IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ssa/lemwps/2025-15.html

The coupling between the dissolution of the old social pact and the emergence of new technologies in the (resistible) path toward the abyss

Author

Listed:
  • Giovanni Dosi

Abstract

There are at least three existential challenges to contemporary societies, as we know them namely first, the complete rupture of the social pact which characterized Glorious Decades after WWII in most of Western societies; and second, the deepening of the patterns of informatization and "intelligent" automation with the associated modifications in labour relations and mechanisms of social control. All that, third, is coupled with a climate crisis that might have well reached a tipping point toward a global ecological disaster. Here I shall briefly discuss the first, and even more briefly the second one, ending with some urgent policy implications.

Suggested Citation

  • Giovanni Dosi, 2025. "The coupling between the dissolution of the old social pact and the emergence of new technologies in the (resistible) path toward the abyss," LEM Papers Series 2025/15, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2025/15
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.lem.sssup.it/WPLem/files/2025-15.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Boyer, Robert, 2005. "How and Why Capitalisms Differ," MPIfG Discussion Paper 05/4, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    2. Matthew C. Mahutga & Manjing Gao & Roshan K. Pandian, 2025. "Global Value Chains and Union Decline in Rich Democracies," American Sociological Review, , vol. 90(2), pages 195-225, April.
    3. Giovanni Dosi & Lucrezia Fanti & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2024. "Attributes and Trends of Rentified Capitalism," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 10(2), pages 435-457, July.
    4. Giovanni DOSI & Maria Enrica VIRGILLITO, 2019. "Whither the evolution of the contemporary social fabric? New technologies and old socio‐economic trends," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 158(4), pages 593-625, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Krystian Bua & Giovanni Dosi & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2025. "Financial capitalism and warfare: asset managers' ownership in the military industry," LEM Papers Series 2025/33, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Giovanni Dosi & Marcelo C. Pereira & Andrea Roventini & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2024. "The political economy of complex evolving systems: the case of declining unionization and rising inequalities," LEM Papers Series 2024/13, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    2. Giovanni Dosi & Davide Usula & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2024. "Increasing returns and labor markets in a predator–prey model," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 375-402, April.
    3. Hein, Eckhard & van Treeck, Till, 2024. "Financialisation and demand and growth regimes: A review of post-Keynesian contributions," ifso working paper series 32, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Socioeconomics (ifso).
    4. Enrico Maria Fenoaltea & Dario Mazzilli & Aurelio Patelli & Angelica Sbardella & Andrea Tacchella & Andrea Zaccaria & Marco Trombetti & Luciano Pietronero, 2024. "Follow the money: a startup-based measure of AI exposure across occupations, industries and regions," Papers 2412.04924, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2024.
    5. Beckert, Jens & Ebbinghaus, Bernhard & Hassel, Anke & Manow, Philip (ed.), 2006. "Transformationen des Kapitalismus: Festschrift für Wolfgang Streeck zum sechzigsten Geburtstag," Schriften aus dem Max-Planck-Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung Köln, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, volume 57, number 57.
    6. Valentinov, Vladislav, 2023. "Stakeholder theory: Toward a classical institutional economics perspective," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 188(1), pages 75-88.
    7. David Neilson, 2021. "Beyond Regressive Nationalism and the Neoliberal Model of Development," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 53(1), pages 17-34, March.
    8. Armanda Cetrulo & Dario Guarascio & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2020. "Anatomy of the Italian occupational structure: concentrated power and distributed knowledge," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 29(6), pages 1345-1379.
    9. Nicoletta Corrocher & Daniele Moschella & Jacopo Staccioli & Marco Vivarelli, 2024. "Innovation and the labor market: theory, evidence, and challenges," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 33(3), pages 519-540.
    10. Montobbio, Fabio & Staccioli, Jacopo & Virgillito, Maria Enrica & Vivarelli, Marco, 2022. "Robots and the origin of their labour-saving impact," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 174(C).
    11. Federico Riccio & Lorenzo Cresti & Maria Enrica Virgillito, 2025. "The labour share along global value chains: perspectives and evidence from sectoral interdependence," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 161(2), pages 635-684, May.
    12. Almeida, Renan P. & Hungaro, Lucas, 2021. "Water and sanitation governance between austerity and financialization," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    13. ten Brink, Tobias, 2010. "Strukturmerkmale des chinesischen Kapitalismus," MPIfG Discussion Paper 10/1, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    14. Fritz, Martin & Koch, Max, 2014. "Potentials for prosperity without growth: Ecological sustainability, social inclusion and the quality of life in 38 countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 191-199.
    15. Naoise McDonagh, 2021. "Credit Guidance for a Desired Economy: An Original Institutional Economics Critique of Financialization," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 53(4), pages 675-693, December.
    16. Guendalina Anzolin, 2021. "Automation and its Employment Effects: A Literature Review of Automotive and Garment Sectors," JRC Working Papers on Labour, Education and Technology 2021-16, Joint Research Centre.
    17. Lucrezia Fanti & Dario Guarascio & Massimo Moggi, 2022. "From Heron of Alexandria to Amazon’s Alexa: a stylized history of AI and its impact on business models, organization and work," Economia e Politica Industriale: Journal of Industrial and Business Economics, Springer;Associazione Amici di Economia e Politica Industriale, vol. 49(3), pages 409-440, September.
    18. Lucrezia Fanti & Dario Guarascio & Massimo Moggi, 2020. "The development of AI and its impact on business models, organization and work," LEM Papers Series 2020/25, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    19. Giovanni Dosi, 2022. "The Agenda for Evolutionary Economics: Results, Dead Ends, and Challenges Ahead," LEM Papers Series 2022/24, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    20. Guarascio, Dario & Reljic, Jelena & Stöllinger, Roman, 2025. "Diverging paths: AI exposure and employment across European regions," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 11-24.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ssa:lemwps:2025/15. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/labssit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.