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Brightness and Austerity of the Globalization Theory: The Ideological Foundations of Cognitive Capitalism

Written By

Zlatan Delic

Submitted: 27 October 2010 Published: 01 August 2011

DOI: 10.5772/18520

From the Edited Volume

The Systemic Dimension of Globalization

Edited by Piotr Pachura

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1. Introduction

The term globalization began to be used only a few decades ago. There have been hundreds of the definitions of the term globalization and dozens of different classifications of these definitions. However, the very processes and activities we classify under the term globalization today have been present in action for centuries, along with a few interruptions. Still, the discussion on globalization focuses on a a relatively close time and the debate is linked to the nature and forms of modernity to certain extent. Thus, the globalization refers directly to recent events (Robertson, 1992). It is difficult to place all the discussions on globalization into one frame, even though it appears that it should be done that way. Mostly, we talk about the different dimensions or aspects of globalization that are more or less intertwined. When it comes to dimensions of globalization we can draw a line between economic, cultural, political, technological, environmental, ethical, bioethical, and other dimensions. It is less frequent to analyse deeper cognitive, autoreferential dimensions related to the language itself, which stands as a signifying system describing globalization in different scientific disciplines (Steger, 2005). This dimension can be called a discursive (symbolic) one. It refers to the transformation of the very idea of knowledge (it is symptomatic to often identify globalization with the "society of information" or "society of knowledge"). Such identification is most often present in a privileged economic discourses on globalization, especially in the discourse on the so-called new knowledge-based economy (Giddens, 2009). The discourse of the new knowledge-based economy has a large real, institutional and symbolic, in other words discursive power. Given the power at its disposal, it is trying to impose all the other discourses on globalization. As a consequence of excessive commercialization and economization of the very idea of knowledge, many normative globalization critiques occur. (Castells; 2003; Swedberg, 2006; Rifkin, 2006; Sen 2007; Zizek, 2008; Neumann, 2009). A critical analysis of the globalization discourse tends to be more interdisciplinar or shall we say transdisciplinar (Hart & Negri, 2003). Unfortunately, the division of social sciences to a variety of different ones, still poorly related disciplines, as a result of administrative and bureaucratic disciplinary knowledge, emerges as an obstacle to inter-disciplinary research on the negative consequences of globalization. Such research is still developing, especially through the events of the most discursive, environmental and bioethical consequences of globalization (Covic, 2004). The negative consequences of globalization are seriously staggering preferred methodology and reductionistic understanding of globalization. In addition, over the last ten years, different social movements have been acting under different names in reality, as a result of expressing dissatisfaction and resistance to globalization. (Wallerstein, 2004; Dow, 2005; Klein, 2008). The protests were mainly directed against the most global institutions. These institutions are sometimes mistakenly considered to deliberately control the process of globalization (Monbiot, 2006; Shiva, 2006; Chossudovsky, 2008; Stiglitz, 2009.). In general, globalization, therefore, has positive and negative aspects. In a positive development, it can be counted as the world's community in science, education and various areas of civil society, and the negative aspect is the "phenomenon of the world's risk-prone society" (Beck, 2007). In this paper we will not provide an overview of different approaches to globalization, or the presentation of different definitions of globalization, since there are already many classifications of these approaches as well as many interpretations of certain elements of these definitions. It is impossible to bypass the problem of globalization, but it is difficult to specify what it includes. It is clear, however, what is excluded. It excludes non-economic vocabulary (discourses), non-economic forms of knowledge and experiences of the world. That is considered to be one of the largest autoreferencial, conceptual problems of the very theory of globalization.

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2. How to put the problem of globalization in context?

One of the most difficult issues related to this topic refers to the dilemma, therefore how can we learn to understand what is meant by this opaque context? Do we go to far or recent past, or rather, should we be focused only on the future? There is no single answer to this question. The problem of time and the problem of the area, are probably the most important elements to which numerous definitions of globalization are pointed at, there is no need to mention them here. Although, there is a fascinating number of different definitions of globalization, it should be noticed that not all definitions are equally influential. Main currents of science have the opportunity to act on certain definitions, created in the mainstream, to achieve a greater impact compared to others. Globalization is "the increasing interdependence of different nations, regions and countries, which arises because unique social and economic relations are beginning to include the whole world" (Giddens, 2007: 687). Globalization connects three concepts: globalization (Globalisierung) as a process, globality or globalism (Globalität) as an empirical state and globalism (Globalismus) as an ideology (Beck & Grande 2006). There are, of course, many different definitions and different analysis on the concept of globalization, which must be taken into account.

Globalization has not appeared out of nothing. Also, discussions on globalization, driven over the last twenty years, have got us nowhere. But only in the last ten years, have we seriously discussed explanatory theory on globalization of misery. Neoliberal concept of globalization has been particularly criticized. The new knowledge-based economy (in the form of new management, marketing, etc.), has suddenly been declared to be universal wisdom for humanity. The economy in the existing regimes of the so-called "global knowledge society", already in language, enjoys exalted, privileged status. The preferential flow of economic knowledge often identifies the globalization with the paradigm of "information society". As a result of a misidentified identification there is generally unacceptable reduction of knowledge to information society. (Castells, 2003). However, the problem with globalization is not (only) in it. It's not completely wrong to identify specific knowledge with information. But it is wrong to reduce the very idea of knowledge (knowledge as such) to the information. However, contextualizing the problems of globalization, integrating or differentiating the globalization from other problems - becomes a problem. Where should we begin during the contextualisation? Is there any global knowledge on globalization that would differentiate from the sum of different or the same information on globalization? Would our old holistic philosophy of consciousness, that we learn about from the Eastern and Western philosophies, be able to tell us about the globalization more than the modern, specialized, commercialized and instrumental knowledge, which have become quite popular over the past few decades? In this chapter we are not headed towards redescription of philosophy of consciousness in order to offer you an answer to such important issues. We started off gradually, in the direction of the economic literature, which many of you find to be far more attractive and desirable when compared to the tedious and abstract philosophical discussions.

Moreover, we headed towards one of its very popular parts that has been criticised, because today we have a new economic science and new knowledge-based economy which are quite popular. Although, we believe that this is not about popularity, but rather something else. In this chapter, therefore, we will try to talk about the new knowledge-based economy, the deeper meaning of its speech, about the prestige globally institutionalized speech, that is repeatedly and constantly without a break and an end, telling us about the new economy based on knowledge. This will be our base and general context. The inescapable context that pervades the entire text in some way (even when talking about something else), such as the new economy and economization of life that permeates the world as well as many other articles on globalization, particularly on economic globalization. Here we talk about that because the new economy of knowledge which we may consider to be the broadest and most comprehensive and consequently, we may as well refer to it as a global cognitive and valuable matrix – that has imposed itself to be the basis of our whole knowledge – to be such knowledge itself. However, the basic problem that we would like to discuss is not anywhere near that. The new knowledge-based economy is associated with the global economy of violence in many ways that don't seem to be visible at first. The violence is symbolic and real: and that is what we consider to be the biggest issue that the globalisation is most concerned of. It is necessary, not only in our case, to take into account the discursive and symbolic aspects of speech on globalization again and again. Consequently, we shall see the question of ideology re-emerging into the foreground.

Globalisation has a significant impact on a number of ideological traditions, especially nationalism, socialism and religious fundamentalism, but also it has broader implications on the ideology as a whole. Globalization is therefore impossible to present to be value-neutral. There are two basic, alternative versions of globalization that are essential for our theme. The first one is a neo-liberal globalization in which globalization is linked to the expansion of economic structures and values ​​based on the market. It consists of so-called hyperglobalists. From this perspective, the essence of globalization is to build a global capitalist economy that serves the interests of transnational corporations, which significantly reduces the power of the state, particularly its power to transform the social structure. The globalization itself claims to be based on knowledge (hence the term cognitive capitalism). Globalization is thus a mechanism that enables us to achieve "the end of history" in terms of the final victory of neoliberal capitalism (Heywood, 2005). The second version is a critical alternative - opposed the first version. However, this alternative is neither conceptually nor practically homogeneous. Its basis lies in the power of many people (Hardt, Negri, 2003) who oppose market fundamentalism of a dominant model of globalization. They also oppose cognitive basis of a new knowledge-based economy or/and basis of the very global society of knowledge. Some authors believe that there is the third version, written by different authors, consisting of different concepts, attitudes, practices and interpretations. Many of these interpretations can be categorized in non-categorized, indefinite crowds, but the meaning of this work is not found in it. Neoliberal globalization has its own guards (soldiers). Keepers of the strategic work to defend a dominant model of globalization. These guardians tend to believe that between those who support, protect, defend and promote the first version of globalization (such as hyperglobalists), and between critics, who oppose it, there cannot be a true dialogue.

While hyperglobalists ignore the distinction between "theory" and "practice" (and the difference between "word" and "things"), arguing that globalization is no longer a theory but that "globalization has become the reality itself" (Ohmae, 2007), discourse analysts, critically oriented economists, anarchists, deep ecologists, theologians, feminists, and many activists are prone to various criticisms of globalization. It is impossible to consolidate their discourse in one place. Critics point at a number of serious arguments when associating globalization with the ideology of the rich and the powerful at the expense of the poor and the powerless. What they have in common is resistance to the dominant model of globalization. Discourse analysts who are looking for responsible theory and practice of globalization in particular, are sending us a warning of the ideological basis of globalization and the so-called global knowledge society. In this sense, it is justified to speak about the need for serious critical recontextualisation and redescription of global cognitive capitalism. In this paper we will focus on a critical stance on globalization, and we believe that the global economy, in the shape of the new knowledge-based economy, is a deeply ideological economy.

Te critics have proved that the "end of history" or the "end of ideology" still hasn't come. To claim the opposite means to represent an ideology, no matter how paradoxal it may seem to appear (Sim, 2001: 20). In its most general sense, ideology is a system of beliefs according to which society is organized. One of the most influential concepts of ideology in the 20-th century is one presented by Louis Althusser, and according to which the ideology is a system of believes that tries to hide (mask) its internal contradictions. So, let's say, liberal democracy, which is basically a cognitive capitalism and the new economy of knowledge, can claim that - since we live in a society of free market economy, in which all can compete under the same rules – thus, we live in the knowledge society. However, in reality, the market is not a natural mechanism, but can be understood as an exploitative system, designed to work in favor of those who have the greatest economic and symbolic power. For in case of eventual failure, the blame is always on the inability of an individual, and not on a contradiction within the economic system (Sim, 2001: 55-56). While the (hyper) globalists believe that we live in a "knowledge society", anti-globalists (alterglobalists) consider such a coincidence to be mere ideology. However, globalization defenders and their critics share a common view that globalization in itself is an incredible force for change in the world.

It is well known that the proponents of the neoliberal concept of globalization represent a firm view that the market is the main driver of human progress, freedom, democracy and peace. State regulation, or any invasion of (abstractly and imprecisely proclaimed) "freedom" of the market, are considered to be retrograded recurrence of a communist ideology. Hyperglobalists generally consider that the global markets must be left to operate without any restrictions, while the role of governments and multilateral institutions comes down to creating a favorable environment for business, or facilitating directed neo-liberal globalization. Ideologically compromised Communist legacy, whose deconstruction was unstoppable, has given way to unreserved neoliberal paradigm as a universal remedy that promises to establish a quick and unconditional enrichment of venture minorities who have abilities as well as the general prosperity of the majority or the whole nation (Kalanj, 2008: 167:168).

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3. Different globalisation issues

In this paper, we try to contribute to an ongoing discussion on the consequences of globalization (and transition), thus we wish to point out the fact that the experience of globalization - as well as the experience of transition from socialism to capitalism - are not identical but are different. To do this, we believe that we first need to expand social and epistemological critique of the neoliberal concept of globalization further. This concept is closely associated with the dominant discourse of the new knowledge-based economy and consequently it is believed that it can produce the global knowledge society. A key methodological limitation of access through the knowledge-based economy - as shown below - is that it forgets that the novelty of the current historical conjuncture does not only consist of the simple application of knowledge-based economy, but it also includes the fact that the economy based on knowledge is disadvantaged and limited by institutional forms that define capital accumulation. In our opinion, it is entirely out of this "forgetting" that the difficulty arises and precisely defines the notion of knowledge-based economy, as well as an overall meaning and importance of this transition. The concept of cognitive capitalism which is - in the semantic sense closely related to institutional forms through which it imposes and promotes new economy of knowledge – is the concept that has been proposed, in the context of analysis of the negative consequences of globalization, to make an effort (in future research) to specify and understand the meaning and background of the current practice of knowledge (as a general resource of humanity) that is reduced to the economic idea of instrumentalized knowledge which is subordinated to the narrow interests of privatization and the inexorable logics of profit.

The economic globalization is one of the most important dimensions of globalization. It is closely related to the new global economy and the transformation of the very idea of knowledge. The economy is sometimes called information economy, and sometimes new cognitive economy or simply the economy of knowledge. It is also closely related to the revolution in information technology. The information economy is the global economy. The global economy is a historically new reality, which differentiates from the world economy. The world economy is an economy in which capital accumulation progresses throughout the world. It was present in the West in the sixteenth century, as we can learn from Fernand Braudel and the known theorist of world systems, Immanuel Wallerstein. The global economy is something different: it is the economy that has the ability to work as a unit of real time on a planetary level. While the capitalist mode of production marks its relentless expansion, which is always trying to cross the boundaries of time and space, so in the late 20th century, the world economy has been able to become truly global on the basis of a new infrastructure that has made information and communication technology. This globality concerns the core elements of the process of the economic system. Capital is controlled regularly on globally integrated, financial markets that are working in real time for the first time in history: transactions worth billions of dollars are taking place in a second through the electronic transport through the whole world.

Disputes on globalization have been discussed on the conceptual-pragmatic level, in the field of the meaning of the term. They have been also discussed when it comes to considering the actual effects of the activity of key concepts that are built using the building of globalization theory. Such situation is explained by the experience of globalization for different theorists, belonging to different habitats. They are different but also sometimes incommensurable. While for instance, Anthony Giddens, one of the main initiators of the project, sees globalization as a direct consequence of modernity, some authors, like Michael Hardt and Antonio Negria, will talk about postmodernization of the global economy in general. They argue that: "In postmodernization of global economy creating wealth tends to be more prone to what we will call biopolitical production, that is the production of social life, in which economic, political and cultural increasingly overlap and embraces one another» (Hardt, Negri, 2003: 9) In order to illustrate this, they will use a broad, interdisciplinary approach, and claim: "Our arguments tend to be equally philosophical and historical, cultural and economic, political and anthropological (...) In the imperial world, an economist, for instance, needs a basic knowledge of cultural production to understand the economy and the same applies to the cultural critic. He also needs a basic knowledge of economic processes in order to understand the culture" (Hardt, Negri, 2003: 11).

Some other influential theorists also rely on broad interdisciplinary approach of globalization: in order to accentuate the different experiences of globalization, that is the experiences they care about. By using these approaches, they are trying to look into many different perspectives of the phenomenon of globalization at the same time, and thus explain it as objectively as possible. It is possible to show through a series of examples that an attempt of the objective, value-neutral analysis of globalization, produces enormous difficulties. Some of these difficulties arise from the ideological reasons, and some out of the unevenness of the methodological instruments. Sometimes it is very difficult to distinguish whether these "thickets" that "confusing places» (Rosenberg, 2000), belong to the battlefield of ideology, or else they can be attributed to a purely scientific reasons.

Without intending to definitively draw a conclusion on these dilemmas, regarding the different experiences of globalization, we can say that each interdisciplinary research is burdened with some kind of methodological inconsistencies at the level of meanings of basic terms, without any exception. Methodological inconsistency is particularly evident in recent disputes over the global society of knowledge and knowledge-based economy. These disputes are certainly not in favor of methodological monism. Neither are they in favor of an attempt to achieve unity. However, there is a question arising: Is the meaning, for instance, knowledge-based economy dependant on whether the phrase is used by an economist, or whether the meaning of the phrase is attributed to someone who deals with the new economic sociology or materialistic theory of discourse. The preliminary answer to this question is that the meaning of the term should be designed not only within one discipline, but a critical focus on issues of meaning grows in proportion to the sensitivity that we have towards the critical aspects of science as well as towards the epistemological issues. Considering that we are starting from the principal thesis that the experience of globalization are different in general makes the difference become even more complex, depending on what we mean by knowledge that might help us to learn about globalization itself.

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4. Several methodological suggestions – back to the epistemology

Here we try to apply an interdisciplinary, or more precisely, transdisciplinary approach to the above issues. Generally, we advocate for equal combination of quantitative and qualitative methodologies. We combine multiple qualitative research methods. At the same time, we consider epistemological issues related to the analysis of the social conditions of knowledge, prior to the methodological and methodological issues. One of the key aspects of the cognitive system is the basic notion of the knowledge, or what philosophers call a formal epistemology. Epistemology (that people are often aware of only to the minimum extent) determines what is considered to be a "fact", "explanation" and "understanding" (Scholte, 2009: 258). In this context, it becomes a question of principle: has the globalization altered the conception of the nature of knowledge? Our response, which can not be linear, is the following: globalization is dramatically changing the stable performance of knowledge and experience of the world. However, this conclusion is part of the problem, and not an answer to the riddle of globalization. It is therefore necessary to encourage emancipatory possibilities for methodological doubt towards all of the dogmatic and preferred conceptions of knowledge. It is on this crucial point, that the elements of cognitive philosophy and ideology of sociology overlap along with some not fully integrated, elements of sociosemiology, critical analysis of discourse and new economic sociology. In this sense, we advocate for an open and pluralistic epistemology. We suspect that there is (only) a model of knowledge-based economy on which it would be possible to simply implement a global society of knowledge. Steger also believes that it is best to think of globalization as a multidimensional series of social processes which can not be restricted to a single thematic framework (Steger, 2005).

The transforming effects of globalization strongly affect the economic, political, cultural, technological and ecological dimensions of contemporary social life. Considering that globalization - or hyperinflation of the globalization discourse - breaks the established framework and stable meanings, there is a danger that the word "globalization" becomes a mere buzzword, a device for something else. Regarding this, here we primarily want to demonstrate that globalization contains important aspects of discourse in the form of ideologically-coloured view that presents a certain scheme of topics for discussion to the public. The existence of these views shows that globalization is not only a fair process but also a lot of statements that define, describe and analyze the actual process. Social forces from these opposing views of globalization tend to enrich this new buzzword with norms, values and meanings that not only legitimize and promote the specific interests of power, but also shape the personal and collective identity of billions of people.

In order to illuminate these rhetorical maneuvers, Steger believes that any introduction to globalization should investigate its ideological dimension. Steger's attitude is partly identical to our query. Over the recent years, it has been increasingly indicated that the study of globalization is born as a new field that cuts across traditional disciplinary boundaries (Steger, 2005). The biggest challenge that today's researchers of globalization are facing lies in connecting and synthesising of the different categories of knowledge in a way that provides a fair access to fluid and interdependent nature of our world, whether it we refer to modernism or postmodernism. Each categorical terminology defining the time in which we live ("modern", "postmodern," "political", "postideological", "postdemocratic", "Age of doctrines", "Age of control" and so on), implies certain value assumptions, which greatly affects the management of globalization. Therefore, globalization is, first of all and after all, still an unfinished and open process, a subject to various forms of reform. According to David Held and Anthony McGrew, globalization is a set of processes that alter the spatial organization of socio-economic relations and transactions, and from the reformist perspective, it is neither new nor inherently unfair or nondemocratic (Held, McGrew, 2002: 107).

Nevertheless, we believe that over the recent years, at least when it comes to methodological terms, there is some kind of balance between the privileged and critical discourse on globalization. The discourse on globalization - especially economic globalization, neo-liberal type – has been developed by a positivist, overly reductionist epistemology. This epistemology is in the service of unbridled, neo-liberal capitalism that has spread through violence to nature and the living world. To sum up, it's about ideologised epistemology. The trademark of this epistemology is the so-called "society of knowledge and skills" (Giddens, 2009: 36), and therefore as a result of constant, recursive, refering to knowledge, we can as well call it an ideology of cognitive capitalism. Due to the fact that privileged discourses of the new economy of knowledge avoid a critical analysis of the concept of knowledge, and review their own methodological assumptions, the whole building of globalization theory is in the "quicksand". By the term discourse, we mean a system for the production of statements and practices. Once they get established institutionally, they can be performed as more or less normal. As a response to the explanatory shortcomings of positivist, privileged discourses on globalization we have been warned by Justin Rosenberg (2000), especially in The Follies of Globalisation Theory.

The critical approaches, which have been present ever since, are combining different methods. In this paper, therefore, let us repeat once again that our focus is on postpositivist, pluralistic approach that combines (1) an in-depth analysis of the transformation of social relations, (2) critical theory of knowledge (3) transdisciplinar analysis on discourse of the new 'knowledge-based economy'. This combination arises from the need to overcome some limitations in the discussion of the knowledge economy that prevents clear understanding of the logics and consequences of globalization. The focus of the biggest controversies about globalization and the transition seems to be a misunderstanding, or deliberate misunderstanding of economic globalization, or in other words misunderstanding of the defense of knowledge on which economic globalization is based.

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5. The defense of the global knowledge economy and the critics

It is well known that the simplest but also the most dangerous way to address the specific phenomenon is to act as a fan - when something is classified through the model of bipolar opposition: "for" or "against". In such circumstances, we reduce the complexity of the phenomenon to a "Prokrust's bed," and as a result there can be violence directed towards that what we are talking about. Jagdish Bhagwati (2008), for instance, recognizes that globalization can mean several things, and at first glance is focused solely on the economic globalization. Economic globalization represents the integration of national economies into the international economy through trade, direct foreign investment (which consists of corporations and multinational companies), short-term capital movements, international movement of workers and people in general as well as technology trends. This raises the question: Why are the critics of globalization so frustrated? What is it that really upsets them? Bhagwati believes that there are two groups. Firstly, there are a lot of hard-line opponents who have deeply grown antipathy towards globalization. They come from different intellectual and ideological backgrounds and they do not all share same ideas and feelings. However, many will give in to the obligatory triad of discontent, which represents an ethos, composed of anticapitalist, antiglobalist and anticorporated orientations. Bhagwati argues that, in addition to understanding the origin of their discontent, in a dialogue with the critics of globalization not a lot can be achieved (Bhagwati, 2008: 16).

Ideological nature, which is attributed to the critics of globalization in the defense of globalization, is not defined. However, it can be proved that any uncritical defense of globalization, which is reportedly opposed to ideology, is also the only one, and it is a very dangerous form of ideology. Stuart Sim (2006, 9-38) considers to live in an age of free market ideology (market fundamentalism), and that ideology is a form of global and corporate fundamentalism. Sim argues that we have entered a "new dark age of dogma." Moreover, the problem "lies not so much in dogmatism, but in the force it uses to push people" (Sim, 2006: 37).

This dogmatic era (which we could also consider not to be the age of knowledge, but rather the age of ignorance), is characterized by mutually complementary forms of fundamentalism: the market fundamentalism, nationalist fundamentalism and religious fundamentalism. Although, it doesn't claim that there is a global conspiracy of fundamentalism, Sim noticed that each of these parties claimed that only they "have the truth" (Sim, 2006: 17). According to Sim, fundamentalism has replaced communism in a form of a ghosts that haunts the conscience of the West (Sim, 2006: 13). The defense of globalization by Bhagwati, has minimized, or completely negated the negative consequences of globalization. On the contrary, he is trying to prove that there is no explicit link between globalization and economic prosperity. The defense did not show a perverse relationship between globalization, on one hand and poverty, unemployment, social psychology, social exclusion, violence, child labor, organized crime, corporated espionage or technologically produced ecological disaster on another hand. Bhagwati generally considered that globalization has nothing to do with it. His central thesis is that globalization promotes democracy (Bhagwati, 2008:47) and that it already has a human face (Bhagwati, 2008: 48). Therefore, he attacks alterglobalist, and especially feminist movements, considering their complaints on globalization to be unfounded. Problems such as child labor, poverty, unemployment, global pollution, destruction of the ozone layer and acid rain are global problems, but they are not necessarily a consequence of globalization (Bhagwati, 2008:195.). If we proceeded from there, it would be possible to reverse the question and ask what is the connection between global issues and globalization, and what are the discursive consequences of denying the fact that this relationship really exists.

The defense of globalization is opposed to the concept of "sustainable development" as well: "No one who is alive knows what sustainable development actually means. It has become a meaningless term which can be understood in any way today, like the notion of the former concept of socialism to which the adjective Arab or African was added. It is this notion that was heavily used by leaders of the Third World during the sixties and seventies, by adding a rule, the adjective Arab or African" (Bhagwati, 2008: 192). Bhgwati also believes that America stands out when it comes to a society that is most prone to experimentation in the field of technology. To Americans technique represents a device for solving problems, whereas to others it is a device for creating problems. Bhagwati considered this difference in attitudes to be a primarily cultural difference, and it is found on the grounds of conflicting positions of both Americans and Europeans in terms of hormone-fed cattle meat and genetically modified (GM) products. Unlike authors such as Rifkin (2006), who approaches analysis of differences between America and Europe on a higher level, Bhagwati, for instance, argues that "the widely spread use of silicone implants for women and Viagra for men has turned America into a society where artificially excited men are chasing women who are artificially enlarged" (Bhagwati, 2008: 153.).

The former critical analysis, particularly the economic aspects of globalization, which have been carried out separately by Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, Jeremy Rifkin, Naomi Klein, Sandra Harding, and many others - were particularly critical about the methodological reductionism of the new economy of knowledge. According to our insights, reductionism is based upon the concept of knowledge-based economy that wants to be defined as a "category of the history of economic growth," but it is still considered to be just normal expansion of economic variables of "knowledge". The largest part of the approach to the knowledge-based economy, is characterized by a positivist and non-conflict vision of knowledge and technology, which leads us to bypass the social, cultural and ethical contradictions that are inherent in a knowledge-based economy. From this point of view, there is a strong tendency to treat the production of knowledge and technological achievements independently of the analysis of social relations and the conflicts that have merged throughout the entire history of capitalism that are connected with the substantive issue of control, "the intellectual forces of production" (Lebert, Vercellone, 2007: 17).

The term of knowledge-based economy is still not properly defined (Guellec, 2002: 131). The first difficulty arises from the errors to approach the subject of knowledge on the basis of general theoretical models that are valid at any time and space, based on the separation of economic analysis from the analysis of social relations. According to Howitt (1996), the novelty in this approach is not a historic affirmation of knowledge-based economy, but only the formation of the economy of knowledge as a subset of economics focused on the study of knowledge production, which is considered to be a new factor of production. It is one of the greatest paradoxes we got accustomed to through the economic science in its attempt to formulate a single model for the functioning of economic systems: the theory ignores or denies the importance of structural changes that are in the very base of the birth of new areas of research, that is the theme of knowledge, in this case.

Another difficulty lies in the reductive vision of the role of knowledge in most of the interpretations relating to the occurrence of knowledge-based economy. These approaches are interesting because they highlight the existence of historical discontinuity. However, the origin of knowledge-based economy is mainly explained by changing the width of the phenomenon, a kind of a transition where we move from quantity to quality. This acceleration of history is the result of a shocking encounter of two factors: on the one hand, long-term trend of relative increase in the share of so-called "intangible capital" (education, training, research, development and health), and changes in the conditions of reproduction and transmission of knowledge and information through "spectacular spreading of new communication and information technology", on the other hand. There is certainly some truth in the second one, but there are two risks.

The first is the technological determinism. Communication and information technologies, given the leading role in tranzit to "mass production of knowledge and intangible assets" on the basis of a mechanistic scheme similar to the approach where vector is made out of a steam engine, which after the first industrial revolution leads to the formation of the working class and mass production of material goods. These distortions - as indicated by Paulré (2000) and Castells (2002) is typical of many approaches in the New Economy, which tends to identify knowledge-based economy with the computer revolution. This vision is fully in line with the inability to derive a clear distinction between the concept of information and the concept of knowledge, given that the concept of knowledge is based on cognitive ability to interpret information and mobilization, which would otherwise represent unused resource. Theoretical and epistemological debates about the meaning of the new knowledge-based economy are not always abstract. They are not far from the real problems of moral and ethical challenges that we, human beings are confronted when thinking about the consequences of the progress of biotechnology and technoscience.

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6. Should we try to avoid ethical dilemmas?

When speaking about the gene trade at the dawn of the brave new world, Rifkin (1999: 15) has set before us several far-reaching questions related to our theme: what will be the consequences for the global economy and society, if the world's gene bank turns into a patented intellectual property that will be controlled by only a handful of multinational corporations? How will the patenting of life affect our deepest beliefs about the pure nature and true values of life? What is the emotional and intellectual impact of growing up in a world where everything that is connected with life is considered to be an "invention" and "commercial property"? What does it mean to be a human being in a world where an infant is genetically created within the mother's womb to meet the customer's wishes? And what does it mean to be a human being in a world where people recognize and differentiate according to their genotype? These issues can be analyzed with regards to changing epistemological and ethical status of knowledge in the global knowledge society, which we call cognitive capitalism. Different authors take different experiments. Some will looks backwards while others will look forwards. The consequences of the progress of technoscience support unlimited confidence in scientific rationality. They cause a number of ethical dilemmas related to human self-understanding and nuanced approaches are needed for their contextualization. The progress in the field of biotechnology has created a gap in already existing regimes of regulation of the progress of biomedicine (Fukuyama, 2003: 234).

George Myerson (2001: 38), has examined the consequences of gene manipulation. The dilemma is this: Aren't the gene manipulators associated with racists in a way? race? Aren't they the ones who keep old dreams of extermination of degenerics through the reprogramme of genes? Many theologians, bioethicists and other experts expressed their doubts concerning the moral and ethical aspects of progress of technoscience and biomedical research. In 1987, the Supreme Court of the United States approved "patent on life" – right to the patenting of species, genes, or herbal ingredient, which has not been created in the mind of man but is rather a creation of Nature. The U.S. PTO (Patent and Trade Office) issued a statement that the parts of living things (genes, chromosomes, cells and tissues) can be considered patent and intellectual property of those who first isolated them and found usable application. The multinational corporations collect knowledge on plant species and their use from indigenous people through biopiracy, for industrial production and sales.

Therefore, the question of strengthening intellectual property rights and its spreading into the area of the living world as well as on the results of fundamental research seems to be a crucial aspect of the current regulation of cognitive capitalism. This restructuring of the intellectual property suits the policy of creating positional rents which are supposed to encourage innovation and synergy between the private and public research sectors. This policy is often justified by an argument according to which the main costs in the sector with intensive amount of knowledge are fixed ones relating to investment companies in research and development. However, - as Lebert and Vercellone demonstrated – the foundation of this argument is rather questionable. Moreover, they believe that strengthening the system of intellectual property rights, even when racing for a patent between some companies is presented before us as a matter of life and death, is actually a mechanism that blocks the flow of circulation and production of knowledge. François Chesnais believes that we are far from the optimistic visions of the transformation of "cognitive" potentials, which offers us the use of new technology: "In the scientific and technical disciplines that industry and financial speculation put the highest price on and that is biology, medicine and computer science, we noticed that the system of "compensation" from the Finance (wages and social recognitions) is expanding and it now includes highly advanced research. This resulted in a strong strengthening of opportunistic behavior in relationships between researchers and the academic community. We concluded that there is some fierce rivalry in which the bait is a gain. It damages the scientific cooperation, and sometimes even leads to separation of research teams " (Chesnais, 2007: 126).

In addition, temporary and individual wage relations, the destabilization of the collective services of the welfare state and excessive privatization of knowledge associated with the strengthening of intellectual property rights, affects the current regulation of cognitive capitalism to be some kind of potential obstacles to the development of knowledge-based economy. Consequently, according to the recent research the current changes of capitalism, characterized by changes in the cognitive capitalism, appears to be a conflicting phenomenon that in many of its aspects moves and intensifies the contradictions at both the relationship capital / labor, as well as in the effects of dominance that structures the new international division of labor. The crisis, which currently affects the world economy, is believed by these authors to be interpreted as the first "big crisis" of the regulation of cognitive capitalism. Finally, everything that happens confirms in some way the crisis and the new form of regulation and therefore some will legitimately question not just a crisis of cognitive capitalism, but will also wonder if the there is crisis of capitalism that deeply affects the Society. The history of other major crises that capitalism has experienced is a lesson for us today. The end of this great crisis is quite indefinite and depends on the game of complex dynamics of conflict / innovation. The investments are clear and therefore, Lebert and Vercellone want to draw attention to the dynamics of social transformation and power which is its integral part. This way the society of knowledge would be truly emancipated from the capitalist logics that it summs up, thus would set free the potential for emancipation - the potential added to the economy based on the free circulation of knowledge and democracy represented by the general mind (Lebert, Vercellone, 2007: 28).

Other researchers came to similar research results. Antonella Corsán believes that capital no longer subjects the science to make it suitable to its logic accumulation. It is immediately aiming at the field of knowledge production through knowledge, on the inside. It is not only that attitude towards science, technology and industry that is not linear, but it is rather about a deeper turn of a relationship between knowledge and accumulation of capital. This reversal reveals the fact that it is not only scientific knowledge that is suitable to be finalized for the industry and evaluation of industrial capital. Doesn't the change in the structure and status of knowledge, which is in political economy and has not found the conceptual tools for its analysis, force us to change the way of understanding the consequences of globalization? Philosophical reflection on the internal logics, upon which the transformation runs from industrial to a postindustrial society of knowledge, does not offer us a simple answer to the most important epistemological question: who decides what knowledge is and who knows what to choose? If it is true that we have stepped into the uncertain field of postpositivist epistemology, it is still not clear what that really means.

Finally, it seems that the most important thing is clear: cognitive capitalism works to turn all knowledge, regardless of whether it is artistic, philosophical, cultural, linguistic or scientific, into a commodity (Corsani, 2007.). However, the problem is that knowledge is not as good as other goods, and not reducible to a commodity. Knowledge is, therefore, not good or can not be good in the strict sense of the word. Therefore - as was noticed by other critics of the concept of knowledge-based economy - many problems arise when trying to apply the knowledge of the laws of valorization of capital that are inherent in industrial capitalism.

Entry into the knowledge-based economy, is not a homogeneous process in space and time (Mouhoud, 2007: 89), although the preferred concept of the new knowledge-based economy is imposed as if it is valid for all places and all times. Considering that historically, geographically and technologically different national economies, didn't have the same initial conditions for the creation of knowledge-based economy, and neither can the cognitive capitalism contribute to the true planetar integration of goods, capital and technology. Categories and terms used by the critics of cognitive capitalism have not been proposed to appoint or give authority to globalization as such. As a result, new critical sciences emerge out of a need to uncover the myths of valuable neutrality of privileged forms of knowledge. The new knowledge-based economy and global society of knowledge and skills that the economy is constantly talking about, already represent cognitive capitalism as a universal and immutable framework of any possible concept of knowledge.

Authors such as Rifkin (2006: 404) advocate a new vision of science that appears in this era of globalization. As science and technology are becoming more powerful, it is more complex and harder to predict its consequences. Many members of the scientific community are concerned that science, due to its greater innovative power, is lost. It seems, the ability to predict the effects of implementation of these innovations, and that because of increasing man's power to change the nature, the chances that it will eventually be a serious and global nuisance are on the increase. It seems that in the old educational science the answers to questions on how to deal with these new circumstances are simply not there (Rifkin, 2006: 405). Unfortunately, the way we think about the economy, politics and society and our attitude towards the environment are still bound by the old scientific paradigm. The new science should impose to public and public policy stronger in order to achieve real change (Rifkin, 2006: 412).

New science needs a new philosophy of sustainability of global and local community, that will not be dictated by the rich and powerful who impose a global definition as a global definition of knowledge. Globalization is, in general, expressed through the circulation of capital (the capital of base knowledge) between and within rich countries. This is in accordance with the logics, although it includes several countries that are emerging, though most countries rich in natural resources are violently excluded, since their only advantage lies in the natural resources and cheap labor (Mouhoud, 2007: 95). To that extent the cognitive capitalism, regardless of polysemic meaning of this phrase, in general refers to the establishment of new rules of ownership of the living world. Consequently, the ethical and moral issues become as important, if not even more important than epistemological. However, the problem is that the innovative theory of success of cognitive capitalism has turned the neglect of ethical and epistemological issues into a strategic methodological virtue.

The theory of innovation systems, upon which the building of the new knowledge-based economy is rising, does not have its own foundation in any scientifically proven knowledge. As Chesnais points out, the innovation system theory is placed not in a complete hell of theory but rather on a lower status. Nobel prize for economics has never been awarded for contribution inside this theory. The theory of systems of innovation is nothing but a clumsy attempt of recognition of positive and free production effects - defined as a positive "externality" of a multitude of interactions, out of which only the most visible are noticed, more socialized labor research, development and production. The emergence of new information and communication technology and technological management of living beings marks the end point of a long-term social accumulation of scientific and technical knowledge.

According to Chesnais, the main investment for capitalism has always been to do whatever is possible so that the social character of labor largo sensu is not recognized as such in order to keep a private property to be the inevitable form of creation, appropriation and use of knowledge. That is, during the age of so-called cognitive capitalism, has become even more obvious than before. Every time an international group puts a medicine under its license, they turn it into an element of strengthening their monopolistic position and the basis for an adequate flow of profits and fees, licensing rights, socially produced scientific knowledge that are publicly funded (Chesnais, 1994). Lawyer' fees for the identification of global right of intellectual property cost a fortune, which in practice means that they are only available to corporations with greater ability to pay. In all the sectors where intellectual property is a major determinant of value - in the media, information technology, pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology and seed breeding – the main role belongs to a few large companies, whose headquarters are mainly in industrialized countries. Ninety-seven percent of patents are owned by corporations from the rich part of the world. Due to recent legislation on intellectual property, poor countries will have to pay 40 billion dollars a year in the form of fees for licenses, and half of that amount will be payable to companies based in the United States (Monbiot, 2006: 134.).

Ha-Joon Chang (2002), the economist who specializes in the development, has dedicated the past ten years to uncovering the myth of the origin of the industrialized countries. Like all the stories that invading forces are saying about themselves - the compassionate heroism, the power in the service of the conquered - not even a single story about the development based on free trade and equal opportunity that the rich countries introduced and which is, quite obviously, not true. It can suppress an unpleasant historical fact, and that is that free trade policies have been introduced only after industrialized countries have achieved economic dominance. They have been fiercely defending their economies in the most important stages from the competition of other countries. (Monbiot, 2006: 135-136). One very interesting but little known fact is that no country that has been successfully industrialized and therefore can be considered to be developed today, has not achieved it through free trade, but through protectionism.

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7. How is globalization related to violence?

Many believe that the trade policies imposed by the rich to the poor today are in accordance with the unfair rules that were adopted by the imperialist forces in the past. From the time of protests against the World Trade Organization, held in the late 1999, the international debate on the most unavoidable issue of our time has become really serious and the issue itself is: what kind of values will rule the global age? There are many reasons to suggest that it is impossible to ignore the failures of a dominant economic model based on the concept of unlimited neoliberal globalization. Governments around the world have failed to meet the needs of the people who elected them. At the turn of the 20th to the 21st century there was a need for non-profit cultural room where you can communicate non-violently. The beginning of a new century has been marked by features of horrific violence and, of course, by a new economy based on knowledge. There have been movements against the global corporated organization of society. It seemed that the fences that protect the general interests are increasingly disappearing, while those that restrict fundamental human freedoms repeatedly multiplied. Another limit of general interest that faces a serious danger is the one that separates the genetically modified crops from the crops that have not yet been reconstructed. Climate change is probably the most serious problem the world faces, and it is largely affected by the sector of transportation. The movement of goods around the world is extremely wasteful and inefficient: cargo ships carrying grain from one side of the globe to another bypass with the same ships that transport it in the opposite direction (Monbiot, 2006: 145).

The political philosophy of global institutions became affected by "metaphysical mutation" of its own "subjects" of research that pervades critical reflection. Slavoj Zizek, the philosopher who lists a number of arguments from the globalization as we know it, and associates it with cognitive (discursive, symbolic) and actual violence. He believed that the fundamental systemic violence of capitalism, is far more seducive than the pre-capital direct socio-ideological violence: It is the violence that cannot be attributed to certain individulas or their evil intentions. It is rather objective, sistematic and anonymous. It spontaneously creates excluded and unnecessary individuals, starting from the idle to the homeless. This violence is favored for the birth of new ethnic and / or religious (in short: racist) fundamentalisms. It is very easy to find a scapegoat in it all, put the blame on the Party, Stalin, Lenin and eventually Marx himself for the millions of dead, the gulags and terror whereas in capitalism, there is no one on whom we can lay the guilt and responsibility. Although capitalism was not less destructive when they it came to the loss of millions of human lives, destruction of the environment, destruction of the original tribal culture –the system appeared to work spontaneously, without naming the culprits.

Naomi Klein, the famous activist believes that during the protest in Seattle it was not the trade or globalization that was on trial, but there was a global attack on citizens' right to set rules that protect people and the planet (Klein, 2003: 20). However, protests against market fundamentalism, or against the so-called "free trade" are not always antiglobalist: "When the protesters shout about the sins of globalization, most of them do not call back for narrow-minded nationalism, but rather they call for the expansion of the globalization borders, linking trade with the labour rights, and protection of the Environment and Democracy (Klein, 2003: 20). In this respect, we should understand the views of Jeremy Riffkin, who committed to making biopatents to be in the ownership of the whole world, that is the humanity. The World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and World Bank, are subject to continuous attacks by many activists and protesters.The critics argue that these institutions became so domesticated in poor countries that they even give themseves the right to determine which computer brand are schools to buy.

Whether we will live in peace, or under the constant threat of terrorism and war is dependent on the decisions of the Security Council. However, we we cannot escape climate change, financial speculation, debt bondage and deregulation, wherever you live. Since everything is globalized except democracy, the rulers of the world can deal with their affairs without paying attention at us. It is therefore not surprising that most of their decisions are against the interests of the majority and only reflect the interests of the overwhelming minority (Monbiot, 2006: 63). According to one of the senior World Bank officials, the new project is a "mandatory programme, which enables those who have money to give orders to those who do not have on what they must do to get it" (Monbiot, 2006: 105).

Zizek believes that the big news of today's post-political age, the "end of ideology" is a radical de-politicization of the economic sphere: the way the economy works (the necessity of cutting welfare, etc.) It has been accepted as a true insight into the objective of things, in neoliberal globalization. However, so long as we accept the fundamental depoliticization of the economic sphere, each discussion on active citizenship, public discussion that leads to common decisions, etc. will remain limited to "cultural" issues of religious, sexual, ethnic and other differences of lifestyle, without any real interfering on the level where long-term decisions are made that affect us all. The return of former communists to power (in some post-socialist countries in transition), for Zizek is a sign that socialism is really canceled, or what political analysts (wrongly) perceived as a "disappointment capitalism" is in fact a disappointment of ethnic and political enthusiasm which has no place in "normal" capitalism.

Thus, the depoliticization of the economy is in a way some kind of depoliticization of the political sphere: a political struggle turned into a cultural struggle for recognition of marginal identities and tolarance of diversity. The ideological dream of a united Europe aims to achieve (an impossible) harmony between the two components: the full integration into the global market and maintenance of specific national and ethnic identities. What we get in the post-communist Eastern Europe is a kind of negative, dystopian realization of that dream - in short, the worst of both worlds, unfettered market coupled with an ideological fundamentalism. Even George Soros (2002) one of the richest people on the planet, considers that the market fundamentalism is more dangerous than the totalitarian ideologies, and that the market itself is not a moral force, while Misha Glenny believes that "the widely unregulated economic field, reminds of a swamp full of nutrients for growing security problems" (Glenny, 2008: 14).

If the economy based on knowledge could make a thought experiment in which they could trace the discovery of the origin of their own knowledge they would discover that knowledge cannot be possessed. The only exception to the tendency of disciplinary and methodological vulgarization of the ideas of knowledge, is the emergence of economic sociology. Apparently, economic sociology has made a "revolutionary" (in Kuhn's sense of the word) epistemological and methodological shift. What makes it a novelty is that it is the economy and economic activity, analyzed in a critical and multi-disciplinary context, as an integral part of an overall social activity, and not isolated as it is represented by the conventional economic science, or more precisely by preferential aspects of the conventional economic science. Economic sociology is a kind of analysis that is very promising, considering the speed with which it has developed over the past ten years. It could easily become one of the key competitive methods in the analysis of economic phenomena – on the same level with neoclassical economics, the game theory and behavioral economics, in the 21 century.

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8. Do we live in a knowledge-based society or we commercialise life?

It is necessary to briefly examine the negative social and (anti) educational effects of commercialization of knowledge, which we consider to be a consequence of the institutional and cognitive manipulation of the idea of knowledge, and even the "science". Globalization, especially economic globalization and the new economy of knowledge, are deeply associated with commercialization, or more precisely, with the commercialization of knowledge. Basically, the core of commercialization, or whatever you may consider by that term, is a commercial logic, a commercial mindset or attitude towards the people and the world. French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, and several other authors are the ones who gave us inspiration for criticism of the commercialization of knowledge. As a result of criticism of commercial television broadcasts and commercialization in the broadest sense, he says: "It is important to look back on the fact that in history, all the cultural products that I consider to be - I hope I'm not alone in this - and that a number of others consider to be, are the highest achievements of mankind in areas of mathematics, poetry, literature, philosophy - were created to resist or neglect the level of viewership and commercial logic. Bourdieu, indeed, was not the only one to see "a very worrying fact" in the global process of commercialization of knowledge (Bourdieu, 2000: 44).

Whether the care and concern are good allies to fight against the commercialization of knowledge, is the question here. In addition, for the main ideological promoters of economic globalization and knowledge-based economy, commercialization of knowledge is not a problem, but a desirable thing, that the global society of knowledge entails. However, let us look back for a moment, at the very core of a problem. It is well known, for instance, that Martin Heidegger, the philosopher who was in the fundamental ontology, thought that it is pure care that is the main modus of us human beings. It is also well known, why it is his philosophy that was heavily criticized, by other great philosophers such as Richard Rorty (1995), Jacques Derrida (2007) and Peter Sloterdijk (1992).

Let us ask ourselves: ''what is the prevailing conception of philosophy today, at least in the West?'' Surely it is no longer thinking of a concept of being and time, as the philosopher Martin Heidegger claimed in his (for some thinkers even today a significant) book 'Sein und Zeit' (Heidegger, 1927). We shall probably agree that in this day and age, for today's understanding of the concept of time, the prevailing conception of philosophy, is the one that treats philosophy as a business philosophy (philosophy of success), or, simply, "management" (Drucker). In that kind of philosophy, there is no trace of Heidegger's interpretation of being (human being) with respect to temporality, nor is there, explication of time as the transcendental horizon when it comes to a questions about the being. Also, in today's business philosophy, management, as a modern story on success, does not contain any trace of the main line of metaphysical destruction in the history of ontology on the guideline of a temporality related issue, as is named a title of one chapter that the philosopher Heidegger wrote. In today's business philosophy - which definitely should pave its way towards the "global society of knowledge" - with a "knowledge-based economy" (which, therefore, serves as a device of arriving at the magnificent goal) - things related to philosophy, metaphysics, ontology and knowledge as a whole, appear to be quite different. To be more precise, the difference between those two philosophies is incomensurable. This difference speaks of "absolute anarhy of our time,"division of each modernity" (Derrida, 2001: 28). If we asked ourselves today, like Martin Heidegger, whether we are in trouble because we forgot to ask about being and time, perhaps our response should be: no way.

The business philosophy is, finally, after the hard travel times, after 2500 years of such a thinking in the West and at least a thousand years long period of philosophical (and Theosophical) thinking in the East, finally revealed the truth. To simplify it: time is money, the space is transformed into a market and a thought turns into calculations. (Of course, the story here is not over yet. The question of all questions that still remains after the end of times is what to do with humans, or more specifically, with what is left of him?). Since that day it was not popular to speak of a man as simply as it used to be before (or long ago), because it no longer was cool to talk about man as a man - the man alone has finally turned into a resource (goods). However, it became a human resources (human goods), but in the end, it is just a commodity. According to Wallerstein "it is necessary to be aware of the historical system in which we live and which is sustainable only thanks to an attempt to to turn everything in the goods (Wallerstein, 2004:102).

We cannot go into the semantic nuances and identify the range of variation within the new economy of knowledge in which there are rumours about a man, or people in general (in order to make the speech adapted to "natural" laws of the market and, of course, standards of "excellence" and "quality"), to be systematically, strategically and programmatically (which is, of course, very innovative), the capital: human capital, intellectual capital, social capital, cultural capital and of course transcultural (global) capital. It is sufficient to notice that the hyperinflation of the expansive, commercialized (posthumous) speech, for instance about a human, and generally "social capital", was strategicaly launched in the 90-ies of the 20-th century (Putnam and others, 1993). It happened just in time when other changes were on the lookout (not only in discourses and ways of naming our changing social reality), which can be considered global, far-reaching changes.

We have selected these examples so that we could indirectly, partly interdisciplinary, partly sociosemiologically, particularly with regards to the "anachronistic simultaneousness", in which we find ourselves, trying to draw attention to the indicative, disturbing fact (which in today's "knowledge society" is usually caused by indifference) that the meaning of what is meant by philosophy - wisdom or knowledge - changes over time. Our triumphantly cry "we live in a society of knowledge" has become a common place. "Common Places" that Flaubert spoke about, are those ideas that all people accepted, they are banal and common and chosen. These are the ideas that, once you have accepted them, already have been accepted in advance so that the problem of their reception does not exist. When you expose an already accepted idea, you seem to have done it already and the problem is resolved in advance. Communication is immediate, because, as Bourdieu observes, it is in a certain sense, not there. Or it seems to be only apparent.

A general exchange of communication whose only content is the mere fact that something, which is already understandable to be that way, relentlessly repeats. This is precisely the case with self-satisfied repetition of the airy, soothing slogans: we live in a society of knowledge. It is a catchword on whose wings flies a long prepared absence of thinking of new management, new economy of knowledge, commercialization, consumerism and much more. "The global society of knowledge" can be analyzed as the latter form of knowledge (and enjoyment), which enjoys an exalted - almost metaphysically exalted status. On the contrary, if we return to reason, we shall agree with those authors who argue that by definition a thought is subversive: it, therefore, must begin with the dismantling of "common places" and then it has to be demonstrated (Bourdieu, 2000: 46).

If there was enough time, it would be necessary to disassemble, ' deconstruct', or at least critically explain the background assumptions that enable one form of science, which functions in the form of a new economy (of knowledge), to get identified and self-identified through (again and again, regardless of the circumstances in which we live, no matter what "happens" in the world) production and reproductionand that way gets recycled, is recursively renewing. It's always the same one, the identical one which has not been proved yet but claims that we live in a society which (again and again, regardless of the circumstances in which we live, no matter what "happens" and "happening" in the world), produces and plays and so recilklira, recursively restores, spins, this one and the same, always identical, nothing proven, tautologični attitude, which is that we live in a knowledge society.

Liessman warned that "scientific" is often not more than labels that you put the prestige associated with it, wanting to improve the credibility and the likelihood of success. Among theorists of science, but is controversial whether such venerable disciplines such as economics or psychoanalysis in general science (Liessman, 2008: 39). The same argument but in cynical interpretations: "We live in a society of knowledge. This sentence haunts educators and politicians, educators, university reformers and trustees of the European Union: it movess researchers, markets and enterprise. Knowledge and education are the most important raw resource material of the poor Europe, and whoever invests in education, is investing in the future. With less emotions, we evoke the end of the industrial work, and the overall energy focuses on the activities of "knowledge-based"... At first glance it may seem that the supposed Enlightenment dream of a completely educated man in a truly informed society, finally, becomes a reality, although a second look at the actual formation is far more realistic. We will notice that much of what is being propagated and proclaimed under the title of a 'society of knowledge' is seen as a rhetorical gesture that owes less to the idea of education and more to a strong political and economic interests, if we observe carefully" (Liessman, 2008: 7). The idea that we live in a society of knowledge has become a commercially viable idea and it is worth repeating it but if you decide to deny it you can do it. However, considering the widely accepted and based view that we live in a society of knowledge, says Liessmann, it will only do us harm. Commercialization of knowledge is, therefore, not only a rhetorical gesture. It leads to commercialization of private and public institutions - such as, for instance, the university - and goes far to bring us to the commercialization of life itself.

The commercialization of universities, as the highest institutions of knowledge, represent a symptom of disorders of self-regulated idea of knowledge. Stanley Aronowitz, the sociologist, point out that "the learning has come under the service of a stronger administration, which does not suit many teachers and students, except in borderline cases, but tends to suit more policies and market forces that require the power over the higher education" (Aronowitz, 2000: 164).

For the cultural anthropologist Wesley Shumar, learning and research "began to be valued according to its ability to be converted into cash or goods, and not some other ways, such as aesthetics or satisfaction you gain from doing them. In the end, you lose the idea that there are other types of values as well" (Shumar, 1997: 5). Many fear that commercially oriented activities overshadow other intellectual values and that university programmes will be assessed through the money that students bring and not by their intrinsic intellectual quality (Bok, 2005: 22). Members of the university, who oppose the excessive expansion of the commercial impact of torture, are concerned. They fear that money and efficiency can gradually get too much prominence in the academic decision-making and that the verdict of the market will get rid of the judgement of scientific workers when it comes to deciding on the teaching school methods and the setup of education board staff (Bok, 2005: 25).

The modern science does not allow clear separation of scientific, industrial, technological or commercial aspects of research. If under the influence of the new economy of knowledge, marketing and management, the administrators are tirelessly repeating that "we live in a society of knowledge", but in reality (in addition to so present will of ignorance, trance or ecstasy), we see domination of dogmas and imitations, it is a symptom of the dramatic transformation of the very idea of knowledge which reaches its climax with the crisis of the neoliberal concept of globalization. The increasing closeness of university science and profit-oriented industry produces a variety of risks to compromise, openness and objectivity of academic research (Bok, 2005: 145).

As one of the authors put it down: we do not know what we need to know until we ask the right question, and we can identify the real question only if we put our own ideas about the world on the test of public controversy (Lasch, 1996). The essential question is what should be and what may become the subject of scientific research. How and by which qualitative (interpretative) methods will be interpreted the results of a socially sensitive research? What will be highlighted as a potential risk, what is left out, what will remain open, and what problem will be (and whether it will ever be, and how) anticipatory named as a possible or desirable direction of future research? - All of these are very complex, epistemological, ethical and commercially open and challenging questions. For instance, if the pharmaceutical companies become major sponsors of medical research, it raises an obvious question - and that is exactly what happens in the moment. The government encourages universities to get the sponsorships rather than to rely on the public funding (Crouch, 2007:54).

Some scientific problems deserve to be explored, although they do not have a predictable commercial value, while other areas, such as Egyptology or epistemology, deserve the greatest and highest scholarships, although only a few people read about them. Also, universities must be careful when it comes to looking up to venture models for achieving greater efficiency in their activities. We can find the useful suggestions among the business methods on how to reduce costs in maintaining buildings and providing support services. However, efficiency is not a very useful guide on teaching and research. The ways according which the markets function are not always useful in attempts to improve the work of research universities. The high risk lies in a fact that companies can influence the results of research (Bok, 2005:73). More troubling is the multitude of cases where pharmaceutical companies are trying to suppress unwanted results that were identified by university researchers (Bok, 2005: 74). Testing drugs for pharmaceutical companies is not the only example of high-risk research. Nutritionists who are investigating the effects of certain foods on human health can reduce the chances of entire companies, the way epidemiologists changed the lives of tobacco producers and demonstrated a link between cigarettes and cancer. Scientists that are working on environment and assess the impact of exhaust gases can bring to release the results which lead to extremely costly regulations for manufacturers. Researchers who study the existence of global warming could drastically alter the future of the energy industry (Bok, 2005:76).

The most obvious danger is that researchers who receive money from the companies for their research can be under the influence of that company. They do not need to deliberately change their results of research in order to keep the favor of the company's sponsors. However, when you have received such support, it can be a subtle way to influence you, when deciding on how to draft conclusions, how much to highlight the qualifications and contrary interpretations (or whether to mention the potential (but unproven) new risks (Bok, 2005: 77). It has been the case that more and more scientists are becoming businessmen rather than remaining scientists. Due to the process of commercialization of knowledge, triggered by global trends, scientific truth that we have spoken about becomes less important than economic success. The ethics loses appeal in relation to politics and business. This is confirmed by the evidence of that fact, that the ethics, where it exists, is taught and referred to a business ethics. The traditional ethics was such forms of unity. Nevertheless, there is still faith in the ability of humanity. There is a measure of that that is human that we cannot change, but only lose (Valjan, 2004: 360).

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9. Are we living in a postdemocratic or predemocratic period?

Colin Crouch's attitude from Postdemocracy (2007) is congruent with our experience that democracy is going through a period of significant paradox. In the post-socialist transition countries it is widely believed that globalization imposes itself on the consumerist culture of egocentric consumer who gets promoted on a wave of theft (predatory) privatization and environmental degradation. When the masses have the opportunity to actively participate in defining priorities of public life, the democracy is making a progress. But the question, which refers to the paradox of democracyas well, is that the masses have the necessary knowledge to understand the priorities to establish a healthy democratic society. The experience of former Yugoslavian countries that are now in transit is negative. It claims that the newly-ethnic democracy, is in fact, only a formal democracy. They encourage discrimination, alienation between people, and various forms of deviant and criminal behavior. Lack of transparency has become a synonym for the transition and privatization. Such democracy is not a true democracy, but pre-democracy. They reduce and cripple the human creative potential. They reduce the plurality of human identity to a single - "killer identity" (Maalouf, 2002: 12). Questions of identity, essentially conceived identity, which in post-socialist societies, over the last 20 years imposed as the most important existential questions - questions were false. These issues are suitable for manipulating the masses.

It is a well known fact that the masses are generally more prone to cheering than reading the critical literature on the manipulation of the mind, will and emotions, manipulation of needs and desires and the manipulation of collective and personal identities. Guy Debord talks about the type of "integrated spectacle" as a stage in which the West is a postindustrial, and postmodern society. Model of integrated spectacle, as the logic that leads to cultural practices of consumption, unites the two types of spectacles that have preceded him. The first is the concentrated spectacle, marked by dictatorial totalitarian ideology of a dictatorial type, whether it is a Nazi or Stalinist style, and the other is diffuse spectacle, the so-called Americanization of the world on principles of an intrusive market offer of competitive goods and services (Debord, 1999: 152). When a society which proclaims democracy comes to the level of the integrated spectacle, it seems as if fragile achieving perfection is considered everywhere. Therefore, no longer is it exposed to attacks, because it is fragile and cannot be attacked any more and also it seems to be perfect, as no society has ever been. This society is fragile because it is very difficult to manage their hazardous technological expansion.

However, such a society is also quite appropriate to rule the world. The evidence of this is that those who aspire to power want to rule it exactly as it is, by the same procedures and keep it just as it was. For the first time in modern Europe, no party or faction is no longer trying to pretend to make any changes. No one can criticize the goods (Debord, 1999: 190). Giorgio Agamben adds to this diagnosis, when talking about the "decadence of modern democracy and its gradual convergence towards the totalitarian states in postdemocratic society of the spectacle" (Agamben, 2004: 18). Colin Crouch also believes that the more we move towards the postdemocratic sex, the more this explains the widespread feeling of disillusionment and dissatisfaction with the level of participation among the political class and the masses of citizens. While the framework of democracy remain fully in force, politics and government are increasingly rolling back into the hands of the privileged elite in a way that is typical for pedemocratic period. An important result of this process is the growing weakness of the ideals of equality (Crouch, 2007: 12).

A large number of people in democratic regimes, and an even larger number in non-democratic regimes, suffers an enormous amount of pain while living in misery, poverty and hopelessness. It is the living, everyday paradox of so-called developed democracy and ethnic democracy, which mark most of the countries in transit. Finally, "if we go back to the beginning, we still do not know what democracy means, or what democracy is. For democracy is not yet presented, it has not yet been proved, it is to come" (Derrida, 2007: 25). The question is how to set free the opportunities for true, global democracy. The need for an answer to what is so urgent that it cannot wait any longer for an answer may cause blockage of opinion. If you do not know what globalization is, then you cannot be sure what the global democracy is either. Who is the true subject of the global democracy? Is it a working man who works, one that earns his bread by labouring with his own hands? Or is it a man who does not work, because the work, the very concept of work, seems to have become obsolete - insufficient? What if the global democracy is not an appropriate subject? What if the fascinating progress of micro-computer technology, biotechnology and robotics, and man has made democracy insufficient in an irreversible way? What if Rifkin and Derrida were right to speak about our posthuman future, for instance, to talk about the different micro-information revolution and the revolution in robotics, that is actually happening. Rifkin's book 'The End of Work', creates a separate place for what he calls the "division of knowledge" and that way referring to the change that is underway. Derrida goes even further than that. He is interested in the problem of consumer culture, the loss of meaningful work, and culture of idleness. Derrida connects the problem of "the end of work" to "globalization", "mondialisation". He does so in the context of the transformation of the university and the transformation of the very idea of knowledge, which disrupts any stable notion of knowledge, as well as in the context of future social sciences, which could happen tomorrow. Thus, in the case of the "end of work" and in the case of the "globalization", which are closely linked, Derrida emphasizes the need to distinguish between extensive and firmly set phenomenon which we under under these words on one hand, and between the non-conceptual use of the word, on the other hand. Derrida argues that "renewed and revised idea of the "human rights" (1948) and the institutions of the legal term crimes against humanity" 1945) shape the vision and mondialisation of the international law for which it is assumed to watch over this idea.

Derrida kept the French word "mondialisation", in terms of "globalization", a reference to preserve the "world" ("monde") [World, Welt, Mundus, which is neither globe nor cosmos.] The concept of man, human distinctiveness, human rights, crimes against humanity, as we know, is organizing the mondialisation. The notion of man is, at the same time, necessary but is, still, always problematic... We can discuss about it or consider it the way it is but only within the frame of new Social Sciences“ (Derrida, 2002: 83). However, in order to make these debates critical or deconstructive, in what regards the question of history and truth in relation to the question about man, human distinctiveness, human rights, crimes against humanity, etc. - all of this should be, in principle, to find its place in unconditional discussion without preconceptions or assumptions, to find its legitimate place of work and reconsideration at the university, and in it, primarily within the social sciences (Derrida, 2002: 83).

Wallerstein also considered that the first thing you should do is completely delete the category of social sciences from the head, which the legacy of the existing world system has left to us and which has been an obstacle not only on the way to analyse current realities but also when it comes to creating possible alternatives to it. The first step is to understand that there are multiple temporalities, a multiple spectrum of universalism and particularism. However, it is necessary to do much more than simply accept that they exist. We must begin to discover how they fit together and what is the optimum combination and in what circumstances. This is a serious plan of reconstruction for our system of knowledge. In this opening, future-oriented context (asking an autoreferential question who we are, when talking about globalization, when speaking to each other), Wallersten believes that "we need to focus our students to think about the fundamental epistemological issues" (Wallerstein, 2004: 137). Unfortunately, as Wallersten claims, "we are all just talking about globalization - regardless of political affiliation, as if this concept is a far more then just a passing rhetorical device for continuing conflict within the capitalist world economy, which is unauthorized and excessively used.

This is the dust that we had thrown in our eyes. The endless litany on ethnic violence, for which not only sociologists are responsible but also activists fighting for human rights, and that also is the dust that we had thrown in our eyes. I will not deny that the ethnic violence is a horrific and frightening reality, but I want to point out that it is obviously not the domain of some other people who are less happy, less intelligent, less civilized. It is an absolutely normal result of deep and growing inequality in our world system... Social science has not offered us a useful tool for analyzing what is happening in the world system since the 198th year" (Wallerstein, 2004: 74). This internationally recognized, a longtime researcher of the world system, proves that the world economy is in structural crisis and that we are in the midst of chaotic period. He believes that we are in the period of bifurcation, and that by mid-21st century, not only will our present world system cease to exist this, but he predicts that a new one will generate (Wallerstein, 2004: 133).

Attali (Attali, 2010: 7) offered a simple diagnosis of the present: market forces take over the planet. If this development continues until the end, it is anticipated that the money will remove anything that might hurt, and will even gradually destroy the country, including the United States. We shall experience the decline in U.S. omnipotence, and the distribution of the world order among several regional powers. Lastly, when it gets to rule over the world, the market will educate an entity called hyperimperialism, which will be intangible and planetary, which will create market value and the new alienation, extreme wealth and poverty; the nature will be strictly divided, it will all be privatized, including the army, police and legal system. The man himself will perform the intervention of plastic surgery, after which he himself will become an artifact of the standard sales, intended for consumers who have also become artifacts. After becoming unnecessary to his creations, the man will disappear. Although mankind has withdrawn before such a future and violently opposed to globalization, before it releases of all of its earlier alienation, it will fall into a series of regressive and destructive wars, it will used the weapons unthinkable for us today, confronting the states, religious groups, terrorist units and private pirates.

Attali called this war a hyperconflict, and believes that such a war could lead to the extinction of mankind. There is, however, more optimistic scenario. If the globalization can be controlled and accepted, if the market could be limited without being lifted, if democracy could have planetary dimensions and still remain concrete, if the domination of one empire could be prevented, only then will open up a new infinity of freedom, responsibility, dignity, overcoming and respect for another. This period is called hyperdemocracy (Attali, 2010: 8). The first global financial crisis of the 21st century confirmed that we are in the midst of chaotic period. The crisis was initially detected in the U.S. mortgage market. This crisis, in 2007. and 2008. spread outside the U.S. and outside the mortgage market crisis in the international banking system (Snower, 2008. 140). It is a widespread belief that the global financial crisis is not just financial, but also moral and political and environmental, etc.

This global crisis has additionally burdened the processes of globalization, transition and democracy. After the terrible experience of the global crisis, many believe that the current crisis will not prevail: if economic and financial information are not distributed equally and simultaneously available to everyone, if financial markets that are ipso facto - world markets are not balanced by global rule of law and thus cease to be financial casino, if bank interest does not become "modest and boring again (which was supposed to be the case), if there is not an established global and real surveillance of the risk, if the system of personal income is not revised,"if we do not separate the market and banking activities," "if we do not introduce an obligation of risk-taking for the one that imposes on others," "unless we turn to larger, environmentally sustainable work on a global level, as it is already does in some countries" (Attali, 2009: 21).

It has been suggested that we should consider replacing the banking supervision at the state level by banking supervision at EU level, because the supervisory failure was caused by mutual competition of national authority and supervision requires a united EU authority (Tabellini, 2008: 61-64). Analysis of the current global economic crisis shows that this crisis began with the increased losses that turned into a crisis in U.S. subprime mortgage market. There are many macro and micro economic causes of the crisis. We should let experts explain to the general public – based on the background of a society of knowledge or the new knowledge-based economy in other words - the meanings of key terms which explain the causes of the crisis, such as for instance: ignorance, bad judgments, speculation, creating bubbles, credito mania (strategy at which the old loans are repayable by new loans), bad practice on the border of negligence, trusting to (wrong) people from credit rating agencies, excessive extravagance, incompetence, greed for quick wealth. It seems that there is a multitude of evidence that there is no organic link between capitalism (cognitive capitalism) and democracy, though, in the dominant political rhetoric, these two concepts are treated almost like Siamese twins (Hobsbawm, 2007: 97).

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10. Apocalyptic tone in philosophy, theology and critique

The global economic crisis, population growth, resource consumption, environmental pollution, mass extinction of species, and ontological uncertainty, and new security risks - these are all the phenomena related to globalization. That does not mean that we have listed it all. What determines initial definition as globalization, is a subject to subsequent changes based on different experiences. Many definitions have been suggested for the start of globalization. There are only a few that have declared its end. One definition says: "Globalization is the beginning of broadening, deepening and speeding up of the global interconnectedness in all the aspects of contemporary social life, from cultural to criminal, from the financial to the spiritual“ (Held, McGrew, 1999: 2). Unlike the privileged discourse, where the leading discourse is the discourse of the new economy, spreading the mantra that we live in a „society of knowledge and skills" (Giddens, 2009: 38), many critics believe that we have entered a new era of dogmatism (Sim, 2006: 22), darkness and ignorance (Zizek, Gunjevic, 2008: 25).

Faced with that kind of threat, our collective ideology has launched a cover-up mechanisms and self-deception, including the direct will to ignorance, 'it is the general pattern of vulnerable human societies: instead focusing on the crisis, while declining, they are becoming more and more blinded. "Also, there are re-appearing variants of apocalyptic discourse. This time, the apocalyptic tone in philosophy and theology of liberation, became very close. Zizek believes that the apocalypse is characterised by the special weather mode, which is clearly opposed to the other two main modes - traditional circular time (which is established and governed by the principles of the universe, and reflects the natural and celestial order, as the time format in which microcosm and macrocosm resonate harmoniously in the second one) and the straight line modern time (as a time of gradual progress and development) is an apocalyptic time 'time of the end of time', 'time of an emergency', when we should get prepared for the end that is closer.

There are three variants of apocalyptism: Christian-fundamentalist, new age and techno-digital-posthumous apocalyptism. Although sharing the basic idea that humanity is approaching the zero point of radical transformation, their ontologies differ radically: the techno-digital apocalyptism (whose main representative is Ray Kurzweil) moves within the boundaries of scientific naturalism and, at the level of evolution of human kind, recognizes the contours of the conversion of people in 'post-human beings'; new age apocalyptism gives spiritualist reversal to the conversion, interpreting it as a shift from one mode of 'cosmic consciousness' to another (usually from the modern dualistic-mechanistic attitude to an attitude of a holistic immersion); Ultimately, the Christian fundamentalists read the apocalypse in the strictly biblical terms, ie, seek (and find) in the modern world of wonders to be closer to the final battle between Christ and Antichrist, and a critical turning point inevitably awaits us. Although the latter option, despite its dangerous contents, often considered laughable, is the closest 'millenium's' radically emancipatory logics (Zizek, 2008).

Apocalyptic discourse becomes a newly discovered area of productive encounter of philosophy and theology - the meeting that simultaneously transcends both of these areas. Gunjević believes that apocalyptic discourse transcends all other forms of theology, because the only revolutionary apocalypse has enough potential to radically revise and change reality. The apocalyptic discourse constructs doxolic practice not only to see the reality differently, but it evokes it into existence. Hence the importance, power and beauty of the apocalyptic vision of reality (Gunjevic, 2008). Hence the talk about diabolic relationship between capital and terror, to which Hardt and Negri are coming based on the deconstruction of the works of Aurelius Augustine, Civitate Dei, "as Saint Augustine, the great kingdoms are only projections of small thieves. However, Augustine of Hippoa is so realistic in his pesimistic concept of power that he would be stunned in front of today's small thieves of the monetary and financial power. Indeed, when capitalism loses its relationship with the value (as measured by a single operation as well as the norms of collective progress) it appears as a corruption" (Hardt, Negri, 2003: 14).

The problem with capitalism in the above mentioned perspective is that it successfully captures the desire and discipline. Micro-politics of desire has developed a technique of desire so we want what others want and the way others want it, noticed Gunjević. Augustine in 'City of God', from the second until the nineteenth chapter, calls for a certain shape, desertion, exodus, nomadism. He call for specific disciplined asceticism. That is what is missing not only to Negri's anti-imperial activist, but also to the multitude that is constituted as a political subject (Gunjevic, 2009: 71). Also, the final page of the Empire are more mysterious than incomplete. A person who embodies joy of non-communist struggle against the Empire, is none other than Francis of Assisi. Other authors have taken a serious anti-capitalist critique. They diagnosed negative consequences of globalization, especially the increase of social inequalities, both within countries and globally, and they gave an open contribution to the anti-capitalist movement, which is thought to be activated during the protests in Seattle in 1999.

Callinicos admits that the main intellectual danger is the fact that critical thinking may be driven into a torrent of aggressive propaganda of the "new economy" (Callinicos, 2009: 31). We recognize the apocalyptic tone in his book 'Against The Third Way: Anti-Capitalist Critique', where he says: "The deception of the Wall Street is a key component of a long boom of the early 1990s: thanks to the so-called "welfare effect", the middle-class Americans reacted to the increase in the value of their stock investments by more borrowing and spending. This has allowed the U.S. to act as a "consumer" and thus contribute to re-stabilize the world and Asian economies after the Asian and Russian the collapse of 1997-98 (Callinicos, 2009: 559).

Samuel Brittan and Martin Wolf, the two economists and commentators of the Financial Times, are both loyal to the neo-liberal orthodoxy, rejecting claims of "Wall Street's ability to reach stratosphere. Brittani adds that "no one can tell whether the failure will happen in a week, year or five years' time" (Callinicos, 2009: 56). An interesting phenomenon, which could be a good landmark for future research associated with globalization (glocalization) is the collision of fake and real sense of urgency. Since the crisis is global, it often imposes a sense of urgency, that is a need that something urgent must be done in order for humanity and the planet to be saved. A preliminary analysis of individual proclamations, bordering with the badly pretended panic-spreading, shows that it is often to do with a false sense of urgency. Therefore, how shall we responsibly rationalize this false sense of urgency? An interesting phenomenon, which could be a good landmark for future globalization (glocalization) associated research is the collision of fake and real sense of urgency. As Bill Gates recently said: "What is the use of millions of computers when there are people still needlessly dying of dysentery?" (Soros, 2002). Contrary to this request for urgency, Zizek reminds us of Marx's letter to Engles from 1870 in which, at least for a moment, it seemed as if the revolution in Europe once again was knocking on the door. Marx's letter reveals his panic-stricken fear: why couldn't revolutionaries wait several years, given that he had not yet completed his Capital? Mass protests of Croatian citizens against the Croatian Government, which began in March of 2011 under the motto THIS IS NOT THE REVOLUTION THIS IS THE EVOLUTION.

According to some analysts, such protests represent a symbolically significant expression of socially discontent people. They are discontent with the way the post-war transition is made as well as the privatization of public goods. The social consequences of transition and ethnic privatization are even worse in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Because the multi-ethnic and multi-religious Republic, with significant social capital and major European, civil, cosmopolitan potential - exposed crime against humanity, genocide against Bosnian Bosniaks in Srebrenica in 1995. – and was parallel to the impact of "economic genocide." After the terrible experiences - such as the Holocaust and genocide - Zizek thinks that Adorno should be corrected: it is not poetry but the prose, that became impossible after Aushwitz. Zizek, for instance, believes that the constantly present violence and terror as well as sympathy for the victims are relentlessly acting as a decoy that prevents us from thinking (Zizek, 2008: 9). In this respect, one of the author who did not participate in the conflicts and who acknowledges that he cannot enter into any of the official policies of collective identities, expressed his doubt regarding the official bureaucratic language used to describe post-conflict societies, when he said: “it can happen to us to talk about the reconciliation without really knowing what we are talking about“. Politics of ethnic representation, which I have elsewhere called democracies of ethnomathematics - which are based on the endless counting and counting, sorting and classification and exclusively on the so-called ethnicity, ignoring the plurality and multiple interweaving of the human identity – produce the dissatisfaction of the same people who have voted for them and elected them, 20 years ago... The experience of transition in Bosnia and Herzegovina is very specific and reveals a number of paradoxes, related to global, regional and local identity politics, but also paradoxes that are the result of international continuity in a symbolic and actual space that not even the so-called international community understands herself.

To make things that relate to the installation of globalization on Bosnian soil worse, here comes the following fact: The Dayton Constitution recognizes only the ethnic identities: Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats and others, while the Bosnians or Herzegovians as civils and citizens, are eliminated upon mentioning their name, and thus, symbolically, and actually switched off - declared non-existent. This is a textbook example that speaks about how the symbolic and actual violence are, in fact, inextricably linked. This can also be an example of how the economy of violence is reproduced in our everyday speech forms, as an integral part of symbolic violence that is embodied in language and institutional forms. The symbolic and actual elimination of multiple, plural, open, multicultural identity - which are exposed to the residents of Bosnia and Herzegovina - can be analyzed as a symbolic blow to the most terrible idea and the reality of European and global multiculturalism. The elimination would bring to a fatal administrative protocol error made during an attempt to stop the aggression on the Republic of Bosnia & Herzegovina. There will be a mistake, at the international level, that needs to be corrected. And not only because of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but for the ideas of cosmopolitanism, in order to preserve the universal values of civil society, universal rights and freedoms upon which the idea of living together, or the very idea of humanity is based. The logic is very simple: if the common life in Bosnia and Herzegovina is impossible, why should life together be possible anywhere else on the globe? Because of the hope that the idea is Justice, even in this world where it is the possible landmark of work of international institutions, it is worth to fight for the idea of living together in Bosnia and Herzegovina and for the idea of freedom and common life anywhere in the globalized world.

Since Bosnia and Herzegovina has a cosmopolitan potential to be globalized, it can also serve as a paradigm of the global crisis, but it van also serve as a paradigm of a hope to restore the ideas of cosmopolitanism and universal respect for human rights. As Michel Chossudovsky writes: "Relying on the Dayton agreement, which created the Bosnian "Constitution," U.S. and the European allies have introduced a complete colonial rule over Bosnia... The new "constitution", which is a separate annex attached to the Dayton Agreement, gave the reins of economic policy into the hands of institutions that emerged from Bretton Woods and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), based in London. The International Monetary Fund had the authority to appoint the first governor of the Bosnian Central Bank, as well as the High Representative, "who will not be the citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina or any neighboring country"... From the very beginning, Bosnia didn't get the possibility to self-finance its own reconstruction, starting from an independent monetary policy... While the West has pleaded in support of building democracy, real political power has crossed the parallel to the Bosnian "state" where executive power was in the hands of foreigners and not Bosnian nationals.

The Bosnian Constitution, which was quickly written by the Western creditors on their behalf, contained their interests as well. They managed to do this without convening a constituent assembly and without a participation of an organization of Bosnian citizens." (Chossudovsky, 2008.) The inability of multilateral institutions to renew the possibility on the globally deterritorialized points of the symbolic encounter of civilizations and cultures of the world (for us it is Bosnia and Herzegovina, for Iraqi it is Iraq, for Tibetan Buddhists it might be Tibet, for Africans probably a whole, not just sub-Saharan Africa, and so on) and therefore to build a global solidarity and so bring hope to the excluded, subordinated, poor, excommunicated, eliminated and disenfranchised – brings back to lie those who persistently claim that we live in a global society of knowledge - the best of all the possible worlds. Resemantization discourse on globalization, in a variety of interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary and subdisciplinary contexts, can be a good way to open up critical opportunities to build new value related orientations that could facilitate the construction of a better world with more justice for all the people.

11. Conclusion

The transforming effects of globalization strongly affect the economic, political, cultural, technological, environmental, ethical and other aspects of the modern world of life. In this section we will try to show that what we call globalization is so loaded with different meanings that the incomensurability of these meanings is hard to place in one discursive framework. We we shall therefore focus on the analysis of the underlying assumptions of economic globalization. We analyse the nature of knowledge on which the new knowledge-based economy in detail. It is the most dominant form of knowledge that has tremendous power and impact on all other dimensions of globalization. We partly compare "central" and "peripheral" or marginal flow of science. We show that the new knowledge-based economy (and knowledge paradigms close to her) enjoy very high status within the mainstream of science. Based on the symbolic power that they possess, the main flows of science have the opportunity to make the certain definitions and practices of globalization, which occurred just within these flows, on the outskirts, achieve greater impact in comparison to some others. While the positivist, commercial discourses, very superficially speak about the discursive preconditions and effects, we headed in the different direction. We investigated deeper: epistemological, cognitive, discursive and symbolic aspects of globalization, starting from the sociosemiotic and discursive critique of economic globalization. We were interested to know, above all, how it is possible that the economic aspects of globalization, in most discussions (except perhaps in economic sociology), act as dominant in relation to some essential problems, such as the destruction of biological diversity or multiculturality. We searched for an answer to the question of whether and how globalization, namely economic globalization, affect the structure of knowledge, for instance, the transformation of the very idea of knowledge. The answer to that question is yes. Globalization, in general, leads to the commercialization of knowledge (philosophy turns into a "business philosophy"). At the same time, it promotes consumerism (extravagance and consumption became a virtue). However, we have focused on the internal, intrinsic aspects of the economic effects of discourse, which allow institutional consumerism of knowledge. These aspects are, in positivist analysis of economics and economic activities as well as in a pragmatic system of "knowledge and skills", considered to be as self-evident, and are rarely subjected to any criticism. On the contrary, we started from the criticism of the positivist and econometric methodology on which the new knowledge-based economy is founded. We applied postpositivist, qualitative methodology, in order to comprehend how a more comprehensive discourse actually functions based on the new knowledge-based economy and the scientific, ideological and real consequences of uncontrolled spreading in all the spheres of knowledge and education. We have shown that the new knowledge-based economy (as a concept, approach, paradigm), is a dangerous form of methodological reductionism. We believe that this kind of reductionism is linked to the specific institutional, political, cultural, and psychological factors that suit the corporate fundamentalism and neoliberal concept of globalization. The economic dimension of globalization we consider to be the most important dimension of globalization because it is based on these dimensions, starting from the economic language and the economic criteria of rationality, and it is on the level of these dimensions that all the other phenomena that are associated with globalization are analysed and evaluated. According to our insights, globalization provokes both positive and negative effects, although we shall focuse more on the negative effects of globalization. We tried to contribute to ongoing discussions about the consequences of globalization (and transition), so we are focused primarily on transdisciplinary critical connection of a knowledge-based economy and ideology. The largest part of the approach to knowledge-based economy, is characterized by positivist, non-conflict vision of knowledge and technology, which leads us to avoid the social, cultural and ethical contradictions inherent in a knowledge-based economy. We came to the insight that the new knowledge-based economy is a deeply ideological economy, which serves as a strategic tool for the production of so-called "global society of knowledge", and that makes an ideological foundation for cognitive capitalism. We talked about the background speech assumptions, about the new knowledge-based economy and the global knowledge-based society and the deeper meaning of this very powerful discourse. We searched for an answer to the question of why - and how - a new knowledge-based economy - a broad, comprehensive matrix, as a global matrix - imposed to all the other forms of knowledge, and works as the inevitable basis of a global knowledge-based society - as the knowledge itself. The concept of cognitive capitalism, which is - in the semantic sense, inextricably linked to the institutional forms through which it imposes and self-promotes the new knowledge-based economy – has been proposed to make an effort for the future research, so that in the context of analysis of the negative consequences of globalization which we have more, it can be rationally understood. It is necessary to have clearly precise meaning and background of the current practice of knowledge, as a general resource of humanity reduced to the economic idea of instrumental knowledge which is subjected to the narrow interests and the logics of privatization of profits. The issue of strengthening intellectual property rights and its expansion in the area of wildlife and owards the results of fundamental research is a crucial aspect of the current regulation of cognitive capitalism. We have shown that there is not (just) a model of knowledge-based economy on which it would be possible to simply implement a global knowledge-based society. Globalisation has a significant impact on a number of ideological traditions, especially nationalism, socialism and religious fundamentalism (though we speak more about the social consequences of "market fundamentalism"), but also has broader implications for the ideology as a whole. The experiences of globalization, as well as experiences of transition from socialism to capitalism are not identical, but different. Theoretical and epistemological debates about the meaning of the new knowledge-based economy are not always abstract. They are not far from the real problems of moral and ethical challenges that we, human beings are confronted when thinking about the consequences of the progress of biotechnology and technoscience. As the world of science grew in size and power, its deepest problems ranged from the epistemological to the social and ethical issues. Because historically, geographically and technologically different national economies, did not have the same initial conditions to create the economy and knowledge-based society. Therefore, cognitive capitalism does not contribute to a true planetary integration of goods, capital and technology. Ethics of responsibility for the consequences of the application of science we consider to be the royal path of knowledge. We are committed to new critical science, an open, multicultural epistemology that recognizes the various intellectual and spiritual traditions of knowledge that can not exclude the so-called ordinary people (laities). Knowledge should be understood as a public good in the service of peaceful ideas of humanity. Commercialization of universities, as the highest institutions of knowledge, is a consequence of disorders of self-regulation of the idea of knowledge. Science and scientific results do not pertain just science, but concern all people. When dealing with a variety of ethical and moral dilemmas, in which Western science itself is necessary in order to establish a balance between the authority of science and the public. It is necessary to develop intelligent and responsible dialogue between those who have the power and the movement for global justice and solidarity with those who are subordinated, excluded, excommunicated, removed. Finally, we give a brief overview of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a country that does not lose hope when it comes to the idea of love and coexistence between people in a global context. Since Bosnia and Herzegovina was globalized with the help of the international community, it now has a multicultural cosmopolitan potential. Some authors consider Bosnia and Herzegovina to be the first (post) modern state in Europe, though it can also serve as a paradigm of the global crisis of a (post) modern idea of humanity, but it can also deliver hope for the recovery of the ideas of cosmopolitanism and universal human rights and responsibilities.

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Written By

Zlatan Delic

Submitted: 27 October 2010 Published: 01 August 2011