Extract
[...] This state would result from the depletion of human capital, natural resources, or technical progress. Was this theoretical model consistent? If it was, it could have served to support Malthus's additional analyses. However, Ricardo could not foresee that he would enter an era of unprecedented technical progress and growth, which could have made his theory obsolete or, at best, pushed it back for decades. The world of the 21st century, marked by the phenomenon of globalization and several successive technological revolutions, is very different from that of Ricardo. [...]
[...] Relying on technical and scientific progress remains a current strategy in the search for growth. After allowing the industrial revolution in the West and around the world, it continues to renew economic opportunities today, as in the fields of digital and new information and communication technologies. It seems quite uncontested that there is still much to discover in many areas, since nothing indicates a slowdown in this field. We could even expect that research will allow us to solve the threats weighing on our economy, such as making renewable energies available. [...]
[...] There are several: exhaustion of technological progress, persistence of unemployment due to these very progress, and simply a decrease in demand for new products by consumers in industrialized countries who no longer need them and/or no longer have the means. According to this model, it would no longer be a matter of proposing new products to households, but of ensuring that they benefit from the standard goods and services of our time. This would be an exact application of Ricardo's theory. Demographic and environmental constraints that are gaining importance However, we believe that the economic prism alone is certainly not enough to analyze the validity of Ricardo's theory. [...]
[...] Ricardo could certainly, in our opinion, be evoked in all relevance; in fact, perhaps even his stationary economy model is no longer as obvious, the a priori stable nature of this one seeming far from being guaranteed today. Our analysis will therefore focus on the following problem. We will show how, although the current global economic challenges seem to justify Ricardo's theory about a stable state, the hopes and concerns raised by the perspectives offered as well as the uncertainties related to current knowledge make this concept remain speculative. [...]
[...] At the time, it was assumed that cyclical reasons, namely the increase in the price of oil, on which the economy was particularly dependent, were the main explanation; but that since growth is cyclical, a period of recession would be followed by a new phase of prosperity. Time seems to have contradicted today those who claimed the cyclical nature of the economy. While it can be acknowledged that the low sustainability of economic policies rarely thought out in the long term, for obvious electoral reasons, does not play in favor of a recovery, different economic models, from state dirigisme to economic liberalism, have had only very mixed and above all rarely lasting successes. [...]
