Knowledge in production

A. Gore , 'Infrastructure for the Global Village', Scientific American (September 1991), p. 151.

There are certainly other important aspects of information in today's economy. Large quantities of information are required to circulate goods in a global market; and information itself has become a commodity. See D. Schiller, 'How to think about information' in V. Masco and J. Wasko (eds), The Political Economy of Information (Madison, 1988). The reproduction of labour power demands that the knowledge required to continue production be transmitted through the educational system and publishing. Propagandising to preserve the social order is handled, by and large, through 'information industries', including the news media and entertainment industry. Methods of coercive social control (via the police and military) keep pace with technology as well.

See H. Cleveland , 'The twilight of hierarchy' in B. Guile (ed.), Information Technologies and Social Change ( Washington, DC, 1985); also A. Toffler , Previews and Premises (New York, 1983).

Karl Marx , Grundrisse (New York, 1973), p. 706.

S. Cohen and J. Sysman , Manufacturing Matters: the myth of the post-industrial society ( New York, 1987), p. 118. See also note 12 below, which indicates that manufacturing output in the US continues to climb with fewer workers.

A. Toffler, op. cit., p. 20. Toffler uses 'waves' to describe in broad strokes these stages: the First Wave corresponds to the era of primarily agricultural-based manual labour; the Second Wave corresponds to mechanised industrial production; the Third Wave corresponds to the knowledge-intensive production based in electronics, biotechnology and new materials. See A. Toffler, The Third Wave (New York, 1980).

M. Goldhaber , Reinventing Technologies (Washington, DC, 1985), p. 61.

League for Programming Freedom, 'Against software patents' (Cambridge, MA, 1990).

Amal Kumar Naj , 'Bacteria protein may help to miniaturize computers', Wall Street Journal (4 September 1991), p. B-4.

US Department of Commerce, 1991 US Industrial Outlook (January 1991), p. 28-15. These figures are for the 'packaged software market', and do not include computer programming services or in-house computer programming.

Dieter Altehpohl, an executive with Alusuisse, quoted in Cleveland, op. cit.

N. Costello , J. Michie and S. Milne , Beyond the Casino Economy ( London, 1989); K. Kelly recently pointed out that 'automation has whittled hands-on labor to 15% of manufacturing costs, and in high-tech industries, it's closer to 5%', in 'A bean-counter's best friend', in The Quality Imperative (Business Week, 1991).

Quoted in D. Hayes, Behind the Silicon Curtain (Boston, 1989), p. 87.

S. Lash , 'Disintegrating firms', Socialist Review ( 1991).

New Jersey Bell Journal (1984), quoted in Cleveland, op. cit.

S. Rosenfeld , '"Smart Tractors" transform farming', San Francisco Examiner (10 June 1991).

T. Forester , High Tech Society (Cambridge, MA, 1987 ).

'NeXTWORLD Interview: Alvin and Heidi Toffler', NeXTWORLD (Vol. 1, no. 2, March/April 1991).

'All Next's factory lacks is orders', New York Times (24 December 1990), p. 23.

US Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, DC, 1991), p. 413. According to the labour theory of value, as the value (exchange value, that is) of other commodities drops, so does the value of labour power, itself a commodity. Since price gravitates around exchange value, the price of labour power, i.e., wages, would drop as well.

'Help not wanted', Business Week (23 December 1991).

D. Fusfeld , Economics; principles of political economy (Boston, 1988). See also Gandy, 'The political economy of communications competence', in V. Mosco and J. Wasko (eds), op. cit., for a discussion of 'information-rich' versus 'information-poor'.

'The rich are richer - and America may be the poorer', Business Week (18 November 1991 ).

S. Miller , The Electronic Chain Gang (1991, unpublished).

'New York State's prison system has quietly imposed mandatory work policies, locking inmates who refuse work in their cells for 23 hours a day and then blackballing them when they come up for parole... For [their labor] they are paid 60 cents a day at the start for a normal 40-hour workweek', 'New York State prisoners work or else', New York Times (27 January 1992).

N. Peery, at a talk given in San Francisco (21 February 1992).

'A great leap for software - and business', Business Week editorial (30 September 1991).

This process is no different from earlier efforts to break the power of skilled production workers. The automatic spinning mule, the cylinder textile printing machine, and the wool-combing machine all undermined the power of specific skilled textile trades. See G. Barsalla , The Evolution of Technology (Cambridge, 1988), p. 111.

'Thousands of electronic jobs vanishing', San Francisco Chronicle (4 December 1991).

'Both Tandem and Amdahl make large computers. That segment of the industry has suffered as customers move computing tasks to networks of inexpensive desktop machines.' 'Two computer makers report first-ever losses' , San Francisco Chronicle (24 January 1992 ).

'American firms send office work abroad to use cheaper labor' , Wall Street Journal (14 August 1991).

Describing a recent arrangement between a Russian computer design team and US computer manufacturer Sun Microsystems, the New York Times reports: 'The [Russian] team's full-time effort will come at an astoundingly low price for Sun. Its members will be paid a little more than their current salaries of a few hundred dollars a year in American dollars ... Top American computer designers sell their services for $100,000 a year or more, but both Sun officials and Mr Babayan said the Russians on the new team could not be paid that handsomely without engendering bitter feelings among their colleagues or causing inflation in the Russian economy ... Other high-technology companies are searching for similar windfalls.' 'Russian computer scientists hired by American company', New York Times (3 March 1992).

The Boston 3 case is a recent example. Three engineers who were active in Irish support (one of them with high security clearance from the US government) were variously charged with conspiracy over the export and manufacture of bomb-making materials and conspiracy to 'injure and destroy' a helicopter base in Northern Ireland. Despite a massive surveillance operation against them, which unearthed no weapons, bits of weapons or designs for building weapons, they were found guilty. In effect, the evidence against them amounted to a combination of their technical knowledge, some 'off-the-shelf' pieces and bits of wire, and their political affiliations. Knowledge, when combined with political conviction, now seems to be sufficient grounds for prosecution and conviction.

According to US census figures, some 7 per cent of US housing is vacant. San Francisco, with an estimated homeless population of 6,000 to 12,000, has 22,000 vacant housing units (San Francisco Examiner, April 1991).

A. Sivanandan , 'All that melts into air is solid: the hokum of New Times', Race & Class (Vol. 31, no. 3, 1990).

A.W. Branscomb , 'Property rights in information' in B. Guile , op. cit.