On the Increasing Complexity of Information in the Late 20th Century: Knowledge Workers – a Short History, Part 2
[We] are living through a period of profound change and transformation of the shape of society and its underlying economic base … The nature of production, trade, employment and work in the coming decades will be very different from what it is today. The determinants of economic success will be different to those that were relevant in the past or those required at the present time.
Shaping our Future (p. 3)
In yesterday’s post I asserted that the knowledge worker emerged from two defining forces: the rise in complexity of economic activities, and the increasing globalization of economic affairs. At the conclusion of the piece, I suggested that the the knowledge economy has it’s roots in the Cold War: to extend the agricultural analogy, a case could be made for saying that this economy was ‘seeded’ by the growth of the United States’ sphere of influence in the period 1947-1964 (the first-generation “hi-tech” economies including Japan and Taiwan, as well as in Federal Republic of Germany following the “Miracle on the Rhine” were all central to the US Government’s policy of Containment). The rapid industrialization (or re-industrialization in the case of West Germany) and growth in these regions were the perfect environment for the emergence of the nascent knowledge-working class.
From the 1980′s, through the 1990′s and on to the early 21st century, the rise in knowledge complexity is being driven by the combined forces of the information technology revolution and the increasing pace of technological change. Globalization is being driven by national and international deregulation, and by the IT-related communications revolution. As noted by Houghton & Sheehan in A Primer on the Knowledge Economy (2000) in the last twenty years in particular, an exponential growth has occurred in the application of computing and communications technologies in all areas of business and community life. This “explosion” has been driven by substantial falls in the cost of computing and communications per unit of performance, and by the rapid development of applications relevant to the needs of users (p.5).
As is well-established by now, the Internet enabled these technologies come together, “and it is the Internet phenomenon that exemplifies the IT revolution” (p.5). In the first decade after its invention,
the Internet was an academic research network. By 1989 there were 159,000 Internet hosts worldwide. Just ten years later, there were more than 43 million (see Figure 1).
According to the Internet Systems Consortium by July 2008, that figure had increased to five hundred million Internet domains (see Figure 2).
Figure 2 Internet Domain count, July 2008
We can say that information technology as realized through the Internet has enabled the construction of a stable platform which provides the facility to manipulate, store, and transmit large quantities of data at low cost; and the pervasiveness of Internet technologies has made information technology an important channel for every component of the economy. With the low cost of managing information, the application of knowledge to all aspects of the economy has grown, and the knowledge complexity of economic activities greatly increased.
However, as noted Working for the Future: Technology and Employment in the Global Knowledge Economy
…it is important to note that the term ‘Knowledge Economy’ refers to the overall economic structure that is emerging, not to any one, or combination of these phenomena.
More…
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References:
Forfás (the policy advisory and coordination board for industrial development, science
and technology in Ireland) (1996) Shaping our Future. [Internet] Available from: http://www.forfas.ie/publications/archive/sof/chap1.htm [Accessed 16 August 2008]
Houghton, J. Sheehan, P. (Eds.) (2000) A Primer on the Knowledge Economy. Centre for Strategic Economic Studies. Victoria University
McDowell, A. (2006) Globalisation and the Knowledge Economy – the Case of Ireland. Forfás [Internet] Available from: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/59/5/37563948.pdf [Accessed 16 August 2008]
Sheehan, P. Tegart, G. (Eds.) (1998) Working for the Future: Technology and Employment in the Global Knowledge Economy. Victoria University Press.
August 22 2008 11:48 am | Uncategorized
