The structures and prospects of knowledge society

Abstract

The first part of this article reviews the literature on the knowledge society as well as related concepts like post-industrial society and information society. In the second part the thesis is put forward that the concept of knowledge society no longer designates a trend of social development, but characterizes the social reality of advanced societies in a certain perspective. Knowledge as cultural capital has become a productive force, a major sector of the economy, a power resource both on the national and the international level, and finally the basis of life-chances for the individual and of social ranking. But knowledge society has also produced its own problems: zero growth of financial resources for science and education, overcapacities in military R and D, new dependencies both in the private sector (on experts) and in the international sector (North-South opposition). The future perspectives of knowledge society are ambivalent. The author perceives the nightmare of a registration society on the one hand, and a new Enlightenment on the other.