On the Economic Miracle: A Course by the Collège de France

Author: (French) Jean-Paul Fitoussi
Translator: Zhu Qiuzhuo / Yang Zugong
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2001-09-20
Features: How to explain the development miracle? How can the development miracle be extended to three-quarters of humanity still struggling on the edge of authoritarianism or anarchy, violence or poverty? This is the core question that has preoccupied Académie Fran?aise member and Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques member Jean-Paul Fitoussi for 40 years! This book is the author's elaboration on the issue of development, deeply thought-provoking, full of insights, and broadening one's horizons upon reading! Excerpt: The Jewish Miracle: Anthropology or Ethics? For Renan, everything is culture, everything exists within the values bestowed by society. He studies the issue from the perspective of anthropology, particularly ethics, but he fails to entirely avoid falling into the trap of anthropology. The societies he describes seem to possess innate characteristics. Of course, he compared the "Semitic factor" and the "Indo-European factor" in a pioneering way at the Collège de France, and in his view, the mixing of these two "streams" formed the "great tide" of world history. We worry that such an analytical method might be described as "racist." But this is a misunderstanding of him. The two major groups he describes are not determined by race but are defined by their cultural proximity, especially linguistic similarity. In the essay on Judaism written by Renan in 1883, he elaborates on the anthropological heterogeneity of these scattered inhabitants, who were later called the Jewish nation. He argues that Judaism is essentially an ethnic phenomenon, that is, a cultural, religious, and social phenomenon, absolutely not a racial phenomenon, i.e., a biological phenomenon. New anthropological research fully proves this point. According to Renan's research, the characteristic of the Semitic language is the close relationship between God and humans, with God's demands being personalized and transcendent, and God being a guide for humans. The Indo-European language is "polytheistic," with the various deities they believe in being sanctified nature. The Semites have a coercive social organization. They only know "either autocratic theocracy or chaotic state." Conversely, in the Indo-European language, there have always been looser mechanisms that are tolerant of the individual. There is naturally an unstable tension between power and freedom. In terms of economy, the Indo-Europeans are restrained in life, while the Semites emphasize "luxury." The first to engage in large-scale trade and industry were the Semitic-speaking people, the Phoenicians. In the Middle Ages, Arabs and Jews were essentially our economic masters." This is because the confluence of the two rivers mixed the waters together. For example, three modern characteristics of the Indo-Europeans are essentially derived from Semitic culture: trade, literacy, and religious belief. For Renan, the "Jewish miracle" is the successful transcendence of the nearly tribal racial homogeneity belonging to "Israel's God" through the prophets, thereby giving God a universal meaning. The Jewish miracle is to de-Judaize "Israel's God," giving it a Christian spirit. Isaiah the prophet (Isaiah, advisor to ancient Israeli kings, one of the four great Jewish prophets of the 8th century BC—translator's note) prepared the way for Christ Peter.