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ABSTRACT
The paper seeks to uncover a long-submerged tradition that saw knowledge accumulation as the main driver of development. This vision was ubiquitous until the late 18th century when, with the advent of the machine age, the focus shifted from knowledge accumulation to capital accumulation. Emphasis on knowledge did not disappear completely. Some argued that the knowledge embedded in human agents and not capital was the source of productivity gains while others emphasised the role of technological and scientific knowledge alongside capital accumulation. By the early decades of the 20th century, the economic role of science had become more salient and by the end of that century, the idea that knowledge accumulation has a central role in progress was again taken for granted. The paper suggests that by focusing the kinds of knowledge we have; and how that knowledge is stored, transmitted, made use of, and extended; we can learn much about how specific social relations of production facilitate or retard development, about who gets the rewards, and how relations of production may need to change to allow knowledge itself to develop.
Acknowledgements
I would like to use this opportunity to acknowledge and thank the reviewers who reviewed this article and aided in its publication. I am also grateful for comments received from members of the 2022 STOREP conference. In particular, I would like to thank Enrico Bellini and Paolo Trabucchi for drawing my attention to relevant work by Luigi Passsinetti and Carlo Cattaneo.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Similar views were expressed in Turgot’s Plan of the Discourses on Universal History where he referred to man transmitting his acquired ideas to his successors ‘as a heritage which is always being augmented’(Meek Citation1973, p. 63; Turgot Citation1751[Citation1808], p. 212).
2 Technical progress in manufactures was not ruled out but it had no impact on the conclusions in Ricardo’s theoretical model.
3 Both Bentham and James Mill had been influenced by Helvetius who had emphasised that men were products of their environment and that differences between people could be explained by differences in their education in its broadest sense.
4 Cited in Cattaneo Citation1861[Citation2007], pp. 54–55.
5 The attribution of this point of view to Smith was unfair since Smith had taken an inclusive view of capital including within it the natural and acquired abilities of the inhabitants. However, many of Smith’s successors took a narrow view focused almost entirely on fixed capital (Shield Nicholson Citation1916, p. xviii).
6 As Babbage reported, the work was divided into three sections. The first required able mathematicians to decide on the appropriate functional forms. The second involved people with a good knowledge of mathematics who converted the formulae into numbers. The only skill required of the third and largest group was the ability to do simple addition and subtraction (Babbage Citation1832[Citation1835], pp. 194–196). As might be expected, Babbage saw the potential for the mechanization of the routine work conducted in the final stage and he devoted much of life to the invention and construction of difference and analytical engines with this purpose in mind.
7 The arguments are reminiscent of Hume whose case for free trade was that it was conducive to the diffusion of knowledge. After Smith, the contribution of free trade to growth tended to focus more on capital accumulation, See Prendergast (Citation2010).
8 Although he cast doubt on the extent of Hegel’s influence on Marx, Schumpeter recognised that Hegel’s vision was essentially evolutionary (Schumpeter Citation1961b, p. 437). For a discussion of Hegel’s influence on Schumpeter’s own thought, See Usher (Citation1951) and Prendergast (Citation2006).
9 That said, Marshall did not reject the idea that there could be periods of complacency if not stagnation. For example, he was concerned that by the end of the 19th century, Britain had lost much of the entrepreneurial energy that had sustained its earlier development. ‘Rich old firms could thrive by their mere momentum, even if they had lost the springs of energy and initiative’ (Marshall Citation1890[Citation1919], p. 91).
10 The difference with Cattaneo on this matter might not be as significant as it appears on first sight because, to use a phrase coined by Schumpeter with reference to the entrepreneur, the Hegelian ‘great man of world history’ is merely ‘the bearer of the mechanism of change’ (Schumpeter Citation1961a, p. 61, n.1). See also Prendergast (Citation2006, pp. 259–266).
11 Capital was described as consisting in a great part of knowledge and organisation both of which are the result of the work of man aided by nature.
12 Between 1950 and 2010 the share of the world population with at least some secondary education increased from 13 to 51 per cent while the share of those with some tertiary education increased sevenfold. In the United States, education spending increased from 3.1 per cent of GDP in 1950 to 7.1 per cent in 2018 (Deming Citation2022).