Dear Loet
I see your point in resource vs. knowledge based economy and I am aware that
you researched extensively in this area. We are probably looking from quite
a different perspectives on these issues. From mine perspective, the
important questions is how socioeconomic systems evolve in one direction or
the other (resource vs. knowledge) and how this evolution impacts on the
environment. For example, how and why Western societies moved from the
"resource" based to the "knowledge" based economies. Or what makes India to
extend in the of "M" compared to the "N" direction? The matrix itself cannot
say nothing about the impact on environment of different combinations MxN,
which is my primary concern in this discussion. As an example, let's extend
the New York-Calcutta dichotomy at the respective national levels. As you
see from the table, the US, which has knowledge-based infrastructure
substantially more developed than India, has its respective ecological
impact world-wide 13 times higher (as measured by Ecological Footprint) and
it consumes 15 times more energy per capita. At the same time, the energy
efficiency of their economies measured by the GDP per unit of energy use is
nearly the same - in fact US lags a bit behind India. Few people would
agree, except perhaps neoclassical economists, that this situation points in
the US being more sustainable than India. In fact many ecological economist
would argue the other way around.
2004
EF
(ha)
GDP per unit of energy use (PPP$/kg oil equiv)
energy use p.c.
(kg oil equiv)
US
9,57
4,0
7,996
India
0,76
4,4
515
(Source: World Bank 2004. The Little Green Data Book. Washington D.C.: The
World Bank.; Ecological footprint: http://redefiningprogress.org/footprint/)
I don't believe that strictly formal or strictly physical (thermodynamic)
approaches can answer plausibly questions related to sustainability of
developed and developing economies. The problems and alternative solutions
are embedded in a wider cultural context of individual societies, therefore
I insist on the relvance of worldviews. The Western worldview triad
(rationality, materialism and working ethic) can be derived from economic
history of Western Europe without resorting to Max Weber and the Protestant
ethic but this issue is out of the main scope of the discussion theme. The
main point of the role of Weltanschauung (which elements are often find in
the definitions of culture) can be rephrased as following: collective
behavior is streamlined by institutions and institutions are contingent on a
particular culture. One cannot change arbitrarily the first without first
changing the latter. And if the prevailing behavioral patterns related to
production and especially to consumption do not change substantially in
Western societies than I don believe that any increase in the knowledge
component of economy may compensate it. I think that Stan put all this very
clearly "All exist in the material world, and ALL are resource based!
Definitions of "knowledge-based economy" that I found from OECD and UNCE
give the impression that this constraint has been somehow circumvented.
That is all from my side for the moment. I will be out of the office for the
rest of the week and Bob will post our joint reply to Pedro.
Thank you for your comments and insights!
Igor
----- Original Message -----
From: "Loet Leydesdorff" <loet@leydesdorff.net>
To: "'Igor Matutinovic'" <igor.matutinovic@gfk.hr>; "'Robert
Ulanowicz'"
<ulan@cbl.umces.edu>; <fis@listas.unizar.es>
Sent: Saturday, April 30, 2005 4:50 PM
Subject: RE: [Fis] Economic Networks
Dear Igor and colleagues,
I don't buy your definitions of "Weltanschauung" as being necessarily
homogenized under a dominant one which can be simplified as "materialism",
"rationality" and "Protestant ethic". I think that we have moved in
sociology beyond these Weberian definitions. However, I agree that the other
issue is more interesting for the discussion on this list. (Perhaps, the two
problems cannot so easily be separated, but let us assume that for a
moment.)
The transition from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy is
not to be placed at the middle of the 20th century as your email suggested,
since this has been a post-Coldwar development. The first documents using
the words "knowledge-based economy" in OECD circles are from 1996 (on the
basis of drafts from 1994). Thus, we are talking about a current transition.
For example, this transition was central to the Lisbon agreements of the EU
summit of 2000.
What is the difference? Let me take a simple example. Compare two megacities
like Calcutta and New York. Both have of the order of 10^7 inhabitants. New
York is much more resource-intensive (in terms of using energy, etc.) than
Calcutta, but few of us would consider Calcutta as more sustainable than New
York. For example, in New York the streets are reasonably maintained and
clean, and one lives with much less risk of infections, etc.
What makes the difference between Calcutta and New York? I would say a
knowledge-based infrastructure like first a sewage system, but then also a
telephone system, a subway system, etc. In short, a whole set of
communication networks in New York which does not exist in Calcutta. The
system is better sustainable because a set of coordination mechanisms is in
place which proliferates on top of "hardware".
Let us formalize this notion of communication systems which are added to the
people. As noted above, the N of both systems is of the order of 10^7. The
communication systems can be considered as an M. Thus a matrix N x M is
shaped. In the case of Calcutta N dominates this matrix and therefore the
system is "natural". As M expands, it can take over the dynamics. The
supporting capacity of the system (the maximum entropy) is N x M. The
extension of M to (M + 1) enlarges the matrix with N (= 10^) possibilities.
The extension of M is knowledge-based, while the extension of N is
resource-based.
Please, note that this has nothing to do with "materialsm", "realism" or "a
Protestant work ethic" as you wished to suggest.
With kind regards,
Loet
________________________________
Loet Leydesdorff
Honory Chair of the City of Lausanne (March - July)
Universit� de Lausanne, School of Economics (HEC),
BFSH 1, 1015 Lausanne-Dorigny, Switzerland
Tel.:+41-21-6923469
Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam
Tel.: +31-20-525 6598; fax: +31-20-525 3681
loet@leydesdorff.net;
http://www.leydesdorff.net
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Igor Matutinovic [mailto:igor.matutinovic@gfk.hr]
> Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 11:00 AM
> To: Loet Leydesdorff; 'Robert Ulanowicz'; fis@listas.unizar.es
> Subject: Re: [Fis] Economic Networks
>
> Dear Loet
>
> Thank you for your remarks! Our definition of "worldview" is
> basically equal to the term Weltanschauung, and differs only
> in that it explicitly introduces objective knowledge as its
> constitutive part - a distinction that is methodologically
> appropriate for analysis of Western societies. We do
> acknowledge the existence of mutually competing worldviews,
> but there is always a dominant one that streamlines
> collective behavior. We can, for example, condense the
> prevailing (Western) worldview around three basic
> dimensions: materialism, rationality and hard-wired working
> ethic (details are presented in Matutinovic, forthcoming in
> International Journal of Sustainable Development and World
> Ecology). This may be put also in different terms
> (dimensions), but any such combination of values and beliefs
> must be internally coherent and it must logically link to the
> extant institutional framework. The very existence of
> alternative worldviews in modernity, which "disturb one
> another and thus provide another source of change", as you
> mention it, provides one of the pillars of societal
> adaptability. We wished to emphasize that the pace of
> adaptive institutional change is unpredictable, and
> therefore, Western civilization runs the risk of a major
> environmental crisis (see for example latest reports on the
> state of global ecosystems: Mooney, H., Cropper, A., and
> Reid, W. (2005).
> Confronting the human dilemma: How can ecosystems provide
> sustainable services to benefit society? Nature, Vol.
> 434:7033, 561-562.; Scheffer, M., Carpenter, S., Foley, J.
> A., Folke, C., and Walker, B. (2001). Catastrophic Shifts In
> Ecosystems. Nature, 413, 591-596.).
>
> Concerning the knowledge-based economy and its impact on
> environment, I have a question: if we, for example, label the
> first fifty years of the 20th century as belonging to the
> resource-based economy and the subsequent period as a
> transition to the knowledge-based economy, than I can see no
> improvement at all. On the contrary, as our technology
> becomes more advanced and our communication possibilities
> widen and become more sophisticated our impact on environment
> increases. This can be seen on the example of IT industry
> which epitomizes the "New" economy: computer manufacturing
> uses about 1000 toxic materials, including heavy metals, and
> its product life cycle is extremely short resulting in
> enormous waste disposal and leaching of toxics into
> environment. Following is the quote form E. Williams,
> Environ. Sci. Technol., 38 (22), 6166 -6174, 2004:
> "The total energy and fossil fuels used in producing a
> desktop computer with 17-in. CRT monitor are estimated at
> 6400 megajoules (MJ) and 260 kg, respectively. This indicates
> that computer manufacturing is energy
> intensive: the ratio of fossil fuel use to product weight is
> 11, an order of magnitude larger than the factor of 1-2 for
> many other manufactured goods.
> This high energy intensity of manufacturing, combined with
> rapid turnover in computers, results in an annual life cycle
> energy burden that is surprisingly high: about 2600 MJ per
> year, 1.3 times that of a refrigerator.
> In contrast with many home appliances, life cycle energy use
> of a computer is dominated by production (81%) as opposed to
> operation (19%)."
> Besides IT, our increased ability to apply efficiently
> knowledge to manufacturing resulted in a myriad of new
> consumer products, cheap and attractive for use, which mass
> production, consumption, and short life cycles overburden the
> environment and degrade ecosystems around the earth.
> In the meantime, the "resource based" part of our economic
> activities did not diminish materially, except for their
> share in GDP. Concerning Western energy intensive
> agriculture, it is so inextricably tied to oil reserves (both
> in terms of energy and in terms of chemical ingredients for
> mineral fertilizers and pesticides) and I have not been able
> to learn so far about an alternative, plausible solution for
> the post-petroleum era.
>
> Perhaps you may have an idea how to relate economic networks
> (as Bob and myself briefly addressed them), your vision of
> the knowledge-based economy, and the constraints arising from
> the dominant Western worldview. This may be an interesting
> direction for further discussion...
>
> The best
> Igor
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Loet Leydesdorff" <loet@leydesdorff.net>
> To: "'Robert Ulanowicz'" <ulan@cbl.umces.edu>;
<fis@listas.unizar.es>
> Sent: Wednesday, April 27, 2005 7:49 AM
> Subject: RE: [Fis] Economic Networks
>
>
> > Dear Igor and Bob,
> >
> > Thank you for your interesting opening to the discussion.
> > While reading it, I had the impression that the
"worldview"
> is too much
> > conceptualized as a single and closed system like a Kuhnian
> paradigm.
> > Since
> > the 16th century worldviews are in flux and internally
> > differentiated/differentiating. The economic system of the
> market, for
> > example, is mapped cognitively in a discourse other than
> the discourse of
> > physics or the discourse of power. The different worldviews
> (codifications
> > of the communication) disturb one another and thus can
> provide another
> > source of change.
> >
> > Perhaps, your own statement can be considered as one such
> worldview,
> > namely
> > one of ecosystems theory. In this view the resources are finite and
> > therefore exhaustible. Information resources, however, are
> not finite. In
> > a
> > knowledge-based economy (unlike a resource-based economy)
> other dynamics
> > for
> > the expansion may feed new loops into the system. For
> example, Holland is
> > one of the largest producers of tomatos while tomatos can
> not be bred in
> > Holland naturally (because of the lack of sunshine). The
> production of
> > these
> > tomatos is completely knowledge-based. Indeed, this is
> energy-costly, but
> > energy is only finite at the level of the universe (and not
> at the level
> > of
> > the earth).
> >
> > Thus, one can entertain very different worldviews. The
> interfaces among
> > them
> > can be considered as sources of innovation, for example, when market
> > perspectives and research perspectives can be interfaced.
> >
> > Perhaps, you can easily integrate this into your model?
> >
> > With kind regards,
> >
> >
> > Loet
> >
> > ________________________________
> >
> > Loet Leydesdorff
> > Universit� de Lausanne, School of Economics (HEC);
> > Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR)
> >
>
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Received on Tue May 3 17:07:00 2005
