On Sat, 24 Jan 1998, William Kirk wrote:
> So what is this knowledge? It is knowing the quantitative data of how
> people exchange goods and services. This is really what I think sums up
> the notion of what we perceive to be 'capitalism'. Behind this curtain
> there are those who know how it works, and have up to the minute data on
> how it is happening now. Having this knowledge before the majority is
> worth a fortune, and this is where fortune's are made. Notice that there
> isn't the definite literature here, the whole basis is keeping
> information 'secret' or having it for such a time whereby the fortune is
> made. Once made then some of the information can be given. If you are
> seen to be a 'winner', or have lots of money, people will sit for hours
> and listen to any rubbish you care to tell them, rarely will anyone give
> a true account of how a fortune is made.
The problem is, most of what we call knowledge is neither quantitative nor
static. Knowledge isn't a raw material which can be produced and traded,
it's something which is produced, reproduced and constantly reinvented.
One of the weirdest aspects of life in capitalist societies is
that knowledge, too, is a market: crudely put, fresh discoveries and
inventions replace and devalue older, less powerful or comprehensive ones.
The flip side of this is that late capitalism has become so complex that
effective knowledge about the system as a whole is tremendously difficult
to get, and when you do get it, it becomes outmoded very quickly.
The example you gave is really that of a Warren Buffet or other
rentier, who doesn't really know how a given company produces
what it does, but invests in it anyway because if you're ahead of
the pack, other, more gullible investors will buy up your shares
at a higher price. Maybe a better example is the rise of Bill Gates to
Uebergeek of the Net: everyone thought the task of Macintoshizing the
PC world would take place either as a software shift or a hardware
shift. Lotus bet on software, Apple bet on hardware; but both were
wrong. Instead, a more complex cooperative tandem between Intel's chip
designers and Microsoft's programmers turned out to have the market-worthy
solution -- fast graphics and a reasonably reliable interface at
affordable prices. The knowledge one has has value nowadays only as a
precursor to what one doesn't yet know (what university
types like myself like to call the "learning to learn" conundrum).
> At the other end of the spectrum we have what is perceived to be
> 'socialism'. Here this is very much like having a plan of campaign for a
> battle that is read in advance by the enemy. To me this is why there are
> so many failures of socialism. First, the notion of an 'enemy' isn't part
> of their thoughts, second, the mechanism of application tends to be
> radical, there is risk with a relatively high degree of failure, third,
> the data existing is somehow 'unavailable' is 'unnecessary' or
> irrelevant. Contrary to that the 'capitalist' lets the exchange of goods
> and services evolve, and having the 'knowledge' knows exactly where there
> is a fortune to be made.
This was certainly true in the former Soviet Union. Still, a socialist
alternative to the capitalist marketplace of knowledge
or information or whatever is not about imposing models on a specific
society (a fancy way of saying, the rule of a non-elected one-party
state), but about changing the rules of that evolution of knowledge. Right
now, we have a society where the evolution of new services, goods
and technologies tends to favor innovations in weapons systems, raw
materials-gobbling consumer appliances and the wasteful overproduction of
hydrocarbon transport machines. This is because big capital needs to get
bigger and expand its markets, and to hell with consumers, previous model
designs, or the ecology. But why not favor innovations in education,
community services, sustainable economies, aesthetics and, yes, even
politics? I have no idea what social changes would be needed for such a
shift, but it's probably worth pondering the question.
-- Dennis