The potential of the digital economy in the context of global instability
This article is devoted to analysis and appraisal of the changes associated with the effects of the fundamentally new laws of the post - industrial stage of social development. It examines a range of approaches to characterising the digital economy, the fundamental changes resulting from it, and the stages in the life - cycle of disruptive technologies. Within the context of the "second" rise of internet business, the question is posed of the possible dangerous consequences of the next financial "bubble". The article reveals the new global contradictions of the digital economy that are manifesting themselves, along with the objects of the competition of interests and the division (or more precisely, the alienation) that has arisen between mission and function in the participation by states in managing the global economy. The relevance is demonstrated of conducting study and research into new sources of growth, as a result of the crisis of the current neoclassical economic approach and the inadequacy of the standard model of competition. In addition, the article points to the need to turn to the heuristic possibilities of political economy with a new content. A political economy of this type will reveal the directions being followed by digitisation, as well as the consequences of using it in the reproductive process and in the system of real production, distribution, exchange and consumption.