What if we digitized the Social Contract ?

This session will offer the opportunity to reflect on the social contract in the upheaval of the digital revolution.

This is less a revolution of specific business sectors than a cross-cutting dynamic. In every or almost every sector, like some financing platforms, digital technologies offer the opportunity to leapfrog traditional players and the legal architecture that was connected with them (contracts, guarantees, taxes, etc.).

The consequences for individuals promise to be profound. While consumers are at risk of seeing their level of guarantees slip, workers may see their status morph into more flexible forms of employment. The interaction between productive labour and leisure, and even the very distinction between the two, will also be affected.

In a day and age when certain digital players are becoming veritable fixtures of everyday life, who is really gaining from this change? Should the distinction be made between the merchant and non-merchant sharing economy? What can the State do, as arbitrator, to help preserve certain balances or redefine the social contract ?