Are we a Knowledge Society or merely a Knowledge Economy?
Expounding our present age as being characterized by "Knowledge" (versus Industry), is a common buzzword brandished by pundits, the soundbites of whom we hate to love.
The year 1991 is etched in our timelines as marking the beginning of the Knowledge Age. However, in 1998, Peter Drucker noted, “Knowledge is now fast becoming the one factor of production, sidelining both capital and labor. It may be premature (and certainly would be presumptuous) to call ours a ‘knowledge society’— so far we only have a knowledge economy. But our society is surely ‘post-capitalist’” (Drucker in Neef, 1998).
I suppose because we are emerging from an intense age of supply-side focused, consumerism-induced, economic models, we are entering the Knowledge age with much the same focus.
Anyway, we are transitioning from a knowledge economy to a knowledge society where human capital is measured by ____________ ???
Human capital refers to people as portfolios (Gee in Cope & Kalantzis, 2000).
Jeremy Rifkin (2000) and others characterize our present age somewhat differently as a hyper-capitalist world, what Rifkin terms an “age of access,” where the equivalent of subscription, licensed or fee-based access to key products and services, or even to lived, cultural experiences, is superceding traditional forms of ownership, property and experience.
Interesting the movements we're seeing that demonstrate this trend, such as that expressed at http://zerobaggage.com where clothing rentals for travelers are coming into vogue because, as it claims:
"Having zerobaggage means shifting our focus away from the "stuff" or the permanence of items that unnecessarily reside with us or follow us from place to place, toward having what we need when we need it. Zerobaggage is a movement oriented, cyclical way of existing in the world. Your temporary use of circulating items is our core innovation. A movement from buying to borrowing. Ownership is scaled down to what matters most. Lifestyle choices become less anchored, more seamless and most flexible."
Just consider the way this next generation looks at and values capital, ownership, experience, etc. The social construction of future work seems to require a simultaneous devaluing of skills? Yet how the future is conceived determines the K-12 literacy standards we develop (Rocap, 2003).
3 comments so far:
Asif says: I would re-postulate the
I would re-postulate the question as: Are we a society or an economy?
marowe_B (not verified) says: Clever, mind-boggling
Clever, mind-boggling question. We are indeed a knowledge of the economy. Because we create fuss on whatever we have to think of ways we can help ourselves. Like the passing of the new Senate car bill. The Senate Auto Finance Bill is being opposed by more than 100 car dealers that can help protect their consumers. Dealers are apprehensive how the Senate Auto Bill will put more restraints on consumers and hurt our economy.
dallasm12 says: Economy or society...
:-) Clever question, Asif.
Certainly one aspect of any Society is its Economy; how it manages its resources.
The past century witnessed the switch from an agricultural economy (people as farmers) to an industrial economy (people as workers/repositories of skills to produce goods and services). 1991 began the switch from industrial to a knowledge economy (people as thinkers/repositories of problem-based solutions within particular knowledge-domains).
I suspect this trend will consumate in "communities" as the repositories (connectivism?).
I think the interesting point to Drucker's observation of the difference between a knowledge society and a knowledge economy is this. We are in that in-between state where we want to industrialize knowledge so we can economize it in the familiar way to which we've grown accustomed. Schools are trying to integrate technology to streamline education using a factory assembly-line approach.
The new economy (knowledge-based rather than capital goods-based) requires a new approach to equipping the Society's constituents with its resources. Movements toward creative commons and open source platforms are indicative of such growing pains in our present state.
Such an interesting time to be alive really. We will witness in the next 20 years, the degree of change experienced in the past 100.