Among all the knowledge accumulated by humans over millennia, there is some that people forget and whose importance they relearn at their expense, with each generation. Among this knowledge, there is one that is essential: No one can survive in the long term if they do not help to build a community around them that has an interest in their survival. In other words, it is in everyone’s interest to be altruistic. This is the principle of “rational altruism”.
From this principle, or theorem (expressed in a thousand ways by various religious, philosophical or political doctrines, from Leviticus to Adam Smith, and whose most recent economic translation is the globalization of trade), three corollaries follow:
First: the only way to survive, if we refuse to help those around us survive, is to make them fear us enough to get what we need without giving them anything in return; this puts us in the position of a solitary predator.
Secondly: To make your neighbors fear you requires ever-increasing resources, without which the predator is weakened and ends up being replaced by another.
Thirdly: The people that a predator no longer helps and who no longer fear it, move away, defend themselves alone or find another protector.
In total: A solitary predator always fails. A rational altruist always survives.
We thought this lesson had been known to all for centuries: but no. By nature, ignorance is more easily transmitted than knowledge. And each generation must begin again the perilous process of learning through experience, then of transmitting what it has not forgotten of previous generations and the new knowledge it has itself accumulated.
However, this theorem and its three corollaries should be taught in primary school, along with the thousands of historical and personal examples that can easily be listed, and based on which practical work can be proposed to children to verify their validity. This would avoid many of the misfortunes that stem from this amnesia.
We will have further proof in the coming months: by renouncing the application of this theorem, that is to say, by no longer seeking the support of its former allies, Trump’s America finds itself in a situation where it is protected only by its ability to frighten. And the American president is giving himself the means to do so: he is brandishing increases in customs duties; he is letting the risk of a massive devaluation of the dollar hang in the air; he is announcing that he is going to seize territories; he is threatening to no longer deliver arms, nor to no longer defend those who were counting on his alliance; he is putting the world around him in a situation of racketeering.
Convinced that this behavior is the best way to regain lost financial and industrial autonomy in a country that is both overpowering and ruined, the American president will thus attempt to extort raw materials, technologies, companies and savings from all his former allies, hoping to acquire the means to weaken a new rival, China, which now threatens to outclass him technologically, economically, financially and soon even militarily.
All this would plunge the world into a major depression, making deficits and social welfare systems unfundable, particularly in Europe, at a time when major defense and environmental protection programs must also be launched.
As has always been the case in the history of individuals and peoples, this behavior of a lone predator is doomed to failure.
When its former protégés realize that they have nothing more to expect from Washington and when the fear of reprisals no longer paralyzes them, they will refuse to abandon their wealth to it at a cheap price; they will seek to protect themselves from this predator by raising customs, monetary, ecological, industrial and regulatory barriers, with the aim of dissuading the predator.
Then, if the latter does not renounce his suicidal behavior, if he continues to do everything he can to weaken his former allies, the latter will seek to equip themselves with the means to protect themselves militarily on their own. This is what the Europeans have begun to undertake, as they consider building a powerful military industry and a common autonomous defense doctrine, in particular by placing themselves under the French nuclear umbrella. This is what the South Koreans, Japanese and Taiwanese will soon do, and they too, abandoned by the Americans, will end up acquiring nuclear weapons; this will also be the case, a little later, for the Australians, the Gulf powers, and other major countries such as Nigeria, South Africa and Brazil.
Lesson of history: When America becomes a predator, nuclear proliferation can only accelerate.
These catastrophes can still be avoided, if American society, fundamentally democratic and bringing together immense talents, understands that its president is leading it towards the abyss, and reacts, by putting an end to his mad adventure, in one way or another. The friends of this great country must help it.
Image: MuseumArtPaintings