If knowledge is free "as everybody knows" please send it to me (by
surface mail because my computer won't' handle it all). I agree that
you can't buy it "like your buy commodities" - not any more than you
can send it in the mail.
I suggest a powerful point of view is that there is a marketplace of
ideas and that they are competing for you time, attention, money and
other resources. In this marketplace, the competition is much more
between ideas than people. This provides the benefits of cooperation
in the marketplace with the selection valure of competition. The
unique aspect of marketplace selection is that is does not localise
on a single good (point of view) nor drive out variation. Instead,
it encourages and develops diversity and integration.
The marketplace of ideas, of course, gives no one knowledge. The
source of knowledge is not individual either. While each of us has
some say in the knowledge that we create, our communities have a
great deal to say and, when we are really in pursuit of knowledge, it
will be a community of practice that we will turn to.
The rare instances of brilliant and individual creativity are not for
many of us much of the time. If they exist at all.
No, a simplistic market view will not do. But neither, I suggest, is
it a good idea to throw out all that we might learn from principles
of marektplaces. After all, these emerged from human cooperation in
the pursuit improvement in the social condition and coordination of
action and knowledge. They are evolving with experience, theory,
technology and the demands of the times - and so far, I haven't seen
a better model to work with.
-- Michael McMaster Michael@kbddean.demon.co.uk