Chapter 7 - Knowledge Production and Occupational Structure (2)

Abstract

It was inevitable that after Machlup's novel view of American economics that others would also examine the data, refine it, and offer additional descriptions of the modern knowledge worker. Two excellent scholars looked at the production of knowledge in the era 1960 to 1980, a shorter and more contemporary period than Machlup had. In this selection they examine the problem of data-who and how many knowledge workers there are suggesting that the problem is an important one to address. Given the fact that at the end of the 1990s one uses the phrase “knowledge worker” as if it were well understood, we come to a harsher reality here.