Chapter 14
Consumption and Ecology

We have seen in chapters 7, 10, and especially 11 with the operational control, how we can reinforce the taking into account of all the consequences resulting from the strategic choices made by organizations, thus their ecological and societal responsibility in today's terms. We will propose in chapter 16 a funding system for activity that makes this economically realistic.

Let us note on this subject that the revision of the concept of property presented in the previous chapter gives a more concrete content to the phrase 'the freedom of one ends where the freedom of another begins.' Indeed, the system we have described implies that property does not grant the right to irresponsibility. In this respect, the current system is totally flawed because we are trying, within the logic of Marx in [hubert_tonneau/HQAWRIMJ/0IG1NTW/0J3ZPN615]CapitalCapital, to define irresponsibility in legal terms, which is becoming increasingly impractical as technology advances. The emergence of the necessity of the precautionary principle was the key moment when this system became totally inadequate. The legislation states that one has the right to develop a product as long as there is no serious proof of its harmfulness, that is, only the product itself is considered. In contrast, the precautionary principle implies a logic in which the level of risk it is reasonable to take with respect to the product in the face of uncertainty depends on the product's social utility, but also, and above all, on the available alternatives. If we impose on companies a formalism of reasoned decision-making as we recommend, then we effectively move toward respecting the precautionary principle. However, within the framework of capitalism regulated by law, we are reduced to tinkering, because the moral demand of citizens is the precautionary principle, but it does not fit within the framework of Article 4 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which we discussed in chapter 7, nor does it fit within the logic of exacerbated economic competition. The only trick we have found that produces an effective result is the system of very high fines in the case of fatalities in American air transport, which allows the indirect imposition of a certain precautionary principle through insurance companies.

Let us now address the consumption aspect of the ecological transition. In this regard, we must simply ban unsolicited advertising. Indeed, on the one hand, cognitive dissonance shows that the human brain is not capable of resisting the repetition of a message designed to please. On the other hand, it is time to stop pursuing a contradictory public policy that, on the one hand, artificially creates needs in individuals that they did not have, and on the other hand, asks them to moderate their behavior to protect the planet. Given the extent of the desired moderation, the middle ground on this scale is just a way of pretending to care about ecology. Search engines are sufficient to find what one is looking for. They should simply be regulated to ensure their neutrality.

An effective ecology finally requires a reduction in birth rates. This requires support measures to avoid the underrepresentation of girls, especially by first eliminating the concept of dowry where it still persists, and by securing the pension system through the new productivity gains linked to the second industrial and technological revolution.

These two last points are nothing less than the foundations of degrowth. Let us recall at this stage that, as we saw at the beginning of the previous chapter, in our current system, growth is necessary only because of Parkinson's law (chapter 2), which generates a progressive stagnation of the system that we do not address, and which we simply try to compensate for with growth.
What is remarkable is that as soon as we combine the organization of production discussed in the second part of this book and the two measures of this chapter, degrowth falls like a ripe fruit. However, when we try to implement degrowth directly, the subject remains inextricable at the practical level because it implies the emergence of a higher collective consciousness, a bit like in the case of communism. In other words, the real obstacles to degrowth are generalized nepotism and cognitive dissonance, but they were not visible. However, once we have seriously taken them into account and have proposed an adapted social organization, degrowth ceases to be a problem and becomes a predictable consequence of the new mode of operation.