Knowledge as a factor of production. Knowledge is broader than information. Knowledge includes tacit knowledge, skill, and critical and creative thinking. In other words, the study of knowledge involves epistemology, logic and language, psychology, and other relevant fields in addition to information.
Information can be formalized but a great deal of knowledge cannot, at least given present limitations and future prospects through technology.
Labor as the human component of productions that complements capital (land included) had been conceived in terms of time, strength and ability to preform tasks. In this view, labor and capital are substitutable.
In the expanded view that includes knowledge in the broad sense, this is not the case. Accumulated knowledge is the bedrock on which the foundations of a society or civilization are erected. This is what differentiates the human species from other species of sentient beings with whom humans share the planet.
Accumulated knowledge is largely a commons, the shared inheritance, so to speak, of humankind. Innovation is based on adding to that accumulation. Intellectual property—patents, copyright, trade secrets and so forth — may isolate some of this innovation for a time, but eventually it all gets added to the storehouse of knowledge.
Without considering this factor and including it to the degree possible, economics remains an oversimplification that is not capable of dealing with the key factor.
A Little Knowledge
Peter Radford
“Information can be formalized, but a great deal of knowledge cannot, at least given present limitations and future prospects through technology.”
ReplyDeleteAgreed. Experiential knowledge cannot be formalized.
For example, a man can spend his entire life reading about what it is like to be a woman, but he will never fully understand what it’s like to be a woman until he has experienced life as a woman. (Sex change procedures don’t count, since every cell in his body retains male chromosomes).
Many people who have “near death experiences” say they come to see that the purpose of life is to experience it. They say it is through experiences that we develop spiritually.
“Accumulated knowledge is largely a commons, the shared inheritance, so to speak, of humankind.”
Knowledge of practice and technique (e.g. medicine) can be cumulative, but experiential knowledge is not cumulative in a collective sense. Rather, experiential knowledge is a personal thing for each individual. This is why social ills keep being repeated over time. Collectively speaking there are some lessons we never seem to learn.
One exception to this would be a group of people who experience war together. They share a common experience, but their experiential knowledge dies with them.
Also, regarding the cumulative aspects of "formal" knowledge, much of this formal “knowledge” consists of delusions born of lies and hoaxes (e.g. the myth of the six million,™ or the myth that Abraham Lincoln was saintly).