The Knowledge Economy

by Roberto Mangabeira Unger

Revolutionary account of the transformative potential of the knowledge economy
Adam Smith and Karl Marx recognized that the best way to understand the economy is to study the most advanced practice of production. Today that practice is no longer conventional it is the radically innovative vanguard known as the knowledge economy. In every part of the production system it remains a fringe excluding the vast majority of workers and businesses. This book explores the hidden nature of the knowledge economy and its possible futures. The confinement of the knowledge economy to these insular vanguards has become a driver of economic stagnation and inequality throughout the world. Traditional mass production has stopped working as a shortcut to economic growth. But the alternative—a deepened and socially inclusive form of the knowledge economy—continues to lie beyond reach in even the richest countries. The shape of contemporary politics on both the left and the right reflects a failure to come to terms with this dilemma and to overcome it. Unger explains the knowledge economy in the truncated and confined form that it has today and proposes the way to a knowledge economy for the changes not just in economic institutions but also in education, culture, and politics. Just as Smith and Marx did in their time, he uses an understanding of the most advanced practice of production to rethink both economics and the economy as a whole.

Genres: Economics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics

304 pages, Hardcover

Published March 19, 2019

About the author

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (born 24 March 1947) is a philosopher and politician. He has written notable works including Politics: A Work In Constructive Social Theory and The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time. He has developed his views and positions across many fields, including social, and political, and economic theory. In legal theory, he is best known for his work in the 1970s-1990s while at Harvard Law School as part of the Critical Legal Studies movement, which is held to have helped disrupt the methodological consensus in American law schools and which led to the writing of What Should Legal Analysis Become? His political activity helped the transition to democracy in Brazil in the aftermath of the military regime, and culminated with his appointment as Brazil's Minister of Strategic Affairs in 2007 and again in 2015. His late work in economics culminates in his characterization and program toward The Knowledge Economy. His work is seen to offer a vision of humanity and a program to empower individuals and change institutions.

At the core of his philosophy is a view of humanity as greater than the contexts in which it is placed. He sees each individual possessed with the capability to rise to a greater life. At the root of his social thought is the conviction that the social world is made and imagined. His work begins from the premise that no natural or necessary social, political, or economic arrangements underlie individual or social activity. Property rights, liberal democracy, wage labor—for Unger, these are all historical artifacts that have no necessary relation to the goals of free and prosperous human activity. For Unger, the market, the state, and human social organization should not be set in predetermined institutional arrangements, but need to be left open to experimentation and revision according to what works for the project of individual and collective empowerment. Doing so, he holds, will enable human liberation.

Reviews

[Richard Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some important ideas here, but they are buried under a mountain of jargon and hampered by an unrealistic utopian optimism that overpromises. The basic idea is that we need to rethink our approach to education, property, contract law and economics to move in a direction that will allow the broad population, not just the technological elite, to get the benefits of an economy where the cutting edge is defined by knowledge and information. I'm all for this. I remember that when the internet first got big, I was running around telling people that it was going to prove Marx right while simulteously turning Marx on his head because the means of production were going to be taken away from the capitalist class and returned to the masses. We were going to have broad based ownership and wealth creation with an engine of never ending innovation. This is pretty much Mr. Unger's vision, and though it didn't turn out the way that I had predicted, he is telling us that this vision can still be realized. It just takes the courage to rethink things and create a better framework that he calls "Inclusive Vanguardism" in which the great majority of people worldwide can flourish. Maybe. It's a good idea, and we should give it a shot. Mr. Unger is completely right that we need to rethink property law and contract law. There's no natural law that made them they way that they are today. We can make them operate more fairly by making it harder for them to create ossified semi-permanent structures that promote insane concentration of wealth. And this should be done by changing the basic rules, not by putting on bandaids. In our current system, property is indeed theft, but it doesn't have to stay that way. We can reimagine a system of production and exchange that has elements of the old system, but is also radically different and better.

[Jules · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very thoughtful and interesting book. I highly recommend watching Roberto Mangaberia Unger deliver his lectures on this topic. He’s an excellent lecturer and hearing his voice when you read this is very helpful. He has kindly released his writing and recordings for free on his site.

Unger is a very classy scholar, and his skill is reflected in his writing. Every word counts in this book and each sentence could be a thesis. Unger is a legal scholar and thinks in way, that reflects his understanding of his work. I personally struggled with the formality and each chapter left me exhausted. That said it was very useful for my studies and appreciate his way of seeing things.

[James Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most important book on the economics of the decade, at least, as regards the future of the discipline and the direction of society. I empathize with the other reviewers—the book is dense, and each sentence draws on definitions and constructed meanings derived from the enormous corpus of Unger's other works. The book is difficult to summit, but completely worth the struggle. I also echo the advice of other reviewers to seek out Unger's lectures on YouTube, or his shorter writings and courses. He taught this book alongside two of his other programmatic works, "The Left Alternative" and "Democracy Realized," and as a set, they work well together and fill in some of the background meanings not treated with in full within this book. To really master the background assumptions, though, it is worth reading "Politics."

[Rafael Nardini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hoje, as sete maiores companhias em valor de mercado nasceram no Vale do Silício ou operam no mundo digital. São em ordem, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Tesla, Facebook e Nvidia. Seus faturamentos são imensos, as margens de lucro, gigantescas, e o número de pessoas que empregam, quase sempre muito pequeno.
Esta é uma mudança inevitável imposta pela tecnologia.
Na economia do conhecimento, esta em que nos metemos e não conseguimos encontrar saída, gente capacitada ganha bons salários e faz a fortunas das empresas em que trabalham. Parte da tecnologia que produzem leva á automação em outros ramos da economia.
Há um processo de concentração de dinheiro em curso. Quem produz as tecnologias que dispensam o trabalho humano, quem financia estas companhias ou cuida dos fluxos de dinheiro no digital é quem enriquece. Sempre empregando muito pouca gente.
No passado, empresas como Ford e GE, foram também gigantes a seu tempo. Mas dependiam de incontáveis funcionários para realizar tarefas.

Pergunta de 1 milhão de dólares:

Vamos todos morrer na miséria e desempregados nessa nova economia?

Não. Não vamos. É inevitável que uma grande onda de desemprego por automação venha. Democracias liberais, porém, foram criadas para garantir liberdade, dignidade e voz para todos. Regular mercados para impedir que massas inteiras sejam jogadas na miséria é o que elas fazem. Preste atenção: é assim desde a revolução industrial. Chegou a hora de agirem novamente.
É fundamental o entendimento da sua participação nesse processo: não é o seu telefone ou sua televisão que são smart. Infelizmente, é você que acabou se tornando um estúpido.
Faz parte do jogo.

[Jack Yin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's written in Unger's typically lofty and abstract style, but if you can cram your brain into the vocabulary he uses and the world he inhabits, his point and his dreams are genuinely interesting.