The power of restraint

Preface by Matthieu Ricard

French publicing lanscape for so many years, hardly needs any introduction. The first edition of this major work, Vers la sobriété heureuse, was a global suc- cess. To mark the tenth anniversary of the “Domaine du possible” collection created by his friend Cyril Dion, we have decided to showcase this founding text by publishing an updated edition (of the “Practical Guide” section) with a brand-new double preface from Pierre Rabhi and Matthieu Ricard. At the end of the 1950s, a 20-year-old Pierre Rabshi decided that he wanted to return to the land and distance himself from the root- less civilisation that was taking shape before his eyes and would ultimately come to be known as “Les Trente Glorieuses” (three decades of sustained economic growth). Having witnessed first-hand during his childhood in the south of Algeria the brutal shift from a traditionally poor but viable society to a state of desperate destitution, he then observed how in France the labourers in the fields and factories were becoming alienated from the process of earning a living, encouraged to accept a form of personal effacement for the sole purpose of keeping the economic machine turning in line with the unquestioned dogma of the age. In the quest for unlimited growth, economics elevated pre- dation to the status of a science. The filial and visceral bond with nature was broken, with the natural world becoming no more than a deposit of resources to be exploited and exhausted. And the personal experiences recounted in this book gradually guided Pierre Rabhi to an indisputable truth.

Only by choosing to moderate our needs and desires and willingly consenting to a liberating restraint in our actions can we break with this self-consuming drive known as “globalisation”. Only then can we do justice to the human and natural world and restore equanimity and zest to the world around us.