[PEN-L:28251] Re: Re: Re: Something strange about this crisis

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "joanna bujes" <joanna.bujes@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, July 20, 2002 11:39 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:28249] Re: Re: Something strange about this crisis


> At 10:50 AM 07/20/2002 -0700, you wrote:
> >So if the main intangible assets of a firm are the possibilities of
continuing
> >production of knowledge and information that can be commodified, then for
many
> >firms, even with their intellectual property protections, a deflation of
their
> >stock price represents a massive devaluation of the types of knowledge and
> >information they are diffusing via markets and a massive reduction in the
> >expectations that knowledge of equivalent or greater value will be
> >forthcoming.
> >Reification aside, in a sense knowledge has become a victim of it's success
as
> >well as it's failure. Braverman's paradox [206-208 'old' edition] is becoming
> >ever more pertinent.
>
> Sorry, I totally don't get this. First, I disagree about the "knowledge";
> firms have a brand and, through that brand and great expense, they also
> have control of the market. The bit about devaluation of stock =
> devaluation of knowledge makes no sense. Please explain.
>
> Joanna


========================

2nd issue first:

A stock's price is the present market willingness to pay for a claim on the
expected future earnings stream of a firm. If what a firms sells is
knowledge/information/expertise/credibility -the McKinsey's, Arthur Andersen's
etc.- then deception and/or market saturation for their services bites them real
hard, because of the ease of appropriability-reproduction of what they sell.
It's a case of once you've taught your customers how to fish and they all spread
that knowledge amongst themselves -spillovers and the like- then you've either
got to create a better method of fishing and patent it, or you've got to create
something other than a method of catching fish. Heck the big accounting firms
went into "consulting" and "knowledge management" precisely because the profits
as mere accounting firms just weren't as fat as the good old days. Those rents
were competed away because the knowledge of accounting was no longer scarce.

Or look at MSoft; gotta constantly come up with new tweaks of code and
applications and create the desire of their customers for the next bug - I mean
feature :-) , hence a premium is put on the novelty/knowledge aspects of their
enterprise. The capacity for knowledge production is the main asset of the firm
in the eyes of the stockholders [for the stockholders who actually give a shit
about what firms make any more].

This connects with the first issue: Branding is a form of expression of
proprietary knowledge that is designed for the capturing of yet another scarce
resource; attention. What does attention do? Amazing stuff since "it"
contributes to keeping us alive, but one of the main activities "it" engages in
is seeking novelty. The quest for novelty and the fleeing of boredom is intense
in knowledge/information saturated societies and in the narcissism that is the
warp and woof of attention in contemporary capitalism. How to turn the knowledge
in the "knowledge economy" against the narcissism that partly drives it?

So it seems to me that right now we're seeing a massive re-pricing of the
intellectual assets of lots of firms that have produced too much "stuff" because
some forms of knowledge are so abundant throughout the economy even as ignorance
and waste are even more abundant. At the same time there's a lot of stuff going
on with regards to retheorizing the public-private distinction with regards to
knowledge/information production and distribution that will make for some very
interesting politics post Enron if the class unconscious can be tapped. This
could/would go far beyond the kinds of "right to know" policy regimes that
activists have fought for and gotten since the 70's.

Ian