Mitigative measures against the economic and social problems in post-digital ecosystem
Yükleniyor...
Tarih
2020
Yazarlar
Dergi Başlığı
Dergi ISSN
Cilt Başlığı
Yayıncı
Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Rzeszowskiej
Erişim Hakkı
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Özet
Today’s effective and efficient production processes are expected to bring abundance. But they would cause the crisis because people who demand products are losing their jobs. This phenomenon is the gridlock of the post-digital ecosystem2. In the post-digital ecosystem, productivity increases with the development in the automation and artificial intelligence technologies. Widespread automation and artificial intelligence technologies enable the business processes around the world to use less labour force3. Then, an increase in productivity causes an increase in unemployment. As a result, the purchasing power of consumers is decreasing. In the present capitalist economic system, there is no solution to this problem. Therefore, this phenomenon is called as a vicious cycle4. Until the collapse of the capitalist economic system, this vicious cycle will continue to loop5. The distinctive feature of this new economic system characterises the increase in productivity and the decrease in costs that occurs as a result of automation technologies6. In digital economy, information became the most important production factor and the importance of capital and labour gradually decreased7. In 1930, John Maynard Keynes mentioned Technology-related unemployment8. He suggested that there would be no need to work in the future abundance economy. He called the future as the age of leisure. Jeremy Rifkin, in his book The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism also described the future as an abun-dance economy. According to Rifkin, in the future, production will be performed in small units instead of in big plants. He predicts that the mass production age will end. People will be able to produce some products and free energy in their own facilities. People have also started to use three-dimensional printing technologies in their houses9. Some scholars use the name crowd-based capitalism for the new sharing economy which is regarded as an alternative to the capitalist economy10. If capitalist system collapses, the excess fiat money created until now should be revoked and extracted from economic system. Today, as a disruptive technology, blockchain may radically change the money perception by eliminating third-party intermediaries and controllers such as banks and governments. According to some proponents of cashless economy, blockchain technology is a decentralized alternative to banking system11. In this cashless trade system, the definition of trade will also change. Trade in machine age will transform into the exchange of the goods produced by machines. Main purpose of trade in this new economic system is to meet human needs. Therefore, money will gradually be replaced by the importance of needs. With the extinction of privacy, machines will establish control on the needs of human by directing them in social media. Therefore, in the post-digital ecosystem, another important problem is the extinction of the privacy. As social media usage has increased, people have been more visible and enjoyed increased personal influence but they eventually trade off their privacy. Security and traffic cameras, biometric identification devices (including cellular phones), mapping softwares continuously collect personal information of people. Today, individuals are under total surveillance. Big data analysis techniques allow software companies to know their customers better than they know about themselves personally. Avoiding this total surveillance is almost impossible for an ordinary person nowadays. Consequences of total extinction of the privacy may be harmful to human’s mental health. But, humanity has no choice other than surrendering to this phenomenon. These developments, which will lead to an abundance economy for some people, but on the other side of the coin, mean inequality, poverty and unemployment for some people. Inequality stems from the dynamics of the post-digital ecosystem poses some threads to the economic and social structure of the countries. Fundamental philosophy of current capitalist economy depends upon inequality. Therefore, the turmoil will continue until the collapse of capitalism.
Açıklama
Anahtar Kelimeler
Kaynak
3rd International Conference on Security Threats and Challenges of Modern World: Social and Cultural Dimension
