Principles

Prosperity and world peace will continue to depend on well-functioning inclusive free market economies and technological progress . Apart from economic freedoms this requires personal freedoms of belief and speech, freedom to vote, freedom to decide about personal data, and freedom to use technologies for pleasure, economic benefit and protection. 

Inclusive economic progress is particularly important in the developing world, where it is directly linked with sustainable access to resources such as food, water, housing, healthcare and education. Aspirations are however crucial for all humans. Economic prosperity is likely to remain a key driver of human aspirations  around the world, albeit with increased focus on fairness and sustainability.

Despite their crucial contribution to economic prosperity, most technologies have side effects, which may adversely impact security, health, environment, economic freedoms, the societies and even the sustainability of our economies.  Some of these effects are serious, long-lasting and global in nature. This warrants regulation, which may have to constrain some economic and personal freedoms.

Competition regulation needs to address scale-economy driven excessive market power, which distorts free markets. This is currently particularly relevant in digital technologies and services, including platforms. Deep, globally diverse, competitive and inclusive digital service markets are increasingly important for future economic prosperity, but also for sustaining human freedoms. Certain digital assets may be best positioned as shared infrastructures.

Red lines are needed to ensure that technologies will always serve humans and boost their freedoms, despite common temptations to use technologies for large scale surveillance, control and manipulation. While digital transformation should be encouraged, red lines may also be needed to protect the human economy, its crucial component, value of human skills, but also human-led research and other crucial building blocks of our society.

Regulations should constrain any activities, which have an adverse effect on local security, health and the environment. However, when business activities have negative global implications, which cannot be easily attributed locally, regulation should focus on constraining consumption of products and services, which drive such business activities, allowing free markets to re-direct consumption towards more sustainable options, including digital services. Decisions about striking the right balances need to be democratic.  

Regulations should be simple, explicable, transparent, well thought-through (rather than rushed in crises), well enforced, and only used when genuinely needed and justified, mainly to protect individuals as consumers and beyond (see 3,4,5 and 6). Regulations should be adopted democratically and they should be revoked when no longer needed.

Fundamental debate is needed to address the following policy dilemmas: a/ reconciling national democracies with a need for policies with global remit ; b/ designating certain assets and services as nationally-protected shared infrastructures and services, which may imply limited competition and more regulation in such markets. Tech-driven changes to the established paradigms may be necessary, but any new policies need to be well-justified and carefully executed in respect to democratic rights and economic freedoms.