The knowledge society “opens a perspective that relies on the human will and ability to be self-determining – in complete contrast to the technicist concept of the ‘information society’. It is not computing power and miniaturization that will define the quality of society into the future. The critical factor will instead be choosing that which is beneficial, and our ability to endure ambivalences and uncertainty, to design our access to knowledge and error-tolerant dealing with what we do not know. Knowledge will become a key resource, and education will be a required condition for participation in social life.” Perhaps in less emphatic terms than in these prophecies famously associated with the knowledge society, IAE takes a critical stance on the notion of the “knowledge society” that was introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, and has since attracted innumerable definitions. In any event, the term refers to a paradigm shift in a post-industrial society whose economy is based on the resource of knowledge: “There has been a transition from Ford-style capitalism, which was based on mass production, strong trades unions and one family income as the norm, to a post-Ford phase, based on decentralized production, declining trades unions and the increasing participation of women in the workforce. A closely related shift was that from the industrial society, which depended on the technologies of the second industrial revolution, to what is described as the ‘knowledge society’, which is based on the information technology of the third industrial revolution. A third change is the transition from an international order of sovereign national states to a globalized order structure, in which large-scale transnational capital flows reduce the capability to levy taxes. I see all these developments as part of a journey to the knowledge society.”
The paradigm of the knowledge society requires critical examination in terms of its implications and imperatives, which are often all too compatible with neoliberal governing practices (as seen in the watchword of “lifelong learning” frequently associated with the knowledge society). It also requires scrutiny of its promises and opportunities, as emphasized in the idea of a society based on the productive force of knowledge. This could include restricting the monopoly of expert knowledge, or reformulating the concept of knowledge as such, defining knowledge not as the ability to reproduce factual information, but as the ability to decide what knowledge is sufficient and necessary for addressing a particular issue. Knowledge will any event remain a topical issue, given the undiminished intensity of the struggle for a share of the resource: “With all this enthusiasm for the knowledge society, questions of the legitimacy of specific knowledge, its representation and the different forms of access to various forms of knowledge often tend to be brushed aside. The claim that knowledge is now ‘directly or indirectly inaccessible to ever wider strata of the population’ (Stehr) ignores at the very least the fact that the conditions for access to and engagement with knowledge are radically different.”
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