Introduction

Europe is our common good. This anthology invites us to think of Europe in socio-economic terms, and thus discover that these terms vary little from one European country to another or over two and a half thousand years. Even if the specific concerns of each European country vary, the discourse is the same: it is not that of the triumph of commodity fetishism and the reign of the Golden Calf; it is about the longing for the freedom of enterprise, for a market economy based on competition, for the fight against corruption, for a fair distribution of wealth, for an economy at the service of mankind and therefore of the planet. The topics were chosen according to this constant, after researching European digital libraries and exchanging with their documentalists to identify the most recurring, most discussed economic topics in each country. The book attempts to combine the insider’s perspective, provided by documentalists in each country, with that of the outsider, the European economic researcher that I am, in order to give a true picture of national economic concerns.