Robert Boyer, Les capitalismes à l’épreuve de la pandémie, La Découverte, 2020

Abstract

Robert Boyer, a leader in régulation theory, characterizes the crisis provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic in his latest book. His analysis centers on the political process in which different groups of entities with heterogeneous interests compete against each other and make compromises, and on the interaction of different processes affecting public health, the economy, finance, and freedom. In this book review, we carefully introduce the main argument in the book (which has been published in French) in English to help readers understand its message, and we consider several points to apply the theoretical conjecture proposed in the book to actual issues, especially in Japan. In particular, we investigate the following issues: the actual diversity of national economies from the perspective of the “trilemma,” the current situation of Japan as an embryo of the anthropogenetic development mode, and the issue of ecology to scrutinize the future of capitalism.