The knowledge economy, the crash and the depression

The knowledge economy is generally invoked as the key to progress, development and prosperity. The key to understanding why the endgame of the knowledge economy may be crash and depression is the analysis of dynamics leading to a reduction of investment opportunities as a consequence of the escalation of knowledge enclosures associated to the strengthening of intellectual property (IP) system. The widespread faith in the growth-enhancing features of the knowledge economy and of the underlying pillars of scientific, etc. has gone hand in hand with a similarly widespread belief that private property-like institutions may deliver in the realm of intangibles exactly the same sort of benefits they deliver in the tangible domain. Thus, the uneven distribution of knowledge is an important cause of overall economic inequality and a brake to global growth. In the neo-classical approach the main foundation of science policy is the existence of market failures linked to the public good nature of the knowledge that constitutes basic science.