1975 (1953).

4 In France in 1975, the number will probably be twice that of today. (See G. Mathieu, Le Monde, April 19, 1964).

5 "Niveau de vie et volume de consommation" (Bulletin SEDEIS, Jan. 10, 1964).

6 See Dennis Gabor, Inventons le futur (Paris, Plon, 1963).

7 Le plan, ou l'anti-hasard (N.R.F., 1965).

8 On this problem and on the costs of growth in general, see B. Cazes, La vie économique (Paris, A. Colin, coll. U., 1965).

9 Cf. our article, "La consommation ostentatoire et l'usage des richesses" (Bulletin SEDEIS, Nov. 1, 1965).

10 Cf. M. Gilbert and I. B. Kravis, Etude comparative des produits nationaux et du pouvoir d'achat des monnaies (O.E.C.E., 1955); B. de Jouvenel, "Niveau de vie et volume de consommation," cit.; "A Better Life in an Affluent Society" (Diogenes, Spring 1961).

11 The three following examples are taken from the article cited above by B. de Jouvenel.

12 On this subject, see W. Weisskopf, "Croissance économique et bien-être humain" (Economie et humanisme, Sept:Oct. 1965).

13 Le paradoxe de la culture (Denoël, 1965).