Capital, Power and Knowledge According to Thorstein Veblen: Reinterpreting the Knowledge-Based Economy

Abstract

The works of Thorstein Bunde Veblen on knowledge and capital offer an original approach to account for the recent transformations of the capitalist system by disconnecting capital and productivity. Capital is no longer understood as means of production; rather, it becomes control over the means of production, and it takes the form of any socio-institutional power that increases firms' earning-capacity. Veblen's theory of capital becomes in fact a general theory of economic power. By using Veblen's theory of capital, the recent structural transformations that gave rise to the knowledge- based economy shouldn't be viewed in terms of new forms of productivity but rather in terms of the new ways and means for business interests to extend their control over industrial knowledge, and over the community in general.