Classical Political Economy, Ethics, Metaphysics and ‘Knowledge-Based Economy’: Some considerations on commodified knowledge and the self (original) (raw)
Related papers
Are societal changes new? Questions or trends and future perceptions on knowledge-based economy
IET Working Papers Series, 2009
With the emergence of a global division of labour, the internationalisation of markets and cultures, the growing power of supranational organisations and the spread of new information technologies to every field of life, it starts to appear a different kind of society, different from the industrial society, and called by many as ‘the knowledge-based economy’, emphasizing the importance of information and knowledge in many areas of work and organisation of societies. Despite the common trends of evolution, these transformations do not necessarily produce a convergence of national and regional social and economic structures, but a diversity of realities emerging from the relations between economic and political context on one hand and the companies and their strategies on the other. In this sense, which future can we expect to the knowledge economy? How can we measure it and why is it important? This paper will present some results from the European project WORKS – Work organisation and restructuring in the knowledge society (6th Framework Programme), focusing the future visions and possible future trends in different countries, sectors and industries, given empirical evidences of the case studies applied in several European countries, underling the importance of foresight exercises to design policies, prevent uncontrolled risks and anticipate alternatives, leading to different ‘knowledge economies’ and not to the ‘knowledge economy’.
Knowledge: From Ethical Category to Knowledge Capitalism
Changing Societies & Personalities, 2021
In the post-industrial economy, the efficiency of scientific knowledge generation becomes crucial. Researchers began to interpret knowledge as a factor of economic growth in the second half of the 20 th century; since then, within the theory of economics and management, various approaches have been developed to study the impact of knowledge on economic growth and performance. With time, the focus of knowledgebased theories shifted from corporate management to macrosystems and economic policy. The article describes the main stages in the development of socioeconomic concepts of knowledge and analyzes the theoretical and methodological aspects of each approach. The authors have also formulated the critical problems in the analysis of the economic category of knowledge at the present stage and suggested ways of overcoming them. The article may be of interest both to researchers and to practitioners in the sphere of corporate strategies and economic policy.
M P RA The sociological perspective on the knowledge-based society: assumptions, facts and visions
The paper will present the central discourse of the knowledge-based society. Already in the 1960s the debate of the industrial society already raised the question whether there can be considered a paradigm shift towards a knowledge-based society. Some prominent authors already foreseen 'knowledge' as the main indicator in order to displace 'labour' and 'capital' as the main driving forces of the capitalistic development. Today on the political level and also in many scientific disciplines the assumption that we are already living in a knowledge-based society seems obvious. Although we still do not have a theory of the knowledge-based society and there still exist a methodological gap about the empirical indicators, the vision of a knowledge-based society determines at least the perception of the Western societies. In a first step the author will pinpoint the assumptions about the knowledge-based society on three levels: on the societal, on the organisational and on the individual level. These assumptions are relied on the following topics: a) The role of the information and communication technologies; b) The dynamic development of globalisation as an 'evolutionary' process; c) The increasing importance of knowledge management within organisations; d) The changing role of the state within the economic processes. Not only the differentiation between the levels but also the revision of the assumptions of a knowledge-based society will show that the 'topics raised in the debates' cannot be considered as the results of a profound societal paradigm shift. However what seems very impressive is the normative and virtual shift towards a concept of modernity, which strongly focuses on the role of technology as a driving force as well as on the global economic markets, which has to be accepted. Thereforeaccording to the official debate -the successful adaptation of these processes seems the only way to meet the knowledge-based society. Analysing the societal changes on the three levels, the label 'knowledge-based society' can be seen critically. Therefore the main question of Theodor W. Adorno during the 16th Congress of Sociology in 1968 did not loose its actuality. Facing the societal changes he asked whether we are still living in the industrial society or already in a post-industrial state. Thinking about the knowledge-based society according to these two options, this exercise would enrich the whole debate in terms of social inequality, political, economic exclusion processes and at least the power relationship between social groups. 2004). Every day we combine, generate, protect, create, transfer, codify and save knowledge. Knowledge can be found in books, information systems, data systems, organisations, in the new media, in social activities, in cognitive structures, in all kind of products and in social systems.
This paper examines the future of industrial capitalism, and more precisely the rise of the new information and knowledge society (IKS) and the development of the information network economy. We propose an interdisciplinary approach connecting economic analysis and information and communication sciences. First, we describe the euphoria over the new IKS. Then, we show that information networks lead to new economic laws, but not to a new civilisation. Even if new information technology accelerates changes, we must distinguish between Utopia and reality. Beyond euphoria we show the need for new critical approaches concerning technology, information and knowledge. We can thus explain the mechanisms of various myths of the IKS. technological innovations are indisputable (digitalisation, development of information storage and processing capacities...). These technological aspects are the base of the euphoria in favour of the IKS.
The knowledge economy and society stem from the combination of four interdependent elements: the production of knowledge, mainly through scientific research; its transmission through education and training; its dissemination through information and communication technologies; its use in technological innovation. At the same time, new configurations of production, transmission and application of knowledge are emerging, and their effect is to involve a greater number of players, typically in an increasingly internationalized network-driven context.
An Epistemological Approach of the Knowledge-Based Society from an Economic Perspective
The concept of knowledge-based society started to be defined at the end of the 20 th century and the beginning of the 21 st one, as a result of the increasingly important technical and economic progress, opening ways to new challenges in all the fields of human activity. Humanity obviously joined an ascendant trend of evolution, a context in which each country tries to capitalize all the opportunities that knowledge offers. In the present paper we refer to the concepts of information society and knowledge-based society and we try to picture the world's evolution towards the phase of knowledge from an epistemological point of view.
Knowledge society in 21st century
Acta Universitatis Agriculturae et Silviculturae Mendelianae Brunensis, 2013
This paper is focused on the increasing need of education in 21 st century and on some problems which emerged in this context-the economists prefer to emphasize the development and growth, profi t and eff ectiveness, and they can overlook general, ethical, and essential problems and needs of the contemporary world. These problems are not resolved by simple algometrical approaches, but they require multi-disciplined paradigms, which can provide social sciences. Especially in the 21 st century we need wide-ranging critical thinking as a basis of responsible ethical behaviour. However in the current educational environment in the tertiary educational system we can observe overemphasizing of utilitarian requirements. We produce professionals who are expected to be able to fi nd quick, eff ective but also far-seeing solutions of any given problem, which is in obvious contradiction. This article discussed three conceptions of a human with the emphasis on the concept of "homo socio-oeconomicus". This concept enables to see the world in wide context and develops necessary critical thinking, which is also economically more advantageous from the long-term point of view. That is why education in sociological, psychological, philosophical, political and other social sciences should not be considered by economists as something useless without any economic value, but as something that can help them to understand themselves, their environment and the consequences of their decisions. This is the core of this contribution. education, knowledge, social qualifi cation, three conceptions of a human in economics, responsibility, multidisciplinary approach Address
D-CENT Decentralised Citizens ENgagement Technologies This deliverable is part of WP3 whose main objective is to “critically investigate the socio economic frameworks and the forms of value creation and impact measurement in the fast changing knowledge basedeconomy, that are shaping the evolution of future internet architectures, the forms of social interaction, and of democracy”. (DoW WP3) This task will advance the state of the art through a critical review of different approaches on the information revolution and of the cognitive economy based on the ground-breaking work on cognitive capitalism and collective intelligence (DoW WP3)