Effects of COVID-19 on China and the World Economy: Birth Pains of the Post-Digital Ecosystem

Abstract

Especially with the emergence of the digital economy in the last two decades, unprecedented changes in technology have come to the fore. Technology-induced unemployment has spread all over the world because developments in digitalization and automation reduced the need for human in all business lines. Digital economy has also shown its effects as changes in the lifestyles. Therefore, it called new ecosocial system. However, beyond the new ecosocial system, humanity awaits a new system as post-digital ecosystem. Most probably this transition would occur in an agonizing way. In the post-digital ecosystem, production methods are changing radically, and thus, due to the recent advancements in artificial intelligence technology, machines increasingly take over the jobs of humans. The steady upward trend in unemployment has made economic inequality a chronic problem in the society. The pandemic has the role of a catalyst that accelerates the emergence of the destructive effects of digital economy and augments these effects. After the pandemic, the post-digital ecosystem will rise from the ruins of the collapsing capitalist system. The purpose of this article is to attract attention to the future economic problems within the context of the pandemic.