I hear a lot about digital transformation. In itself, and this angle is rarely addressed, digital is merely a matter of automation (robots + algorithms).

Because while digital is a source of benefits, it is ultimately, within our businesses, perceived only as a means of optimizing processes, business, and therefore an organization’s performance.

Why is this rarely discussed in these terms? Quite simply because of employment. Projecting into the future and understanding that you will inevitably be replaced by a robot, being uberized from within—that’s not good for social peace. The subject remains taboo.

Uberization is merely a process that corrects the failures of a market, becoming a sword of Damocles. A player of this type arrives with heavy boots, exploiting legal loopholes and digital technology, destroying everything in its path: jobs, wealth, innovations, know-how, etc.

Proletarianization

Proletarianization is, generally speaking, what consists of depriving a subject (producer, consumer, designer) of their knowledge (know-how, life skills, ability to conceive and theorize)

Ultimately, out of greed, fear, necessity, or mimicry, we will massively engage in digital transformation and uberize ourselves. Transform and copy models from elsewhere, often clumsily trying to take into account our existing situation, our history. We will therefore initiate many deadly digital transformation initiatives. An almost desired self-destruction that also facilitates the work of tomorrow’s “ubers”…

Why do I speak of self-destruction, of death? Quite simply because our world rests on a fairly simple macroeconomic concept: that of a virtuous circle between income, consumption, and production. To put it simply, and Ford understood this well when he wanted to sell his cars to his own employees, to support mass consumption, it is necessary to maximize purchasing power, which in turn makes possible the production of the goods in question.

So what will happen if digital and automation, as most predictions confirm, destroy at least 50% of our jobs? The virtuous circle imagined by Keynes will collapse on itself. Better yet, all of this may not take 10 years to materialize…