The victory of Donald Trump and the rise to power of Elon Musk give new impetus to libertarians, who advocate non-interventionism by the State.
The list of renunciations of “common sense” is growing, notes Fabrice Bonnifet, for whom regulation is freedom preserved.
The president of C3D, the college of directors of sustainable development, gives us his new editorial.
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A new form of libertarianism is emerging, boosted by the result of the American presidential elections. It advocates a society based on the total freedom of expression of individuals, without necessarily respecting the law or justice, if this hinders national interests. Thus, we are witnessing an unprecedented step backwards in the acceptance of scientific facts and the regulation that protects, both for hard law (binding) and for soft law (non-binding).
The list of renunciations of “common sense” is growing, with examples of the pitiful controversies over the EU greendeal, the withdrawal from the climate alliances of banks (Net-Zero Banking Alliance) and American funds. (Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative) or even the stopping of fact-checking at Méta, not to mention the “extreme” turn taken by the microblogging network X. Close the ban.
While the unconscious promote the idea of one-upmanship in irresponsibility, others, on the contrary, continue to consider fair regulation and true democracy as a bulwark against obscurantism.
Fabrice Bonnifet
The law and voluntary approaches to better take into account the common good would have become the enemy of freedom, they would cause fear, they would hinder entrepreneurship and innovation, they would punish offenders too harshly. As a result, in organizations of all kinds, immediate legal risks are taken more seriously than physical risks (yet just as immediate) which continue to leave decision-makers unmoved, which is a shame! Today, every miserable word in a press release, an annual report or a forum is weighed, reread and validated by the entire hierarchical chain, because it could be misinterpreted and serve as leverage for a hypothetical “legal recourse” without real challenge, given the staggering financial costs to come, due to the consequences of exceeding planetary limits, the cataclysmic prospects of climate change or the annihilation of biodiversity.
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What should we do in the face of this return of anarchy and the supposed “law of the strongest”? While the unconscious promote the idea of one-upmanship in irresponsibility, others, on the contrary, continue to consider fair regulation and true democracy as a bulwark against obscurantism. Everyone will have their own idea, but please let’s stop taking freedom and progress hostage. To believe that polluting without hindrance, by imposing on us materialistic lifestyles disconnected from the fundamentals of the well-being of populations around the world, can be the solution to the maintainability of a prosperous economy, reflects a fatal error of discernment. Only the pedagogy of constraint will nourish the acceptance of the greatest number and useful innovation. The tragedy of humanity is that it learns nothing from its past and repeats its same mistakes endlessly. But this time, it’s the planet that will quickly signal the end of the game. Our children will curse us.
