Living on Thin Abstractions: More Power/Economic Knowledge

Abstract

Debates over the role of knowledge and know-how as key economic assets in the contemporary economy, although far from new, are now increasingly couched in terms of a new-found economic immateriality which allows for their costless reproduction and widespread geographical dissemination. In the rush to tie down and reproduce economic know-how in abstract codifiable form, it has become almost baffling to argue that our stock of economic knowledge may rest upon affects as much as analysis, expressive symbolism as much as abstract symbolism. This paper is an attempt to think through how such ‘elusive’ economic knowledges may be grasped, yet neither formalized nor codified in abstract terms. It is also a plea to consider the geography of economic knowledge outside of the tacit – explicit distinction.