In Praise of Pessimism: A Conversation with Jacques Attali

On May 31, L’Express published observations by the economist Jacques Attali on a question that he says is being asked these days in intellectual and political circles in France: Is it a good idea to accuse somebody who is dubious about taking risks of being a pessimist? Doesn’t that discredit pessimism?

A person, Attali says, who sees everything in purely negative terms, who says it is raining when the sun is shining, is of no interest. That is pathological. And a person who says nothing is as good as it used to be is also of no interest. He just wishes to be young again. And a person who makes dire predictions that may be self-fulfilling is dangerous. Nobody will make investments in a country pessimists have declared insolvent.

But it would be quite wrong to extend this to a condemnation of pessimism per se. Pessimists are often right. But in certain situations being a pessimist can be a disaster. Ben Gurion once said that, as far as he knew, few pessimists survived the concentration camps.

There are no indications that those who in recent years have predicted ecological, economic or financial doom will be contradicted by the facts.

The rich, of course, Attali says, prefer being optimists because they will emerge from any bad situation better than anybody else. In fact, for them the current financial crisis could be a source of profit. This might support the views of Guizot [F. Guizot (1787–1884) historian and politician] who said “The world belongs to optimists – the rest are mere spectators.” This is very true today: the financial crisis may leave the poor ever worse off than they are today.

Optimism is conservative – pessimism revolutionary. Pessimism does not mean resignation. Nobody suggests that pessimists are prepared to accept the world as it is. They are perfectly capable of diagnosing the facts and still taking action to change them. One can make a pessimistic diagnosis and still take optimistic action. I, for example – this is still Jacques Attali writing – am resolutely pessimistic in my diagnosis of the current economic and financial crisis but optimistic that we can resolve it if we act globally.