Reactionary? Pessimistic? I'm not sure that's quite it.
while it's encouraging that Todd remains doggedly optimistic, i get the sense that, as the journalist puts it, he assumes it as a duty -- i.e. it is an optimism of the head, but not one he feels in his heart (dare i say gut?). but then again, this appears to be in the same spirit as his statement:
I believe in data much more than in impressions.
as for his advocacy of cooperative protectionism, that is a very catchy name (though neoliberals might consider it somewhat "orwellian") and makes it sound like Economic Fortress Europe can do very well on its own, thank you very much, and does not really need to maintain current levels of trade with the rest of the world. is that realistic?
the ideals he describes here --
implemented at a collective supranational level, free from any ethnic or State founding myth, would demonstrate that have moved up to a higher state of human consciousness and of historical development.
-- are almost exactly what i had in my reply to melo above. Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
On protectionism, I suppose we'd need to read his book to see what he says in more detail. Here he's simply asserting that it's the right thing to do. How realistic it is would depend on how much protectionism and how articulated, I suspect. I take as more important his attack on "free trade" and (symbolized by that old but obvious code word) neoliberal economics as the root of the break-up of society and the risk to democracy.
Faced with the narcissisation of behaviours, the adoption of cooperative protectionism, implemented at a collective supranational level, free from any ethnic or State founding myth, would demonstrate that have moved up to a higher state of human consciousness and of historical development.
Much of what he describes are the juxtaposition of the bright and dark sides of Modernity, what Karl Polanyi described as The Great Transformation. The market society is the epitome of modernity, at least in ideals: position determined by ability vs. birth; policy based on reason vs. tradition; universal vs. particular values; etc.
But market capitalism has become an inhuman monster. Introducing market capitalism into a traditional society is like dropping an intact tree into a stumper. Atomization. Does anyone want to live in a society in which the single value of Return on Equity outweighs all other values combined? How do we humanize this system so that due care is given to the needs of sentient beings?
Todd's observations are hardly new. Polanyi wrote in the '40s. He has described a destination but what about a path from here to there? As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Wouldn't that rather be financial capitalism, btw ? Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! (Martin Luther King)
