A thought-in-process today as I'm trying to make sense of the things that I have read on the Knowledge-Based Economy.
Policy makers (both national and supra-national), sociologists, economists, industrialists and others start with the fact that we are in a Knowledge-Based Economy, and then premise the rest of their arguments around that fact. Never mind that there are a great many scholars who debate that the economy is in any fundamental way different than what it has been in the past (e.g. see Godin 2006), and even ignore for a minute that conceptualizations of what a KBE IS are almost always exceptionally vague (intentionally?) and completely inconsistent. What I have found interesting is that all of these discussants speak as though everyone is talking about the same KBE and as though the problems and questions for which KBE is the answer, are all understood by everyone. It strikes me as similar to sports fans sitting around the bar discussing last night's game. The only problem is that Jo is discussing the baseball game, Pat is discussing soccer, and Chris is discussing jai alai!
I like to build my understanding from the ground up. I want to build a foundational structure first and then allow my reading to add to the structure. So, to me, it seemed natural to ask: "What's the question?" so that I could examine the conceptualizations of the KBE in terms of the questions and problems that it was involved in addressing. It seemed surprising to me that authors who speak so authoritatively on the KBE do not as a matter of course, make the the questions that they prioritize obvious.
It appears to me that there are a number of questions that those discussing the KBE want to address. I can categorized a number of them in this way:
1. Questions related to how to increase productivity, competitive advantage and profit for companies, nations and regions. I think of this as the competition-focus.
2. Questions related to determining which types of jobs will be available in a KBE in a country, region or globally. I think of this as the labour-market focus.
Certainly, they are related, but I think that it is important to acknowledge that these ARE separate questions and represent separate interests. Although, they are often presented (for instance in OECD, and World Bank policy documents) as being part and parcel of the same package: Increasing competitive advantage will surely have some sort of positive impact on jobs in general....in some vague way [hey, just trust us on this! wink wink]
Within each of those questions there are sub-questions concerning, for instance,
a) how education does/can/should feed the KBE. This can involve questions about the types of skills and knowledges that should be promoted.
b) the distribution of jobs and the economic rewards associated with them (both in global and more local terms).
I grew up in the 70s in a blue-collar family, daughter of a labour union leader in a city where 80% of the population was directly or indirectly employed by the automotive manufacturing industry. So, I tend to want to ask the questions in the labour-market focus. I do not ascribe to the assumption that competitive advantage will have some globally positive but un-named effect on the labour market. In fact, some authors give evidence of deleterious effects in various segments of the labour market. Authors have questioned if (at home and abroad) there will be a demand for more highly skilled/educated/knowledgable workers. It has been argued that knowledge-workers in Western countries may be facing reduced wages and deteriorating working conditions.
I want to understand how the changes that are happening in the global economy, in what people are calling a knowledge-based economy, are going to affect the types of jobs that are available, the types of skills and knowledge required for those jobs, where those jobs are going to be, how those jobs will be remunerated, what conditions will accompany those jobs. I think that by focusing the conversation on the knowledge based economy, it is subtly suggested that the solution to all our problems lies in education. Indeed, there are changes going on in the economy, but to focus on one area of that change (in this case "knowledge" which for many really means Information and Computer Technology) is near-sighted and reductionist. Particularly when it isn't clear what is meant by knowledge and how it is influencing the economy.
Questions about the labour market can take on more globalized and more localized foci. And each of these foci need to be identified when one identifies the questions of interest. For instance, if I am interested in questions concerning the labour market in the West in the present economy, I think there are at least 2 key (although related) characteristics of the economy that significantly affect directions for the labour market:
1. The spread of various ICTs and other technologies: the speed with which information is transmitted; the availability and access to information; the networking that it supports; the rate of change associated with new technologies; and the reduction of geography as a barrier to various processes.
2. The growing participation of developing countries, particularly China and India, (related, of course, to the spread of ICTs) in high-tech and knowledge-intense industries, but also in a wide variety of low and medium "tech" and knowledge/skill/education dependent industries.
I'm simplifying a little here, but what this means to me is that:
1. Jobs that can be automated may be less available in the developing economic reality.
Some jobs that may be most secure may be those that
a) have to be done by a human because they require completely human characteristics such as charm and creativity or are subject to so much change that the automation technology cannot adjust; or
b) have to be done locally. This would include the use or development of things that are not movable (construction, mining for example) and those jobs that necessarily bring the customer to the job (doctors, teachers).
This is an over-simplification, indeed. And there will be changes within those fields that are more secure. The main point that I want to make is that
a) You have to define the questions that you are concerned with when you discuss the KBE. It is simply NOT the case that questions of competitive advantage are the only important questions to ask.
b) If you are interested in questions of labour-market effects, it is important also to identify the labour market with which you are concerned. The concerns of a Western labour market are not the same as those of a global labour market.
c) if your specific questions are about the changes in jobs in a Western labour market, "knowledge" isn't the only aspect driving change. And education isn't the only solution.
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