Work, Knowledge, and Power in the Digital Economy
Main Article Content
Abstract
The transition from an industrial to a knowledge-intensive economy has transformed the organisation of production, the meaning of work and the relationship between workers and capital. Knowledge, information, communication technologies, intellectual property and human capabilities have increasingly become central to contemporary economic production. Yet the knowledge economy cannot simply be understood as a technologically advanced or post-industrial form of capitalism. It also represents a transformation in the organisation and governance of labour, in which flexibility, continuous learning, professional networking, creativity and individual responsibility have become important requirements for participation in the labour market. This article critically examines the political-economic and social dimensions of the knowledge economy, with particular attention to work, productivity, managerial control, labour-market inequality and worker subjectivity. Drawing on Susan Strange's concept of structural power, Powell and Snellman's formulation of the knowledge economy, David Harvey's analysis of flexible accumulation, Michael Peters's distinction between learning, creative and open knowledge economies, and Fabienne Berton's analysis of skills valued in contemporary employment, the article argues that the knowledge economy contains a fundamental tension. On the one hand, technological development, knowledge production and flexible organisational practices can expand productivity, innovation, autonomy and new forms of employment. On the other hand, the same processes can intensify managerial control, weaken collective forms of labour organisation, increase employment insecurity and transform human capacities such as learning and creativity into economic resources. The article further examines the emergence of the "global worker", whose employability increasingly depends on continuous skill acquisition and adaptability, professional networking and the capacity to manage employment uncertainty. The article concludes that the knowledge economy should be understood not merely as a new economic sector but as a broader transformation in the political economy of work, where knowledge itself becomes an important source of power, value and contestation.
References
Autor, D. H., Levy, F., & Murnane, R. J. (2003). The skill content of recent technological change: An empirical exploration. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4), 1279–1333. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355303322552801
Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. Sage.
Bell, D. (1973). The coming of post-industrial society: A venture in social forecasting. Basic Books.
Berton, F. (2012). Skills that are valued in the knowledge economy: An examination of the experience of French workers in the 2000s. Work Organisation, Labour & Globalisation, 6(2), 168–184. https://doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.6.2.0168
Boltanski, L., & Chiapello, E. (2005). The new spirit of capitalism (G. Elliott, Trans.). Verso.
Braverman, H. (1974). Labor and monopoly capital: The degradation of work in the twentieth century. Monthly Review Press.
Bröckling, U. (2016). The entrepreneurial self: Fabricating a new type of subject. Sage.
Brynjolfsson, E. (1993). The productivity paradox of information technology. Communications of the ACM, 36(12), 66–77. https://doi.org/10.1145/163298.163309
Burawoy, M. (1979). Manufacturing consent: Changes in the labor process under monopoly capitalism. University of Chicago Press.
Castells, M. (2010). The rise of the network society (2nd ed.). Wiley-Blackwell.
DiPrete, T. A., & Eirich, G. M. (2006). Cumulative advantage as a mechanism for inequality: A review of theoretical and empirical developments. Annual Review of Sociology, 32, 271–297. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.32.061604.123127
Drucker, P. F. (1969). The age of discontinuity: Guidelines to our changing society. Harper & Row.
Florida, R. (2002). The rise of the creative class. Basic Books.
Foucault, M. (2008). The birth of biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978–1979 (G. Burchell, Trans.). Palgrave Macmillan.
Fuller, C. J., & Narasimhan, H. (2007). Information technology professionals and the new-rich middle class in Chennai (Madras). Modern Asian Studies, 41(1), 121–150.
Goos, M., & Manning, A. (2007). Lousy and lovely jobs: The rising polarization of work in Britain. Review of Economics and Statistics, 89(1), 118–133. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest.89.1.118
Gordon, R. J. (2016). The rise and fall of American growth: The U.S. standard of living since the Civil War. Princeton University Press.
Haggart, B. (2017a). Introduction to the special issue: Rise of the "knowledge structure": Implications for the exercise of power in the global political economy. Journal of Information Policy, 7, 164–175.
Haggart, B. (2017b). Incorporating the study of knowledge into the IPE mainstream, or, when does a trade agreement stop being a trade agreement? Journal of Information Policy, 7.
Harvey, D. (1987). Flexible accumulation through urbanization: Reflections on "post-modernism" in the American city. Antipode, 19(3), 260–286. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.1987.tb00165.x
Harvey, D. (1989). The condition of postmodernity: An enquiry into the origins of cultural change. Blackwell.
Kellogg, K. C., Valentine, M. A., & Christin, A. (2020). Algorithms at work: The new contested terrain of control. Academy of Management Annals, 14(1), 366–410. https://doi.org/10.5465/annals.2018.0174
Lazzarato, M. (1996). Immaterial labor. In P. Virno & M. Hardt (Eds.), Radical thought in Italy: A potential politics (pp. 133–147). University of Minnesota Press.
Lundvall, B.-Å., & Johnson, B. (1994). The learning economy. Journal of Industry Studies, 1(2), 23–42.
Machlup, F. (1962). The production and distribution of knowledge in the United States. Princeton University Press.
Mazmanian, M., Orlikowski, W. J., & Yates, J. (2013). The autonomy paradox: The implications of mobile email devices for knowledge professionals. Organization Science, 24(5), 1337–1357. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.1120.0806
Merton, R. K. (1968). The Matthew effect in science. Science, 159(3810), 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.159.3810.56
Moulier Boutang, Y. (2011). Cognitive capitalism (E. Emery, Trans.). Polity.
Noronha, E., & D'Cruz, P. (2009). Employee identity in Indian call centres: The notion of professionalism. Sage.
Novartis AG v. Union of India, (2013) 6 SCC 1 (Supreme Court of India).
Peters, M. A. (2010). Three forms of the knowledge economy: Learning, creativity and openness. British Journal of Educational Studies, 58(1), 67–88. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071000903516452
Powell, W. W., & Snellman, K. (2004). The knowledge economy. Annual Review of Sociology, 30, 199–220. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.29.010202.100037
Solow, R. M. (1987, July 12). We'd better watch out [Review of the book Manufacturing matters, by S. S. Cohen & J. Zysman]. New York Times Book Review, 36.
Srnicek, N. (2017). Platform capitalism. Polity.
Standing, G. (2011). The precariat: The new dangerous class. Bloomsbury Academic.
Strange, S. (1988). States and markets. Pinter.
Taylor, P., & Bain, P. (2005). "India calling to the far away towns": The call centre labour process and globalization. Work, Employment and Society, 19(2), 261–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017005053170
Upadhya, C. (2016). Reengineering India: Work, capital, and class in an offshore economy. Oxford University Press.
Upadhya, C., & Vasavi, A. R. (Eds.). (2008). In an outpost of the global economy: Work and workers in India's information technology industry. Routledge.
Wood, A. J., Graham, M., Lehdonvirta, V., & Hjorth, I. (2019). Good gig, bad gig: Autonomy and algorithmic control in the global gig economy. Work, Employment and Society, 33(1), 56–75. https://doi.org/10.1177/0950017018785616
World Health Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, & World Trade Organization. (2020). Promoting access to medical technologies and innovation: Intersections between public health, intellectual property and trade (2nd ed.). World Trade Organization.
World Trade Organization. (2001). Declaration on the TRIPS agreement and public health (WT/MIN(01)/DEC/2).
Zuboff, S. (2019). The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power. Public Affairs.
