KNOWLEDGE AS AN ECONOMIC RESOURCE AND A SOURCE OF WEALTH

Abstract

The realisation of knowledge as a major factor in production on the one hand, and also its main product on the other, has provoked the necessity to clarify its nature as an economic category in a knowledge-based economy. This article examines the ambivalent nature of existing knowledge as a public and private source of wealth, the possibilities for transforming it from a private to a public source of wealth through “overflow“, and the pros and cons of possible paths for advancement in the field of research and development. Special attention has been paid to the characteristics of knowledge as an economic category: the specific way of expropriation, preserving usefulness and self-expansion in the process of consumption; changes in the nature and in the mechanism of accumulation and also changes to property relations in a knowledge society; inseparability from the owner as a personalised source of wealth. In terms of content, the article complements and builds on the ideas put forward by the author in the plenary paper entitled, "Knowledge as an Economic Category” presented during the seventy-fifth anniversary conference at th D. A. Tsenov Academy of Economics in Svishtov.