Research Catalog

Title

The immaterial : knowledge, value and capital / André Gorz ; translated by Chris Turner.

Author

Gorz, André.

Publication

London ; New York : Seagull Books, 2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Additional Authors

Turner, Chris, 1953-

Description

209 p.; 22 cm.

Summary

In The Immaterial, French social philosopher André Gorz (1923-2007) argues, in his finely-tuned and polemical style, that the economic boom that accelerated in the 1990s and crashed so spectacularly in 2008 was based largely on an immaterial consumption of symbols and ideas, as capitalism tried to overcome the crisis of the formally industrial regime by throwing itself into a new, so-called knowledge economy. In this, the last full-length theoretical work Gorz completed before his death, he argues instead for the creation of a true knowledge economy. This economy would be based on zero-cost exchange and pooled resources, and knowledge would be treated as humanityʹs common property. Currently, in order to exploit knowledge and turn it into capital, the capitalist enterprise privatizes specialized knowledge and claims ownership through private licenses and copyright. But as Gorz shows, the traditional foundations of such capitalist economics have begun to crumble because of the immaterial nature of this new form of product, which makes it almost impossible to measure in monetary terms. The knowledge economy, Gorz declares, is the crisis of capitalism. -- Description from http://www.amazon.co.uk (June 29, 2012.)

Series Statement

The French list

Uniform Title

• Immatériel. English
• French list.

Alternative Title

Immatériel.

Subject

• Intellectual capital
• Science and civilization
• Science > Forecasting
• Information technology > Forecasting
• Work > Forecasting
• Capital > Forecasting
• Progress

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-209).

Contents

Immaterial labour -- Immaterial capital -- Towards an intelligent society? ... -- ... Or towards a post-human civilization?

ISBN

• 9781906497613
• 1906497613

OCLC

• 692220634
• SCSB-11966428

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library