Carlo Vercellone on Cognitive Capitalism

Discussion

From the reading notes of Michel BAUWENS, 2006:

Carlo Vercellone presents a research project, which he stresses is not a fully elaborated theoretical model. The priority is to avoid the different forms of reductionism:

   - 1) technological determinism
   - 2) knowledge production as solely economic
   - 3) refuses historical and social abstractions which view knowledge as a third production factor independent of capital and labor

The reason for the new model is that the cyclic explanation (innovation followed by long consolidation periods), no longer seems to hold, as the crisis has been permanent for already 30 years at least.

One explanation that is also explicitely rejected is that shareholder models (which replace the managerial model) create heightened pressure that results in permanent restructuration. In this 'financial capital thesis', the evolution is viewed from the prism of different factors of capital (financial vs industrial), with the former imposing detrimental short-termism, as well as a cyclic balance of forces between freed finance and state regulation. For these economists, post-fordism is a secondary consequence only. Therefore, what is needed is a re-regulation by the state.

For Vercellone, this fails to see:

   - 1) how the state itself was the protagonis of deregulation and
   - 2) how this financialization was a result of the crisis of Fordism, and in particular, why and how it arose as a response to that crisis, in extracting surplus value from industry itself.

The cognitive capitalism thesis sees a different genealogy based on four major factors:

- 1) the greater role attributed to finance by industrial groups themselves, starting in the 70s as a response to an increase in social conflict; this, together with automation and decentralization, aims at making capital more independent of the workers

- 2) it was also a key method to start evaluating immaterial processes and products, and located profits 'outside of the production process'

Value is now situated, less in the formal knowledge incorporated in the business processes, and more and more in the qualitative living knowledge.

How does the Cognitive Capitalism thesis differ from the "New Economy" thesis ?

- CC is a critique of the 'growth driven by ICT" hypothesis

- the latter are 'technology-deterministic theories which see technology and information as exogenous factors, driving a post-industrial revolution

- the latter also does not take into account the difference between information and knowledge; not seeing that the former is not operative without active transformation.

CC affirms that:

- 1) a new intellectuality is more primary than ICT by itself

- 2) information can only thrive through living labour, i.e. by becoming embodied knowledge

- 3) it stresses the ambivalent nature of ICT

       - a )  in the context of th enew diffuse intellectualityh, i.e. the ICT promotes horizontal non-merchant cooperation
       - b)  but it can also serve neo-Taylorist purposes

Problems with the other theories:

- they often want to offer a general theory, and do not historicize enough

Source

The likely source of these notes are a research project presentation in 2005:

* Article: The hypothesis of cognitive capitalism. By Carlo Vercellone. RePEc, February 2005

URL = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/23530759_The_hypothesis_of_cognitive_capitalism

"The aim of this presentation is to introduce some aspects of the research programme on Cognitive Capitalism. The main point that characterises this research program resides in the fact that it assume as its main pillar the social crisis of Fordism. Such a crisis manifests itself as a break with respect to the polarising tendency of the forms of knowledge informing Industrial Capitalism, thereby, realising some aspects of Marx’s hypotheses concerning the notion of General Intellect. Accordingly, we shall articulate the reasoning as follow. Firstly, we shall explain the main features of the research agenda. In particular, we shall address the application of Marxist methodology and the extent to which its interpretation differs from other approaches to contemporary capitalism. Secondly will shall deal with the historical transformations of the capital/labour relation that has led to the crisis of Industrial Capitalism and, consequently, to the transition towards Cognitive Capitalism. Finally, we shall focus on the analysis of the new nature of antagonism and contradictions (subjective and objective) inherent to Cognitive Capitalism."

More information

The status of the 2005 research projecte was updated in 2014:

* Lucarelli Stefano, Carlo Vercellone. The thesis of cognitive capitalism. New research perspectives. France. Knowledge Cultures, pp.229, 2014. ⟨halshs-00969289⟩

URL = https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00969289

"This Special Issue, The Thesis of Cognitive Capitalism. New Research Perspectives, proposes a set of contributions that presents some of the research lines organized around the thesis of cognitive capitalism, a project that insists upon rereading the historical development of the capital/labor relation from the point of view of the knowledge economy. In this introduction we outline a method of analysis in terms of cognitive capitalism by insisting on the critique of conventional theories of both the economics of knowledge and the knowledge-based economy. This is done in order to explain the role of knowledge in the long-term development of capitalism, while providing a Marxian theoretical map of historical time in the process."

See also this overview article:

* Article: International Division of Labor, Intellectual Property, and Development in the Era of Cognitive Capitalism. By Carlo Vercellone. Géographie, économie, société Volume 6, Issue 4, 2004, pages 359 to 381

URL = https://www.cairn-int.info/journal-geographie-economie-societe-2004-4-page-359.htm

"The aim of this paper is to provide a basis for rethinking the approach of development through the changes linked to the crisis of industrial capitalism and the ongoing transition toward a "cognitive capitalism". The analysis is organised in three parts. The first one sketches the structural crisis of the industrialist paradigm inherited from development theories during the period 1950-1980. The second part stresses the constraints and challenges implied by the new shape of international division of labour based on cognitive principles and on the strengthening of intellectual property rights’ systems. Finally, the third part tries to identify certain features of a post-industrial development strategy based on a socially and ecologically sustainable development model."