What do you think?
Rate this book
Knowledge as Commons: Towards Inclusive Science and Technology
Do the needs of society drive science and technology? Or do developments in science and technology provide the motor force of history? Has this relationship changed over time? Knowledge as Commons situates science, technology and the emergence of modern nations in a larger historical framework.
With profit as its sole aim, capital claims to own human knowledge and its products, fencing them in with patents and intellectual property rights. Neoliberal institutions and policy diktats from the West have installed a global system in which a resource that is not worn out with use — knowledge — is made artificially scarce; while limited resources such as ground water and clean air are used as though they were infinite.
Prabir Purkayastha traces the historical path towards the privatisation of knowledge. He examines the consequences of this privatisation for universities; healthcare; distributive justice; the domestic politics of developing countries, and their prospects vis-à-vis the West.
Rapid technological change, from pharmaceuticals to electronics, should be an opportunity to deliver quicker cures, affordable access, global cooperation in the production of knowledge and in securing its availability to all. Purkayastha argues that our success here depends on installing knowledge as the new commons of our global village.
With profit as its sole aim, capital claims to own human knowledge and its products, fencing them in with patents and intellectual property rights. Neoliberal institutions and policy diktats from the West have installed a global system in which a resource that is not worn out with use — knowledge — is made artificially scarce; while limited resources such as ground water and clean air are used as though they were infinite.
Prabir Purkayastha traces the historical path towards the privatisation of knowledge. He examines the consequences of this privatisation for universities; healthcare; distributive justice; the domestic politics of developing countries, and their prospects vis-à-vis the West.
Rapid technological change, from pharmaceuticals to electronics, should be an opportunity to deliver quicker cures, affordable access, global cooperation in the production of knowledge and in securing its availability to all. Purkayastha argues that our success here depends on installing knowledge as the new commons of our global village.
- GenresNonfictionScience
258 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2023
6 people are currently reading
68 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
January 25, 2024
It is a comprehensive framework for science and technology which adequately explains their historical development with care to explain in lucid terms what the distinction is. In doing so, Purkayastha lays the groundwork for what is an exposition of the natural, political, resource based and nearly all related constraints within the “design paradigm” that generates “artefacts” (Technology).
He does so by advocating rigorously for what could be a viable path for India’s (and indeed any nation’s) self-reliance in a way that acknowledges the material reality of capitalism, but not without regard to the Intellectual Property Rights framework for effecting this, which is a recurrent theme.
Since the book is constructed with a logical flow, it very often leads one to question the existing paradigm for science and technology on some aspect while one leafs through, only for Purkayastha to answer or provide a hint within his framework. However, some topics I think would require some more explanation are; since he seems to advocate for a nationalistic bent to self-reliance: Can the path for technological sustainability not be built by means of reliance on other than the reliance on nationalistic patronage? and; what of the ways in which science is intrinsically limited in shaping our understanding of material circumstances?
I don’t pretend to have solutions, and these questions are answered if one reads the book as a whole, but the argumentative style does leave you wanting more in terms of explication. Such is knowledge, as I hope Purkayastha would agree, always creating a thirst for more.
He does so by advocating rigorously for what could be a viable path for India’s (and indeed any nation’s) self-reliance in a way that acknowledges the material reality of capitalism, but not without regard to the Intellectual Property Rights framework for effecting this, which is a recurrent theme.
Since the book is constructed with a logical flow, it very often leads one to question the existing paradigm for science and technology on some aspect while one leafs through, only for Purkayastha to answer or provide a hint within his framework. However, some topics I think would require some more explanation are; since he seems to advocate for a nationalistic bent to self-reliance: Can the path for technological sustainability not be built by means of reliance on other than the reliance on nationalistic patronage? and; what of the ways in which science is intrinsically limited in shaping our understanding of material circumstances?
I don’t pretend to have solutions, and these questions are answered if one reads the book as a whole, but the argumentative style does leave you wanting more in terms of explication. Such is knowledge, as I hope Purkayastha would agree, always creating a thirst for more.
Displaying 1 of 1 review