Cognitive Capitalism vs the Economy of Knowledge

* Article: Les reformes du gouvernement Raffarin ou 'le capitalisme cognitif contre l'economie de la connaissance. Carlo Vercellone, Multitudes Online, 10/10/04

URL: https://www.multitudes.net/author/Vercellone-Carlo/

Summary

From the reading notes of Michel Bauwens, 2005:

This is a critique of the reform proposals of Raffarin, the French Prime Minister in 2004, concerning the funding of pension plans. CV rejects both the Malthussian arguments that project a necessary crisis -- which could be averted by the growth of labor productivity, and renewed wealth redistribution, and the regressive utopia of the left which wants to return to Keynesianism and full employment. What is needed is rather a concept of full activity, which combines for 'chosen mobility', instead of imposed precarity, in the context of a secured socialized wage. It could be funded by a combination of 1) taxes on financial revenues; 2) employer contributions; 3) a greater contribution of the employer side to the totality of added value.

Discussion

Michel Bauwens, from a recapitulation in my notebook:

Peer production is production for use value, not exchange value ('for benefit' not 'for profit'). It creates a shared infrastructure and information commons which is a sine qua non for business development. Business innovation now rests on the value creation of this sphere (i.e. the socialisation of innovation)

The stress is now again on living, non-formal knowledge, no longer on formal proceedings and 'dead knowledge'. It is intellectually diffuse. Knowledge is fragmented.

Value creation can therefore not be reduced to salaried work. The source of wealth is now upfront from the entreprise, diffused in the whole of society, and specifically in the system of education and research. This has consequences for funding the welfare state, which can no longer be funded by salaries.

The creation of a sphere of gratuity and non-mercantile exchange is vital but destabilizes the IP regime.