Digital transition, data-and-tasks crowd-based economy, and the shared social progress: Unveiling a new political economy from a European perspective

Abstract

The current unequal distribution of the benefits of digital transition and data-and-tasks crowd-based economy is directly linked to an incomplete interpretation of the behaviour of economic agents and their effects. This article proposes a new economic vision of digitalisation based on overcoming the postulates of neoclassical (automation-oriented and implemented mainly in the US) and autocratic (control-oriented and implemented mainly in China) economics. It suggests recovering the evolutionary, social, institutional, ethical and humanistic precepts of political economy. Following this more plural and European conceptual orientation, the analysis shows that current inequality arises from a digital R&D&I process plagued by network, platform, bias and polarisation effects, from business models that foster automation, and from the emergence of large superstar firms or control organisations with excessive market and political power. The redirection of technological progress towards more democratic individual values and shared social welfare requires digital governance based on new incentives and taxes, a greater strategic and political orientation towards social sustainability, and a new transformative role for the State.