A “kenniseconomie” and the export of knowledge
Wars are rarely started on ideology. Although that might be a factor or even the trigger, resources are always the motivator behind these conflicts. If it is land, natural resources, or riches, the driving factor of war is resources that one has and the other wants. In fact, recourses are the driving force behind everything we do in life. They determine life expectancy, cultural surroundings, potential job, etc.
Looking at the way countries use recourses can be best described as economies. For many decades social scientists have identified four different kinds of economies, traditional, command, market and mixed economic systems. These four are different ways governments, cultures and businesses look to use recourses to generate a profit.
The traditional economy is the only exception to the rule that every economy seeks to build a profit.. Often survival of a family unit is the ultimate goal. Also, beliefs, customs, traditions, religions, etc. are ingrained in the way that people operate their businesses.[1] An important distinction with the other economic systems is that every person has a distinct economic role in that society.
A command economy has some similar tendencies in the sense that every person has a specific role to fulfill. However, the biggest difference is that the motivation does not come from the tradition, a need for survival or beliefs. Rather, the government dictates how people should use the recourses and what their role in the economy is. Today we would tend to label those kinds of economies as falling under the communist ideology. Many people would condemn this system because they believe that every person has a right to do the work that they want to do. However, proponents would argue that governments, or companies, are able to maximize social welfare because this kind economic system serves the government first.
Thirdly, a market economy is a system were competition makes economic decisions. When a company is started in a market economy it immediately becomes the rival of every existing corporation that offers anything related to this startup. From a consumer’s perspective this is close to an ideal situation. First, companies come to them and secondly competing businesses drive the price down. The gas station that offers its recourse for ten cents more a gallon than the one next door is going to either go out of business or he will have to drop his price as well.
Mixed economies are nations that have a free market but the government is in charge of part of it. In essence it is a combination of a command and market economy. There are many different variants to this method with the government being in control of large or very small segments of the nation’s economy. Even in America we have Mail services, education, Social Security, and now healthcare. These are sectors that the government has a monopoly on and so making America no a complete market economy. This ideology is based on the idea that the private sector cannot supply the needed resources in an efficient, cheap or unbiased way. A classic example is, as mentioned, health care. The government decided that the private sector was not able to guarantee health care to every person and so they stepped in and began providing a version of insurance.
These four methods of running business and markets are often influenced by the culture, leaders, history and natural resources. Traditional, command, market and mixed economic systems all have their benefits and disadvantages. However, there is a new type of economy that is beginning to form and it has everything to do with resources.
As we said culture, leaders, history and natural resources are all factors that influence the way that we look at the recourses available to supply our needs or turn a profit. However, we are living in a world that in an increasing measure is dealing with factors that can change rapidly. Leaders can be elected that have totally different ideas of how economies should be run. History is being added to our time line every day we live and the way history is interpreted is also rapidly changing. Lastly, natural resources are not something that we can necessarily depend on and we see the economic gravity point shifting from mostly western countries to middle-eastern and Asian nations were recourses are still abundantly available.
With these factors in mind most of the north/western European countries have changed their mindset on how to do economics. Not only that, they also shifted their methods. Instead of being defined by the traditional creating, producing and exporting they started to rely on the export of knowledge. This was not new, it was conceived in the early 1960’s and embraced by President Clinton who said, “In today’s knowledge-based economy, what you earn depends on what you learn.”[2] However, it wasn’t until the early 2000’s that these European nations together decided that they wanted be identified as knowledge based economies. It was so popular that they even coined a new term for it “kenniseconomie.”[3] These countries, such as Germany, Iceland, Finland, Netherlands, Ireland, etc., decided to emphasize promoting engineering degrees and assisting in several different ways research and development companies. Besides that, these nations are seeking to create an environment that has an efficient infrastructure, both in travel and IT, a high leveled educational system that is available to everyone, and enough investors that are willing to support new ideas.
The World Bank Institute created an indicator to measure the priority a nations government gives to being knowledge based economy and the effectiveness that their efforts have. Today this indicator is called the Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM).[4] The top ten of this indicator is filled with European countries. America is precedent by seven North-Western/Western European nations, six of which were part of the original pact to strongly emphasis and encourage their economies to adapt to the ‘Kenniseconomie’[5] model.
The benefits to such a system are quite obvious. First they do not depend on traditional resources as it does not produce a product. A classic example of this are the several flood barriers that Dutch engineering companies designed although they, besides some smaller crucial parts, did not actually build them. The barrier that controls the water flow through the Thames to London was designed by a Dutch firm which received over 2 billion dollars for this project.[6] Another benefit is that there will always be a need for knowledge in this world. As the saying goes, knowledge does brings power.
This being said there are some serious drawbacks to this kind of economic system. Besides the fact that knowledge based economies contributed greatly to the birth of digital warfare there is also an ethical question. In our efforts to research and develop new ideas and innovations are we being so careful to guard it for ourselves that we are neglecting an important responsibility? In almost every other economy every person that contributes to a product reaps some benefit off of it. However, a knowledge based economy separates the development process from the production process. Because of this they create an imbalance. An imbalance which, if businesses are not careful, could lead to discrimination. We need to be careful not to discriminate a minority that has not had access to as many recourses as we have had. Education, infrastructure, capital, etc. are all recourses that power a knowledge based economy. And as our reading would agree with, a minority does not simply have to be a numerical minority, but is a group that has not had an equal share of resources.
As Christians I believe that we have a unique position to fulfill with regards to the emerging of knowledge based economies. On the one hand we are to use our God given recourses to the best of our ability. God has given us certain platforms to stand on and we must take advantage of that. However, at the same time we are to be willing to share and understand that those who contribute in this global economy to our needs must to be valued. As we read in Luke 12:48, “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more.” We have been given many resources and it is logical reasoning that we use that in an energy efficient, strengths based way, as a knowledge based economy seeks to do. But in the end we are called to bear the responsibility of those resources wisely.
[1] https://blog.udemy.com/types-of-economic-systems/
[2] http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=1198
[3] http://www.mt.nl/business/nederland-een-kenniseconomie/67640
[4] http://go.worldbank.org/39Z6SV9C8
[5] https://www.cpb.nl/sites/default/files/publicaties/download/de-pijlers-onder-de-kenniseconomie-opties-voor-institutionele-vernieuwing.pdf
[6] http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/static/documents/Leisure/Thames_Barrier_2010_project_pack.pdf
