Abstract:
As already signalized in the literature (Pasinetti, 2000; Solow, 2000; Lavoie, 2022), in economics there is a long-lasting divergence of opinions among the so-called mainstream or orthodox theory of Neoclassical origin, and heterodox literature, which can be connected in most of the case with Classical and Keynesian approaches or their partial Post-Keynesian synthesis. This very divide in economic theory led, moreover, to a strong differentiation of economists focus on different phenomena and mechanisms (Setterfield, 2014; Valente, 2020a; 2021; Lavoie, 2022). In practice, then, there is not a single economic event, which is not possible to interpret in completely opposite ways and knowledge-based economy (KBE) one – or as some would probably prefer to call it, the current market economies historical phase of development – makes no exception in this regard.
Instead than embarking in one of the many, according to him, interesting, but yet, in many cases, fruitless, ideological crusades concerning, whose theory is the most suitable, the main aim of current work is trying to present, a proposal of reconciliation of different points of view about both KBE and overall long-run market economic systems functioning, using knowledge from a rather untypical and normally ignored by economists source of knowledge – e.g. management theory and practice historical evolution during the 20th and 21st century. Management science considerations will be thus used as source to check the appropriateness of different assumptions, that differentiate one school of economic though from another.
The study here presented is, moreover, the second part of a general summing up of the researches that the author undertook on the issue during past decade both in economics and management science field. While some additional and yet strongly interconnected with present work economic arguments have been discussed elsewhere, both for matter of space and as to avoid, as far as possible, unnecessary continue intermingling of argumentation coming from different branches of economic science, here presented text focuses in particular on management science part of the reasoning.
