تغییر به سمت سرمایه داری فکری - نقش فن آوری های نوین

Despite various prophecies to the contrary — wishful or not — capitalist economic systems are as strong as ever after the post-war rise of competitive Asian economies, the downfall of the Soviet Union, and the resurgence of the US economy in the 1990s. Capitalism comes in many varieties and evolves in various ways, however. Much has also been written on diverse types of capitalism, seen as emerging in contemporary society, such as “alliance capitalism”, “corporate capitalism”, “Japanese capitalism”, “informational capitalism”, etc.2 This article argues that capitalism is now being transformed into a most important new form, what can be called intellectual capitalism. In broad terms intellectual capitalism can be interpreted as resulting from a confluence of a capitalist economy and a knowledge or information economy in which intellectual capital in some sense is dominant. Despite palpable problems to account for intellectual capital — an emerging research area in itself — an unfolding shift towards intellectual capitalism is suggested by a variety of indicators, as will be described in this article.

Despite various prophecies to the contrary — wishful or not — capitalist economic systems are as strong as ever after the post-war rise of competitive Asian economies, the downfall of the Soviet Union, and the resurgence of the US economy in the 1990s. Capitalism comes in many varieties and evolves in various ways, however. Much has also been written on diverse types of capitalism, seen as emerging in contemporary society, such as “alliance capitalism”, “corporate capitalism”, “Japanese capitalism”, “informational capitalism”, etc.2 This article argues that capitalism is now being transformed into a most important new form, what can be called intellectual capitalism. In broad terms intellectual capitalism can be interpreted as resulting from a confluence of a capitalist economy and a knowledge or information economy in which intellectual capital in some sense is dominant. Despite palpable problems to account for intellectual capital — an emerging research area in itself — an unfolding shift towards intellectual capitalism is suggested by a variety of indicators, as will be described in this article. The purpose of this article is, moreover, to argue that one main driving force behind this transformation or shift is technological change and the accumulation of new technologies in general. In particular, it is argued that the family of information and communication technologies, infocom technologies or ICTs for short, plays a pivotal role in the emergence of intellectual capitalism.3 The role of ICTs is then not unlike the role played by the family of material and energy technologies in the emergence of earlier forms of capitalism.4 Through a number of key functionalities (enhancing, e.g., codifiability of information and connectivity and excludability among agents), ICTs enable faster, more inexpensive and differentiated production and distribution of various old and new types of information that are of value to larger sets of users. ICTs also enable information to be commercially transactable at lower transaction costs. Most importantly ICTs enable more adequate privatization of gains from production and distribution of information on a commercial basis. The traditionally recognized malfunction of competitive information markets due to appropriability problems thereby becomes mitigated.5 Human communication and information exchange, be it on a habitual, altruistic or barter basis, then become more easily commodified and commercialized through these ICT functionalities. Expanding opportunities to profit from invention and information asymmetries together with increasing competitive pressures at all levels in society will make information and communication far more subjected to commercial transactions than we have as yet expected, let alone hoped for. In brief, intellectual capitalism, with its propensity to truck, barter and exchange knowledge and information on a commercial quid pro quo basis, may thus be looked upon as a further consequence of the technologically enhanced faculties of information and communication in line with Adam Smith's conjecture en passant above. However, it would obviously be overly techno-centric to argue that ICTs in themselves are the only driving force behind the emergence of intellectual capitalism. The arguments surrounding the shift towards intellectual capitalism could be made at greater length than possible in this article, pertaining to the individual, profession, company, industry, market, national, technology, management, institutional and international levels (see further Granstrand, 1999). Besides the role of technology in general and ICTs in particular, the role of the IPR (Intellectual Property Right) institution will be dealt with here. Finally, the article gives a brief speculative outlook on possible future technology related shifts in society.

Some new concerns over intellectual capitalism are also presently developing. One example is economic crime, or theft and fraud of intellectual capital in and among developed and developing countries. ICTs may actually offer attractive crime opportunities because of expensive policing and law enforcement. In fact, there might also be substantial difficulties in providing proper legislation in time. ICTs moreover offer new business opportunities and lower transaction costs, but probably at the cost of increased societal surveillance and control, and perceived losses of personal privacy, integrity and freedom. Thus, intellectual capitalism may clash with one set of fundamental humanistic values. The commercialization of human communication may experience a similar clash. One conceivable future scenario, admittedly a techno-centric one, is that new technology systems will again fundamentally change the economic system, away from intellectual capitalism, perhaps to new or hybrid forms of economic systems which are not even readily classifiable as capitalistic. A new family of technologies is emerging in and around biotechnology and medical health care, call them biohealth technologies. Today, such technologies emerge under quite capitalistic forms in corporations, and also to a varying extent in hospitals and related institutions, at least in the USA. The patent system itself has also traditionally worked best from a company point of view in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry, and the system is being controversially extended into genetic engineering. However, the generation and exploitation of biohealth technologies is likely to clash with fundamental humanistic values. At a global level, with less homogeneous capitalistic traditions, such clashes may increase to such proportions that intellectual capitalism has to change. Possibly, pressures for change will also come from a graying baby-boom generation, if the health care sector does not perform satisfactorily under the capitalistic forms that are being tried. Clashes with fundamental cultural values and concerns over change may well spur the emergence of new types of economic systems, be they capitalist, quasi-capitalist or something else, yet to be identified.