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Instructors: Prof. Nico Stehr Ph.D. F.R.S.C.
Event type:
Seminar
Org-unit: Graduate School | ZUGS
Displayed in timetable as:
Hours per week:
1,5
Credits:
4,0
Location:
Campus der Zeppelin Universität
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
5 | 15
Course content:
Modern knowledge societies and knowledge-based economies are transformed into the Gestalt of knowledge capitalism. The legal encoding of knowledge through national and international law is the lever that enables the transformation of the knowledge society into knowledge capitalism. It is the TRIPS agreement (Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights), negotiated between 1986 and 1994 as part of the WTO (World Trade Organization) that is the backbone of the modern, legal encircling of knowledge. Knowledge capitalism marks a clear historical demarcation. Although knowledge capitalism is primarily an economic development, the warranted suspicion is that the digital giants who are in the driver’s seat in knowledge capitalism, have significant effects on the social structure and culture of modern society. The dominant resource of advanced capitalism are intangible assets (knowledge). Returns on tangible capital, given their physical nature and the diseconomies of scale, tend to be finite. Returns on intangible assets are almost infinite. Infinite returns to scale annul the iron law of diminishing marginal returns that governed industrial society. The emphasis in the seminar will not only be on the substance of the theory of modern society but also on theory of theory construction and the methodology of societal theories.
Further information about the exams:
Active participation + Short paper on one competing Theory of Modern Society: Origins, Nature and Critique
(Sample) Examples and sources:
Modern Societies as a "Risk Society"
Beck, Ulrich ([1986] 1992), Risk Society. Toward a New Modernity. London: SAGE.
Modern Society as an "Infotainment Society"
Kellner, Douglas (2021), Technology and Democracy: Toward A Critical Theory
of Digital Technologies, Technopolitics, and Technocapitalism. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
Digital Capitalism
Panitch, Leo and Greg Albo (2021), Beyond Digital Capitalism: New Ways of Living. London: The Merlin Press.
Pfeiffer, Sabine (2022). Digital Capitalism and Distributive Forces. Bielefeld: Transcript.
Zukerfeld, Mariano. (2017), Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism. London: University of Westminster Press.
Artificial Intelligence Society
Inglehart, Ronald (2018), Cultural Evolution. People’s Motivations Are Changing and Reshap- ing the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Algorithmic Society
Schuilenburg, Marc und Rik Peeters (2020), The Algorithmic Society: Technology, Power, and Knowledge. London: Routledge.
Finance capitalism
Fraser, Nancy (2017), "A new form of capitalism," New Left Review 106:57–65.
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Science Society
Kreibich, Rolf (1986), Die Wissenschaftsgesellschaft. Von Galilei zur High-Tech Revolution. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Post-capitalist Society
Drucker, Peter (1993a), Post-Capitalist Society. New York: Harper Business.
Mandatory literature:
Introductory literature:
Baecker, Dirk, Systems in Social Theory, in: Monika Krause, Claudio Benzecry, and Isaac Ariail Reed (eds.), Social Theory Now, Chicago, IL, 2017, pp. 201–226
McChrystal, General Stanley, Teams of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, London 2019
Luhmann, Niklas, Social Systems, transl. Rhodes Barrett
Luhmann, Niklas, Organization and Decision, transl. John Bednarz, Stanford, CA, 1995
Robertson, Brian J., Holacracy: The New Management System for a Rapidly Changing World, New York 2015
Simon, Herbert A., The Architecture of Complexity, in: idem, The Sciences of the Artificial, 2nd ed., Cambridge, MA, 1981, pp. 192–229 (3rd ed. 1996, pp. 183–216)
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