what are the advantages and disadvantages of being a Knowledge Society?

Answer 1

You classify your question under sociology, but my answer is based on Economics - both social sciences, so there should be a fair amount of cross-over.

Knowledge society - Tertiary Industry.

International trade is important - if your country is very good at making wine and mine is very good at making cheese, but we're both useless at each other's speciality then concentrate on what your good at and swap a bit. We both end up with more of everything. Simple.

But - to dedicate your entire economy to a single industry segment (there are only three) is dangerous. It looks good on paper to start and The UK at least is just about to go through the downside, as follows:

We're very clever and highly educated. We have perfected the Banking Industry, Insurance, Stocks Dealing, Sound Stages (go check out where Star Wars was filmed). We design and sometimes build wings for large commercial aircraft and other bits like galleys - TRUE - call boeing and ask them who makes the crappers on a 747. And oh yeah, the stage musical (Hi Andrew, how's Connie coming along?) and Riverdance (Eire is an honorary member of the UK, but only when it suits both of us)

So now we just invent things, like suspension bridges, show you how to build the first one, but then you're on your own, mr non-G8 member, 'cos your labour is cheap. Meanwhile we just invent some new stuff to sell you the designs and techniques for at a huge price later. Looking good so far?

BUT - modern comms technology means that knowledge based functions are now "location independent" - I can talk to my next door neighbour on the phone and then get the same sound quality when I call my brother is Australia.

Call centres are the obvious example. Very Important Decision Makers know that they need 10000 call centre staff. in the UK these people cost (say) £20,000, the same person in India/Malaysia/Philipines wherever costs only a tenth of that - go do the math.

They lay - off the brits and divert all their phone lines to Hyderabad. The service is just as good (NOT!) and we save a whole bunch of cash, isn't this great?

Payback time:
we have a lot of unemployed people that used to work in call-centres. They stop taking holidays. BA/Virgin?RyanAir et.al. buy fewer planes. Boeing need, therefore buy, fewer aircraft components. Now we got a whole bunch of unemployed toilet designers as well. Domino effect kicks in and we start sliding down Maslow's triangle (look it up). Pretty soon we don't want the output of all the secondary industries that we've off-shored either, because we simply can't afford them. This pair of shoes will last another year. I don't really need a new i-pod. Then primary industry fails in the third world because we're all growing our own food in our back gardens - it's cheaper.

The off-shoring whizz-kids have put the whole world on the unemployment line, except there's no-one left working to fund it, so we die. (scary stuff, huh?).

We also stop buying stuff that we need call-centres for - so those poor buggers haven't had any favours done for them really, have they? We haven't injected enough cash into THEIR economies to create new markets replacing the stagnant markets in the first world.

Don't believe me? Then please explain this: Why have a lot UK Corporates started advertising on TV that their Call Centre staff are UK only? Nat West, Direct Line, others. These are not insignificant little companies. Why are they doing it? Because there are enough of us out there who can see the writing on the wall and we ain't gonna curl up and die without putting up a fight.

Answer 2

The concept of a 'Knowledge Society' has arisen in parallel with the rise of the internet. It is based on computer technology (or, more properly, information technology) and the internet. This has been good for the UK because English (even if the Americanized version of it) is the most widely-used language on the internet. This is because the US has the largest number of internet users (both absolutely and proportionate to their population), and the US speaks English. This has both sustained and in fact enhanced the UK's position in the world economy. We haven't really done anything to deserve this (although the internet was effectively invented by the British, but that's another story). However, it enables the UK to cling on to its position in the world economic system for a bit longer.

Answer 3

the advantages in the Knowledge Society is the most of people are the white collar.
the advantages in the Knowledge Society is the lack of blue collar.

Answer 4

Knowledge is useless without wisdom.

Answer 5

Just like any society, there are the haves and the havenots.