The long crisis we are experiencing marks a change of era and an opportunity to reinvent new models.
This is definitely an exceptional time. A time of revelation of an obligatory transition, constantly postponed, psychologically denied so much, of course, that the aftermath remains uncertain, because the aftermath has simply yet to be invented. As always, we would like the world to change... for others, so convinced are we that change is synonymous with loss: of comfort, of purchasing power, of habits, of achievements. On the contrary, change should be aspirational, desirable, meaningful, ground-breaking, surprising and provocative. The expected change is not that of an individual but of a system, of a paradigm.
There can be no change without a project.
And this project is not called "reforms", the word that has been used the most in the last 10 years, even though it is probably the ugliest and least sexy word possible, a word that should be banned. "Reform" means deprivation when it should evoke benefits, "reform" repels when it's time to get on board. "Reforming the State", "reforming our institutions"... is technocratic jargon! Empty, icy and impervious!
We need to re-invent rather than reform.
Even more than in 2008 and its financial crisis, which we thought we could drown under Canadairs of liquidity without extinguishing the embers or condemning the arsonists, we are living in pivotal years, a pivotal era. This is a time of systemic awareness, of the profound need for a paradigm shift, a model change. Fukushima has turned environmental risk into health, economic and energy risk, the Arab Spring has toppled dictatorships, governments are on the verge of bankruptcy, the Greek crisis is calling into question 50 years of European integration, and the lack of growth and structural unemployment are fuelling a pervasive sense of mistrust and disrespect. Growth (the model's only known fuel to date) is hiccupping (in Europe) like an engine on the verge of running out of fuel ... a Schumpeterian era of creative destruction ... which must be creative.
Public opinion is constantly telling us in surveys of all kinds that they only trust themselves, that citizens are the primary agents of change, that their behaviour dictates things, that they know better than the State... so let them prove it! It's all well and good if political and economic leaders face up to the difficulties and invest themselves fully in their mission - that's the least we expect of them - but let's not let that stop everyone from assuming their individual responsibilities. This applies equally to the citizen, the consumer, the employee, the elected representative, the entrepreneur or whoever you may be.
The future needs to be reinvented, undertaken and, above all, co-entrepreneurial.
For this is another glaring lesson of our times: everything is linked, of course. Our economies, our trade relations, our ecological environment, our social and democratic demands, our morale and our bank accounts...
We live on a porous planet, where borders are disappearing.
The much-vaunted decoupling between the United States and China at the start of the financial crisis has not happened. In our connected economies, horizontal decoupling does not exist, even if we sometimes dream of vertical decoupling. This vertical decoupling is the decoupling of our micro-economic spheres from the major macro-economic ecosystems, it is the feeling, the illusion, the pretension perhaps, of being able to live differently, to save money, to live differently from the global image we see every day. This vertical decoupling is the wish to get away from it all, to live in a parallel world, in its parallel world. It's also about continuing to undertake, to initiate, to invent, to re-invent, not to depend on a top-down re-launch that no longer knows how, on public spending that no longer is. Relaunch, recreate from within, through innovation and entrepreneurial dynamism. If you want growth, create it! If you want a new model, invent it! If you want companies that are more respectful of society and the environment, act differently and dictate your conditions!
Public spending may have cushioned the crisis in France, representing 56% of our GDP, but it will not create the recovery; it is a shock absorber that will not bounce back.
The public debt crisis is also the death knell of the welfare state. This public assistance to the economy is out of breath, out of ideas, out of money. It is therefore the market, accused of the worst, that must also provide the best, the creation of wealth so essential to the desirable and necessary redistribution, with the added need to create wealth of a different kind, sustainable and no longer selective and exclusive.
Growth was long considered a factor of progress, but it has become synonymous with environmental and social destruction. At the same time, progress has become more technological than social.
The challenge of the next few years will not be to preserve old business models, but to let new ones emerge and develop.
When so many companies congratulate themselves on being over a hundred years old, we also need to encourage the creation and development of new ones. While none of the top 100 companies in France are under 30 years old, two-thirds of them are in the United States. In 2011, I set up my own business, as about one is created every minute in France (remember this benchmark), to represent a company with fewer than 20 employees ... like 97% of businesses in France (another often overlooked benchmark).
Like the few companies that have come into being while you were reading this article, let's wish them luck and success, which will inevitably be collective. Recently, the French have been boasting about their demographic vitality, so much the better, but they also need to demonstrate their economic and entrepreneurial vigour, without public viagra, which is out of stock.
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First edition: November 2011 (!!)