A New Social Contract for the Digital Age

This essay forwards the thesis that the social contract in Europe and the United States is under severe stress. The rise of populism is the clearest manifestation of current social and economic fracture across the Atlantic, with its politics amounting to a re-crafting of the preceding order along more nationalistic, interventionist and, in some instances, openly antidemocratic lines. A new social contract is therefore needed that addresses the economic, political, and even physical insecurities brought about by rapid social and technological change. The chapter suggests a full “Decalogue” of measures to be considered by policy-makers. These include measures in the education, taxation, antitrust policy, governance, security, and sustainability spaces. Taken all together, these measures could make up an initial exercise in the crafting of a new and effective social contract for the digital era.