La société de la régression - le communautarisme à l'assaut de l'individu

de Thierry Aimar

The regressive society - communitarianism and the attack on the individual

I should have realised from the outset, as the author is an economist and a believer in a particularly liberal school of economic thought (that of the Austrian School), that the book I’d bought in France, in a little book-shop where we’d stopped for a coffee, might be a bit light on evidence and heavy on assertion. It wasn’t though until I got to the end of the book and looked up the author’s details that I realised all this.

My explanation to myself for feeling perplexed as I was reading it was that, as I was not reading it in my native language, I must have missed something important in his argument. I hadn’t. I even thought that, perhaps in the last few pages, he was about to reveal a clinching set of facts. He wasn’t. His main economic argument was unsupported. So then what are we talking about and why have I bothered to write about it – apart obviously from feeling a bit smug that I did in fact read such a book in French?

Well, I do agree with much of what he says about the changes to the human condition brought about by technology, although his prose style is actually more of a dad-rant about the younger generation. This is an extract which gives a good impression of his message:

“[Several historical writers] have accused technological progress of damaging the human condition. Yet the facts show that this same progress has led to longer life expectancy, improved comfort in all its forms and reduced poverty.

Why then should we be particularly fearful of new digital technologies? Simply because they now govern all social relations. Not only do the networks tend to absorb all the available time of their users, but they are in the process of acquiring a monopoly on the production and circulation of an essential good that irrigates the human brain and forms all its perceptions: information.

Within companies, the force of processes tends to lock employees into time-consuming communication patterns that inhibit individual initiative. Outside companies, it is increasingly difficult to exchange family, social and economic information without going through virtual communities. Yet, to exist through and within the network means having to adopt its standards and formats, which are necessarily collective and hinder the diversity of individual experiences.

The standardisation of modes of communication is accompanied by an inescapable uniformity of minds - individuals dissolve into masses that organise themselves on the Net. The “connected” like and think in digital tribes, each becoming the spokesperson for the opinions of the reference group. They do not reason from their own inner voice, they resonate with the voices of others. They no longer reflect, they mirror. Opinion is governed by numbers and noise, not by reasoning and clarity.”

So in essence we are progressively ceasing to be individuals and instead are joining on-line communities, groups, which, in turn, are defined by their narrow group thinking. Group thinking he says is “corrupting our minds by destroying the very source of freedom and value creation: a personal perspective - ‘subjectivisme’.” The communitarian approach forces people to think in ‘packs’ that define them and so, as a consequence, define non-members as ‘other’, so increasing the amount of hostility in the world. We tend not to think any new or original thoughts because of the risk of being ostracised by the members of ‘our’ group. Instead we simply regurgitate what others have said. We are shunted into echo chambers on the internet by the algorithms which detect our tendencies, and we end up staying there because it is comfortable to be surrounded by like-minded people.

The examples he gives include opinions about race, gender, politics, religion and all the other social questions which unite or divide us. Facebook and other social media platforms have their group pages which you can ‘like’. Twitter allows you to ‘follow’ selected tweeters and ‘retweet’ their thoughts to your followers and so on. And there is no doubt that this can have an influence on many people’s lives. Quite how many live such a constrained life, though, in the complete absence of data in the book, is somewhat difficult to say.

None of the examples he gives however relate particularly to his main concern, economics. Instead, he simply asserts that, simply being part of an online group with the restrictions on originality which he considers that inevitably produces means that your narrowed thinking somehow carries over into the work-place. There, it results in a lack of innovation and so a lack of new, profitable ideas. In turn, this means that you have less of value to sell to others.

This therefore encourages support amongst such people for socialism, which depends on collectivism: the principle that all the people should benefit from the hard work and innovation of everyone-else and in particular those high achievers who have avoided the lure of communitarianism. This is, I assume, done through high taxation, which is a form of expropriation in the minds of supporters of the Austrian School. It is equivalent to having an investment return (‘rente’) without having made the investment. Again, nothing to back up his assertion, but it does fit with his theology.

Obviously, there has always been group-think in terms of how we gain economic advantage from work. Unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, we have a very highly developed ability to copy what others do and derive advantage from it accordingly. It’s actually quite an efficient way of living our lives. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Equally obviously, though, this can work to our disadvantage. Even in the absence of advances in technology, there are sometimes better ways of doing things. We’re now seeing that, after a couple centuries working from offices, working from home during part of the week can be just as productive. Mind you, I do wonder if that will last, considering the pressure on space in the home to create the substitute office.

We also know that, for very good reasons, after a new method of production is invented, it tends to become standard for quite a while. There are, after all, costs involved in replacing existing machinery with new types. And so, until a significantly more cost-effective replacement is found, businesses will stick with what they’ve got.

An analogy in nature is with the punctuated equilibrium theory of evolution – once an organism is established in its niche, any evolutionary change to it is exceedingly slow in the absence of external shock factors, such as a collision with the earth by an asteroid during the time of the dinosaurs.

But I simply don’t see any evidence that the internet has slowed down the rate of economic progress by encouraging even more group-think in the work-place. In fact, rather the reverse.

I wonder, though whether we are actually seeing change in any meaningful sense. People have always grouped together. They have done so in different ways across the millennia. Until relatively recently, joining an organisation such as Round Table or Rotary was seen as a way of meeting potential business contacts. No longer, although no doubt the gym and the golf club have a similar raison d’être. In previous times, people flocked to churches, social clubs and pubs which were all the focus of social groupings. You wanted to belong to something. People became involved in other leisure based-organisations, such as chess clubs, bell-ringing or twinning associations. Now much less so.

As online communities have become more popular, meeting people in the old ways has become less popular, as can be seen from the gradual disappearance of the former social groupings. But have we really become more narrow in our outlook than we used to be? You can be sure that under the old regime there were groups within social groups and sub-groups that would have been quite antagonistic towards other people nominally in the same main group – even, especially(?) in churches. Is it simply that we no longer need to meet people in church or down the Pub in order to know what they think, whose side they’re on or to communicate with them? Everyone can now read our thoughts and opinions online instead. It saves on petrol. But it doesn’t mean the world is coming to an end.

Paul Buckingham

2 May 2022

La société de la régression - le communautarisme à l'assaut de l'individu
de Thierry Aimar

The regressive society - communitarianism and the attack on the individual

Page 49

[Plusieurs écrivains] ont fait le procès du progrès technologique en dénonçant ses dégâts sur la morale humaine. Pourtant, les faits ont démontré que ce même progrès a permis l'allongement de l’espérance de la vie, l’amélioration du confort sous toutes ses formes et la réduction de la pauvreté.

Pourquoi redouter alors particulièrement les nouvelles technologies numérique ? Tout simplement parce qu’elles gouvernent aujourd’hui l’ensemble des relations  sociales. Non seulement les réseaux ont tendance à absorber tout le temps disponible de ses utilisateurs, mais il sont en train d’acquérir la monopole de al production et de la circulations d’un bien essentiel qui irrigue le cerveau humain et forme toutes ses représentations : l’information .

À l’intérieur des firmes, la force des process tend a enfermer les salaries dans des schémas communicationnels chronophages qui inhibent toute initiative individuelle. À l’extérieur des firmes, il est de plus en plus difficile d’échanger familialement, socialement et économiquement, sans passer par des communautés virtuelles. Or, exister par et dans le réseau, c’est devoir en adopter les normes et les formats qui sont nécessairement collectif et entravent la diversité des expériences individuelles. La standardisation des modes de communication s’accompagne d’une inéluctable uniformité des esprits les individus se dissolvent dan des masses qui s’organisent sur le Net. Les ‘connectés’  aiment et pensent en tribus numériques, chacun devenant le porte-parole des opinions du groupe de référence. Ils ne raisonnent a partir de leur propre voix intérieure, ils résonnent des voix des autres. Ils ne réfléchissent plus, ils reflètent. L’opinion est gouvernée par le nombre et le bruit, non par le raisonnement et la clarté.


“[Several historical writers] have accused technological progress of damaging the human condition. Yet the facts show that this same progress has led to longer life expectancy, improved comfort in all its forms and reduced poverty.

Why then should we be particularly fearful of new digital technologies? Simply because they now govern all social relations. Not only do the networks tend to absorb all the available time of their users, but they are in the process of acquiring a monopoly on the production and circulation of an essential good that irrigates the human brain and forms all its perceptions: information.

Within companies, the force of processes tends to lock employees into time-consuming communication patterns that inhibit individual initiative. Outside companies, it is increasingly difficult to exchange family, social and economic information without going through virtual communities. Yet, to exist through and within the network means having to adopt its standards and formats, which are necessarily collective and hinder the diversity of individual experiences.

The standardisation of modes of communication is accompanied by an inescapable uniformity of minds - individuals dissolve into masses that organise themselves on the Net. The “connected” like and think in digital tribes, each becoming the spokesperson for the opinions of the reference group. They do not reason from their own inner voice, they resonate with the voices of others. They no longer reflect, they mirror. Opinion is governed by numbers and noise, not by reasoning and clarity.”


Pages 23 - 25

He uses 'Idem' (ditto in French) to refer to those whom he is criticising as conformist and 'Ipse' from the Latin meaning Him, himself to refer to those unbowed by the demands of the internet.

La gangrène communautaire

Mais quelles sont les conséquences de ce mouvement communautaires qui se répand comme une tache d’huile dans les sociétés contemporaines ? Doit-on se réjouir ou, au contraire, s’alarmer de voir croître ce nombre de gens que éprouvent le besoin de penser par les autres et dont les idées, pratiques et croyances s’uniformisent par un effet de gangrène ? Il ne faut jamais oublier que la valeur est fonction de la rareté. ... (Exemple de Lionel Messi) ... Ainsi plus les gens partagent des mèmes talents, pensées, savoirs-faire, moins il sont capable individuellement de produire de la valeur

On comprend alors que les contributions de chacun des Idem, qui calquent les sur les autres leurs connaissances, leurs représentation et leurs idées, trouvent une faible valeur marchande ; les Ipsé, au contraire, qui cultivent leur environnement subjectif, leur singularité et, partant, leur propre rareté, augmentent leur capacité individuelle de tirer un revenu dans l’échange. En mettant en évidence ce phénomène, il ne s’agit pas aucunement d’opposer des cigales et des fourmis. Nous ne suggérons pas que les Idem seraient paresseux et indolents en contraste à des Ipsé courageux et travailleurs. Mais tout simplement, en raison de leurs faibles avantages comparatifs, la capacité de chaque Idem de créer de la valeur est forcement réduite. Leur compétences et les marchandises qu’ils produisent sont trop répandues, banales, pour inciter des acheteurs éventuels à payer des prix élevés pour les acquérir. Les Idem deviennent alors de plus en plus hostile a des mécanismes de marche qui révèlent de période en période la faiblesse croissante de leurs contributions individuelles.

Ceux-ci vont donc chercher à acquérir de la richesse des mains de ceux qui la produisent sans devoir leur proposer une transaction avantageuse. Mais comment légitimer ce prélèvement forcé? Tout simplement en affirment l’idée d’une primauté de l’identité collective sur l’identité individuelle….Il devient alors possible pour les Idem de violer le droit de propriété des Ipsé sur leur création de valeur. Une partie du revenue des Idem est donc issue non pas d’un échange bénéficiaire à chaque partenaire, mais d’une prédation sur la richesse des Ipse…


But what are the consequences of this communitarian movement that is spreading like wildfire in contemporary societies? Should we rejoice or, on the contrary, be alarmed by the growth in the number of people who feel the need to think through others and whose ideas, practices and beliefs are becoming uniform through a kind of gangrene? We must never forget that value is a function of scarcity. ... (Example of Lionel Messi) ... So the more people share the same talents, thoughts, know-how, the less they are individually able to produce value

It is therefore understandable that the contributions of each of the 'Idem', who copy each other's knowledge, representations and ideas, have a low market value; the Ipsés, on the other hand, who cultivate their subjective environment, their singularity and, consequently, their own scarcity, increase their individual capacity to earn an income in the exchange. In highlighting this phenomenon, it is not at all a question of opposing cicadas and ants. We are not suggesting that Idems are lazy and indolent in contrast to hard-working Ipses. But simply, because of their weak comparative advantages, the ability of each Idem to create value is necessarily reduced. Their skills and the goods they produce are too commonplace to induce potential buyers to pay high prices for them. The Idems then become increasingly hostile to market mechanisms that reveal from period to period the growing weakness of their individual contributions.

The latter will therefore seek to acquire wealth from those who produce it without having to offer them an advantageous transaction. But how can this forced extraction be legitimised? Quite simply by asserting the idea of the primacy of collective identity over individual identity.... It then becomes possible for the Idem to violate the property rights of the Ipsé on their creation of value. Part of the Idem's revenue is thus derived not from an exchange that benefits each partner, but from a predation on the Ipse's wealth...