History and Past Activities
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History and Past Activities |
Luis SuarezVilla
School of Social Ecology, University of California
Irvine, California
USA
email: LSUAREZ@uci.edu
THE RISE OF TECHNOCAPITALISM: EVIDENCE AND PROCESSES
The rise of technocapitalism involves the commodification of knowledge in faster and more diverse ways than at any previous time in human history. Commodification means transforming knowledge from tacit to explicit forms, standardizing and codifying it, and turning its utility value into exchange value.
This paper provides insights on the phenomena that mark the emergence of technocapitalism as a new form of market capitalism, and their influence on the commodification of knowledge for invention and innovation. The phenomena in question involve the rapid reproduction of creativity and a faster diffusion of knowledge, both of which have been supported by a massification of technical education and the rapid, longterm accumulation of knowledgesensitive infrastructure. Their contribution to the commodification of technological knowledge is most obvious in the pervasive corporatization of invention and innovation that has occurred in recent decades, and even more so in the emergence of continuous invention and innovation as a standard component of corporate strategy. The paper will analyze these phenomena and the processes they have unleashed from a macroanalytical perspective to provide an understanding of how they relate to one another and to the commodification of knowledge.
Sociology of Science and Technology NETwork - last update: April 2006