NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND SOLUTIONS TO THE ARTIFICIAL DEADLOCKS OF THE WORLD AND EUROPEAN ECONOMY Maria NEGREPONTI-DELIVANIS Professor, Vice-President of CEDIMES, President of CEDIMES-Greece (Greece)

NEW TECHNOLOGIES AND SOLUTIONS TO THE ARTIFICIAL DEADLOCKS OF THE WORLD AND EUROPEAN ECONOMY Maria NEGREPONTI-DELIVANIS Professor, Vice-President of CEDIMES, President of CEDIMES-Greece (Greece)

It is inconceivable to refuse the application of innovations and new technologies provided they lead to progress, stipulating the achievement of a higher point of macroeconomic equilibrium. Because, however, there is dramatic evidence of mass unemployment as a consequence of innovations in the past, there is an urgent need to adopt effective measures in the aim of minimizing the adverse effects of new technologies. Besides the evident need to adapt new technologies to the specific circumstances of individual economies, with an emphasis on the emerging ones, one should also note the great difficulty or impossibility to apply new technologies in an environment of austerity, or, even worse, deflation. This is because new technologies are a vehicle for accelerated growth, which requires adequate liquidity, and not only, as well as an improved / fairer income distribution, in order to ensure sufficient demand for the products and services produced through these new forms of technical progress. The, undated, EU austerity, not only is not suitable for the adoption of new technologies, it also further incites individual economies, particularly emerging ones, to choose their independence and freedom of choice tailored to their specific needs of macroeconomic policy, over adhering to an economic union. The analysis leads to the conclusion that new technology is more important for emerging economies, which include Russia, because it can contribute to a faster rate of development, thus closing the development gap separating them from more advanced economies. Russia’s economic profile seems to be suitable for the exploitation of new technologies which should be combined with the transfer of labor from agriculturewhere the share of its rural population is almost double the EU average- to the secondary sector, with direct and probably spectacular effects on productivity. The adoption of new technologies, moreover, should be done at a moderate pace. The adoption of some form of protective measures, so that the economy is able to exploit the new technologies gradually, and not be crushed by them, is considered as a sine-qua-non choice of their economic policy. State intervention in the economy will also be of major importance in this difficult stage of development, with the goal of reducing inequalities caused by technical progress. In addition to the drastic 9 reduction of working hours, which is considered as the most important measure to prevent the adverse effects of new technologies, the state should engage in large-scale investments to ensure high quality education for all. It is well known that Russia has a long and highly successful tradition in the field of traditional education, which is probably already combined with its digital form. Furthermore, instead of shrinking the welfare state, which is what is currently happening in Europe, the state should ensure adequate hospitals for free medical care, set limits on privatisation, particularly concerning utilities, and proceed to an intensification of structural changes, mainly in the area of employment, to ensure an improved and more efficient use of all employees. The climaxing of distribution inequalities, functional, and personal is a powerful factor discouraging the adoption of new technologies. Russia and other emerging economies should avoid the mistake of "freesing" wages, which is-as noted above-a destructive policy, especially for emerging economies requiring rapid growth and to a lesser degree for the advanced and mature economies. The tolerance of high levels of unemployment, in modern economies, combined with the practical refusal to adopt the only appropriate action to deal with it -that is, the drastic reduction of working hours-is an irrefutable testimony that, in spite of the revolutionary advances in the technological field, humanity has unfortunately not improved simultaneously the ethics of existence. The flip side of unemployment is the refusal to award the effects of increased productivity achieved thanks to new technologies to the whole of humanity, to which they rightfully belongs. Mutatis mutandis, the laws of the jungle still apply in the financial kingdom of the economies of the 21st century.