Informational Capital

The term informational capital designates the form of capital that prevails in an information economy. If industrial capital—such as machinery, stocks, and buildings—was the most important form of capital in an industrial economy, then informational capital—such as patents, trademarks, and other forms of intellectual property, as well as less well defined entities such as goodwill, intellectual or social capital, know-how, and corporate culture—become the most important forms of capital in an information economy. In particular, in contemporary consumer culture, informational capital, such as brands, has acquired an unprecedented influence on consumer practices as well as the value of goods. However, the terms capital, information, and information economy are not simple.

The concept of an information economy can be traced to postwar U.S. debates on a coming postindustrial order, where services and the production of information by means of information (essentially, scientific innovation, education, and overall societal management and planning) would be the economically dominant activities. In these debates, the notion of an information economy was linked to utopian projections of an emerging postmaterialistic consciousness, combining an artistic quest for self-realization with ecological awareness and the end of ideology and social conflict. In reality, however, it would seem that the growing economic importance of informational assets has been linked to accelerating global injustices and conflicts. In short, there is no necessary link between an informationcentric economy and a progressive social order. Another critique that can be mounted toward the concept of information economy is its overly cognitive emphasis. Indeed, while codified knowledge, chiefly in the form of patents and other intellectual property, remains relevant and important, a lot of evidence—not least within the managerial literature itself—tends to stress the growing relevance of things such as brand and intellectual or social capital that stands for assets that are essentially relational, not cognitive: for example, the ability of a firm to install an ambiance of consumer good will or a work environment that favors creativity and collaboration. This way, the postindustrial economy would not so much be an information economy as a relational or ethical economy and its chief assets not informational capital as much as relational or ethical capital.

The term capital is equally complex (if less contested). If we want to construct a (provisional) theory of informational capital, then we need to depart from its three distinct meanings. From one point of view, capital is a thing. It is a tool that is employed to produce something, a means of production. A hammer, a steamroller, or a computer can work as capital in relation to the labor of some living human subject that employs it. From another point of view, capital embodies a relation of power. The machine, the factory, and the computer contain a series of affordances and constraints that push the labor process to evolve in a particular way, in accordance with the functional requirements of the particular production process. From a third point of view, capital is an embodiment of value. Different assets, factories, machinery, and goodwill appear on balance sheets as resources that can be capitalized on, that can work as collaterals for loans or support the price of stock. Given this diversity of meanings attached to the term capital, a theory of informational capital would have to embrace three diverse aspects: information as a means of production, information as a form of power, and information as a form of value.

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