Economics and Good Life 076580428X

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Essays on Political Economy edited & with an introduction by Dennis Hale & Marc Landy

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Transaction Publishers New Brunswick (U.S.A.) and London (U.K.)

Copyright© 1999 by Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Con­ ventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Transaction Publishers, Rutgers-The State University, 35 Berrue Circle, Piscataway, New Jersey 08854-8042. This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. Library of Congress Catalog Number: 98-30889 ISBN: 0-7658-0428-X Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jouvenel, Bertrand de, 1903[Essays. English. Selections] Economics and the good life : essays on political economy I Bertrand de Jouvenel ; edited and with an introduction by Dennis Hale and Marc Landy. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7658-0428-X (alk. paper) 1. Economics-Political aspects. 2. Reconstruction (1939-1951). 3. Natural resources. 4. Welfare economics. I. Hale, Dennis. II. Landy, Marc, 1950. III. Title. HB74.P65J68213 1998 98-30889 338.9-dc21 CIP

Contents Preface Editors' Introduction Prologue

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Part One:The Elements of Political Economy The Idea of Welfare Efficiency and Amenity The Political Economy of Gratuity Order versus Organization Toward a Political Theory of Education A Better Life in an Affluent Society Technology as a Means The Treatment of Capitalism by Continental Intellectuals Part 1\vo: Problems of Postwar Reconstruction France: No Vacancies The Political Consequences of the Rise of Science Money in the Market Reflections on Colonialism On the Character of the Soviet Economy Part Three: The Political Economy of Natural Resources A Place to Live In From Political Economy to Political Ecology The Stewardship of the Earth An Economic View of Marine Problems Back to Basics: The Concrete Economy Index

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1 17 21 37 53 65 77 97 119 137 157 165 179 197 213 223 235 247 263 295 305

Preface Edouard Bertrand de Jouvenel des Ursins was born in 1903, and raised in a household that was deeply involved in the political and in­ tellectual currents sweeping through France and Europe. His father, Henri, was the son of a baron, Raoul de Jouvenel, from Correze. Bertrand's mother, Sarah Claire Boas, was the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. Henri and Sarah met while both were working to defend Alfred Dreyfus. And although de Jouvenel's parents divorced when he was young, he remained close to both his parents, and participated in their active political, social, and literary circles. Henri was France's representative to the League of Nations, was elected to the French Sen­ ate, and was married to the novelist Colette-giving Bertrand access, simultaneously, to the worlds of diplomacy, party politics, and letters. Sarah presided over a salon of great prestige and importance, and was instrumental in getting the French government to support the cause of an independent Czechoslovakia-as a result of which the young Bertrand was able to work as a private secretary to Eduard Benes, Czechoslovakia's first prime minister. After his service to Benes, de Jouvenel took up a journalistic career which he was to follow until the Second World War. He was a widely read correspondent for a variety of newspapers and magazines identi­ fied, generally, with the French Left. He called himself a progressive and ran (unsuccessfully) as a Radical Socialist candidate for the Na­ tional Assembly. His interests in those days included international rec­ onciliation, especially between Germany and France, and economic reform aimed at curing the "evil of unemployment." His was one of the few voices on the French Left urging international support for schemes to improve the German economy, on the prophetic grounds that eco­ nomic dislocation would lead to the collapse of Germany's democratic government. Breaking first with the Radical Socialists and then with the Parti Populaire Francaise over their refusal to oppose German militarism, de Jouvenel withdrew from political activism into reflection on the esca-

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Economics and the Good Life

lating disasters of totalitarianism and war. Late in 1943, fearing immi­ nent arrest, de Jouvenel fled, with his wife, to Switzerland, where he remained for the duration of the war. It was there that he composed the book that first brought him to the attention of an American audience: On Power: Its Nature and the History ofits Growth, published in French in 1945 and in English in 1948. De Jouvenel is therefore known in the United States-to the extent that he is known at all-primarily as a political scientist. His best-known works-On Power; Sovereignty; and The Pure Theory of Politics-all make distinctive contributions to our understanding of the modem state, and to the crafting of a political science whose aim is to �ivilize that state. De Jouvenel was also invited, during the 1950s