The Knowledge-Based Economy: Globalization and Self-Organization of the Dynamics of Communication

Alongside economic exchange relations and political control, the organization of codified knowledge in scientific discourses has become increasingly a third coordination mechanism at the level of the social system. When three coordination mechanisms interact, one can expect the resulting dynamics to be complex and self-organizing. Each coordination mechanism is specific in terms of its code of communication. For example, “energy” has a meaning in physics very different from its meaning in the economy or for policy-makers. In addition to providing the communications with functionally different meanings, the codes can be symbolically generalized, and then meaning can be globalized. Symbolically generalized codes of communication can be expected to span competing horizons of meaning that ‘self-organize’ given historical conditions. From this perspective, the historical organization of meaning—for example, in discourses—can be considered as instantiations or retention mechanisms. In other words, meaning can further be codified in communication flows. Knowledge, for example, can be considered as a meaning which makes a difference. In the case of discursive knowledge, this difference is defined with reference to a code in the communication. When discursive knowledge is socially organized (e.g., as R&D) its dynamics can increasingly compete with other social coordination mechanisms in the construction and reproduction of a knowledgebased order.