De industrialisering van kennis

Samenvatting

Industrialisation of knowledge. This article qualifies the idea that the coming of the so called knowledge society means a break with the logic of industrial society. Three elements of the belief that we will currently enter a new type of society are critically discussed: the belief in the discontinuity of history, the belief that knowledge is a wholly different kind of capital compared with land and money, and the belief that because knowledge is social 'in itself’ the knowledge society to come will be a more altruistic society than society in the industrial period. In contrast to these beliefs the article develops the thesis that we still live in the industrial era, albeit a new kind of industrial period in which knowledge is increasingly produced and managed on a industrial scale and manner.