Economists clash violently as they try to decipher, model and propose remedies for the current whirlwind. Everything and its opposite can be found in the “solutions” they propose. The war that divides them is fought in MIT, Harvard, Oxford, Bocconi, the Paris School of Economics, the Toulouse School of Economics, think tanks, international financial institutions and the media. Nobel Prize winners, heads of the IMF, the World Bank, the Fed and the ECB, academics from all over the world and thinkers from all walks of life are all involved. The authors review their major economic debates: inequality, debt, inflation, China, crypto-currencies, the Vatican (!), democracy, libertarians…focusing on their conflicting theses, their analytical errors and inaccuracies.  They also draw up portraits of the main protagonists in these face-offs – D. Cohen, T. Piketty, O. Blanchard, M. Aglietta, J. Stiglitz, L. Summers, J. Milei, P. Aghion, D. Acemoglu – and their masters of thought, from Keynes to Schumpeter… and conclude with a chapter on “the tribes”: institutionalists, Keynesians, libertarians, free traders, Malthusians, Marxists, monetarists and Schumpeterians.  A lively, enlightening investigation into the ideas of the men and women who make or break today’s economy, written in the style of experienced journalists that makes this book easy to read. An excellent work, whose title is a true reflection of the book and of the authors’ desire to show that economics is not an “exact science”, that no science tells us what to do. The erudition in terms of economic history is notable, and the points of view are set out clearly without bias, with an organization linked to topical themes in a long-term perspective. The end of each chapter includes a summary of ideas and, in some cases, the beginnings of the author’s opinion. Oppositions are sometimes linked to ideological or philosophical presuppositions, but this is not surprising when one recalls the history of this subject.  We might have expected the debates to have been placed more in the context of time, showing that economists are often better at explaining the past than predicting the future, and that what is true under certain conditions is no longer true when those conditions change. The nature of a “human” science is that the truths of one moment are not always valid in different temporal and geographical fields of study. Homo economicus may once have behaved rationally, but this is no longer the case, for many reasons, including those aimed at exploiting the cognitive biases of each individual, those linked to filtered, alternative, epistemic facts, sifted through the sieve of feeling, emotion and fear. In these matters too, the 21st century is not the 18th century…! But, as André Comte-Sponville points out in his foreword, if “no knowledge can take the place of will, no will can do without knowledge”. chronicle by Dominique Chesneau

After having invested in Europe as a reference shareholder in many ports, China has a naval base in Djibouti. The Americans are not to be outdone. Pierre Razoux, academic director of the Mediterranean Foundation of Strategic Studies, recently stated in Les Echos: “Each of the protagonists places their stones as in a game of go.” He adds: “These pawns are sometimes very far from the national territory and their interest is not obvious in times of peace and free navigation without tolls, but if you do not understand right away, in the end you will understand.” Arnaux Orain did not wait for the end of the game that takes place every day before our eyes, he understood: neoliberalism is over! However, this is nothing new; already in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and then between 1880 and 1945, the world was seen as finite. Finitude explains that the maritime powers were all driven by a desire for hoarding and predation (hence colonial expansion and warehouse trade). Since 2010, we have entered a new phase where it is not only states that act through a naval hegemony but also “company-states” like Elon Musk’s. The book is dense, erudite and historical references spring up throughout the text. The reader may sometimes get lost in this profusion where historical figures and economic models alternate (the author also claims a methodological ambition which “consists in blurring the lines between intellectual history, economic history and contemporary economy”). In the end, everything becomes clear, capitalism of finitude is when we can state the slogan: There will not be enough for everyone!   This brilliant essay invites us not to underestimate behaviors that could cast doubt on the rationality of certain leaders. They are perfectly rational. It is under the pressure of Donald Trump that Panama announces its withdrawal from the new Silk Roads, and it is no coincidence that the Houthis attacked 134 ships in twelve months with an arsenal provided by Iran or China.         Arnaud Orain is a specialist in economic history and political economy. He is Director of Studies at the EHSS. His work focuses on economic dynamics and their historical implications. Alain Brunet’note

The essential question of whether economics is a science will not be resolved with this book, even if in the time of the physiocrats political economy allowed itself to claim this status. The 17 contributors, economists and historians, encouraged by the Fondation des Treilles (a site ‘at the end of the world’ created by Anne Gruner-Schlumberger) succeed in introducing us to a field where history and economics combine, with interactions that would make us doubt the exclusive rank of human sciences to which they are associated, if only because they are true ‘ogresses’: they both aspire to ‘envelop the entire social field’. The book is divided into 6 parts which illustrate their points of convergence (to the point of experiencing a mutual attraction), but also the paths that separate them (to better appropriate each other’s data). This is what leads Samuelson to say that the study of economic history is the raw material from which the economist can test any of his hypotheses. The most surprising aspect, when the reader delves into the different themes of the book, is the implementation of extremely sophisticated methods and tools in data processing (such as digitized relational databases) to deal with subjects as diverse as Masonic membership and therefore the evolution of the lines of force in the society of the Ancien régime, or statistical approaches intended to distinguish the different forms of causality, a notion that was believed to be reserved for the hard sciences, as Pierre Livet states.  The various chapters also address the analysis of colonialism (which is not just a zero-sum game) and the network organization of universities in medieval and modern Europe. These themes constitute anchor points for the epistemological development of economic science.                Alain Trannoy is Director of Studies at the EHESS and Professor at the Aix-Marseille School of Economics, specializing in public economics and taxation, and Arundhati Virmani is a teacher-researcher at the EHESS, specializing in colonial and contemporary history of India. Alain Brunet’s note

History and economics are unavoidable disciplines, and in these troubled times, we’d like them to combine their respective geniuses, with history offering the long view, and economics drawing on the most up-to-date array of quantitative methods. This book is an attempt to bring history and economics into dialogue, and to combine their methods in a way that encourages them to work together, at a time when historians’ radical critique of the primacy of economic relations and representations partly explains their disaffection with economic history. Historians criticize the models used by economists as being too universalizing. This is not inaccurate, but the limits of the “historical-philosophical observations and prejudices” of pure and perfect competition, symmetry of information and rational expectations, have led economists to seek pragmatism by basing their hypotheses on real observations and clouds of data aimed at drawing conclusions about given periods, breaking, quite rightly, a certain historical continuum if there ever was one. What Paul Samuelson calls “the credibility revolution of empirical testing”! It’s not a question of studying a few subjects in parallel to compare conclusions, but rather of presenting the advantages, disadvantages and limits of the methods used. The discussion between economists and historians is organized around two major issues. The first concerns the methodological choices that structure the approaches of the two disciplines.  The second issue concerns the fields and themes they now have in common, and on which their studies are currently focused. The first part is therefore devoted to data, sources and their shortcomings and imperfections. The second part tackles a theme that was thought to be obsolete: causal relations, the basis of scientific reasoning, but not necessarily in the social sciences. One author even deals frankly with a crisis of causality, distinguishing between “necessary causality and sufficient causality”, questions of scale, causality specific to the “hard” sciences (?) and the need for convergence in the causal approach. One section is provided by way of example, as it tackles the subject of colonialism: for historians, the weight of colonization remains heavy for the countries concerned, while the last two Nobel Prize winners in Economics have demonstrated the responsibility of successive governments in these countries for their insufficient economic development. Should we “believe” a story or a model? The final section confronts science and knowledge (a few pages mixing philosophy and technology) on the occasion of the current environmental turnaround and the use of network theory in the appreciation of information and its modes of access. On reading the book, it becomes clear that the dialogue between disciplines cannot be based on the idea that a single definition of causality is superior to the other and likely to prevail. The type of causality often depends on the question being asked and the researcher’s intellectual biases. Logical causality and temporal causality are often different. All economic research, beyond “numbers”, must integrate time into the definition of causality and the scope of the databases it uses. Dominique CHESNEAU

The director of the IFRAP Foundation, 10 years after her book On va dans le mur (We’re Headed for the Wall), has published a new book entitled Face au mur (Facing the Wall). Themes include: Debt, deindustrialization, standards, welfare, and insecurity. The approach is identical: French comparison with the European and Canadian environment, critical review of the highlights and finally proposal of corrective actions. The comparison with Western nations underlines the negative singularity of France on almost all the criteria used, more particularly the proliferation of standards, the excessive and ever-increasing weight of administration, the complexity of the territorial network, the high level of public debt and taxation, the particularly low volume of hours worked aggravated over time by the late entry into working life and the very low rate of seniors in activity, the explosion of strike days, the loss of competitiveness and its consequences on industry and agriculture, the degradation of public services… Uncontrolled immigration, growing insecurity, and a dilution of the National. Resolutely proactive, the author identifies and evaluates at each stage the actions to be carried out, the decisions to be taken to redress the economic and financial situation, likely to redesign a future.  Inspired by the benchmarking approach, a chapter is devoted to the policies successfully undertaken by other European countries historically confronted with difficulties more or less similar to those experienced by France. The book is enriched with data and graphics that illustrate and reinforce the analyses. Agnès Verdier-Molinié’s book summarizes,  the situation of France in an international context in full upheaval, proposes a set of actions already proven abroad, likely to raise the bar before it is too late. VERDIER-MOLINIE Agnès, Director of the IFRAP Foundation. Author of “On va dans le mur” (We’re going into the wall) at Albin Michel, “Le vrai état de la France” (The true state of France) and “Où va notre argent?” (Where does our money go?) Hubert Alcaraz’note

This book raises awareness of the « damage caused by the dogmatism of elected environmentalists who want to replace nuclear energy with renewable energy (RE) at all costs, at the expense of colossal financial expenditures » whereas France, decades ago, had the cheapest energy cost thanks to its nuclear fleet. It first highlights the fact that most environmentalists are committed to mobilizing for the «  anything but nuclear power » regardless of a rational ecological approach. To do so, they have « used fear », at the expense of a scientific rational proportion of low-carbon energy via the nuclear technology. It results in Germany relaunching polluting coal-fired power plants in 2022 (war in Ukraine), for compensating the effects of Angela Merkel’s 2011 decision to close nuclear power plants arguing for REs « allegedly creating jobs ». Illustrated by relevant figures, the author mentions that the subsidized REs destroy on average 2.2 “grey” jobs when creating one “green” job in the sector. The author emphasizes the « fearful demagogy of environmentalists », who have, for decades, pushed Europe towards an utopian energy future dominated by renewable energies. The consequences of this situation are the decline in competitiveness of European companies as well as companies relocating to the United States resulting ultimately in job losses. In  the second part of the book, the author analyses the question of the optimum energy mix for  the  the ecological, economic and societal transitions. As expected, he recognises that with (1) a relative lower cost of a nuclear power plant compared to a wind power equivalent, (2) the extension of existing ones thanks to safety know-how, (3) a necessity to comply with the objectives of the 2050 plan, nuclear power remains  unavoidable.  For the author, the future of our economic future will depend above all on a rational (energy at controlled cost) rather than an emotional (fear) attitude.  The ultimate goal of this book is to encourage politicians to take it up and make the right decisions. Pascal Wets (civil engineer) is a business consultant and former Professor at SUPELEC and at the post-graduate institute of the Technological University of Compiègne.  Note written by Claude GEORGELET

The universal best seller is structured into three parts, each of which focuses on a different aspect of the development of human networks. Part I: Human Networks’’. This section traces the historical origins of information networks, focusing on how primitive forms of communication, such as storytelling and myths, enabled large-scale human cooperation. Harari argues that myths are central to the evolution of human societies, allowing individuals who do not personally know one another to cooperate under shared beliefs and symbols. Chapter 1: What Is Information?’’: Harari begins by tackling the broad concept of information, explaining that information is the fundamental building block of both human societies and the natural world. He moves beyond traditional definitions, arguing that information is more than just human-made symbols or language—it encompasses everything from DNA to the movements of celestial bodies. Harari introduces the idea that information has always existed in nature, but what differentiates humans is how they have learned to store, process, and disseminate it through complex networks. He also introduces a philosophical dimension by engaging with the difficulty of defining information in fields like physics and biology. Rather than offering a universal definition, Harari focuses on the historical role of information as a tool for building networks of cooperation. One of his key arguments is that humans have historically relied on a combination of accurate information and fictions (such as myths and religions) to create large, cohesive societies. Chapter 2: Stories: Unlimited Connections’’: In this chapter, Harari dives into one of his key themes: the power of stories in shaping human societies. He explains that stories—myths, legends, and religious narratives—have acted as vital tools in creating social cohesion. Harari argues that these stories are not necessarily based on factual accuracy, but they are crucial in binding large groups of humans together under a shared belief system. For instance, the belief in divine figures or the legitimacy of kingship allowed early societies to mobilize resources, organize armies, and maintain social order. Stories, as Harari explains, were the first large-scale information networks, allowing humans to transcend the limitations of small, tribal groups and build empires and civilizations. Chapter 3: Documents: The Bite of the Paper Tigers’’: This chapter focuses on the role of written documents in human history, particularly as a tool for bureaucracy and governance. Harari argues that while stories create the emotional and ideological glue for societies, documents create the logistical framework that allows complex societies to function. He explores how early civilizations—such as Mesopotamia and Egypt—used writing not for poetry or history but for recording taxes, land ownership, and laws. The shift from oral to written culture marked a significant evolution in how societies managed information. Harari emphasizes that documents allowed for more accurate and long-term storage of information, making large bureaucracies possible. He also discusses the idea of “paper tigers”—bureaucratic systems that, while theoretically powerful, often collapse when they cannot adapt to new realities. In the 4th chapter « Errors: The Fantasy of Infallibility », Harari addresses one of the central issues with information networks: their tendency to fail due to errors, miscommunication, or the spread of misinformation. He argues that while humans rely on information networks to create order, these networks are often built on flawed assumptions or outright lies. Harari uses historical examples like the Catholic Church’s dogmas and the ideological extremes of Nazism and Stalinism to illustrate how powerful networks can spread erroneous or delusional information.One of the key themes here is that humans often overestimate the reliability of their information networks. Harari suggests that the fantasy of infallibility—whether in religious dogma, scientific knowledge, or political ideology—often leads to disastrous consequences when reality contradicts these beliefs. He also examines the role of self-correcting mechanisms, such as scientific peer review and independent courts, which help prevent the spread of misinformation in modern societies. Chapter 5: Decisions: A Brief History of Democracy and Totalitarianism’’ Here, Harari explores the evolution of political systems through the lens of information networks. He contrasts democratic and totalitarian systems, emphasizing that each represents a different approach to handling information. Democracies, according to Harari, rely on a decentralized information network, where ideas and opinions flow freely, allowing citizens to make informed decisions. Totalitarian regimes, on the other hand, seek to control and centralize information, often resorting to propaganda and censorship. Harari delves into the history of political systems, showing how democracy evolved as a response to the complexity of large societies, which required more sophisticated and distributed information networks. Totalitarian systems, while initially powerful, often collapse due to the inability to process and respond to complex information accurately. ‘‘Chapter 6: The New Members’’: In this chapter, Harari transitions to the modern era by exploring how computers and artificial intelligence differ from previous information technologies like the printing press. He argues that while previous technologies were tools for amplifying human capabilities, AI represents something entirely different. AI can process information independently, make decisions, and even create new forms of knowledge without human intervention. Harari emphasizes that this shift has profound implications for human society. AI is not just an extension of human intelligence but a new kind of intelligence that operates on fundamentally different principles. This new “member” in the information network is reshaping everything from economics to warfare. Chapter 7: Relentless: The Network Is Always On’’: In this chapter, Harari explores the relentless nature of modern information networks, particularly in the digital age. Unlike earlier networks, which operated at the speed of human communication, today’s networks are always active, processing data 24/7. Harari examines the psychological and social consequences of this shift, arguing that humans are biologically unprepared for the constant flow of information. He also touches on the issue of information overload, where individuals are bombarded with so much data that they struggle to make sense of it. This, Harari argues, leads to a paradox: despite having access to more information than ever before, people may become more misinformed or disconnected from reality. Chapter 8: Fallible: The Network Is Often Wrong’’: Building on the previous chapter,