Mental workers are the main body of knowledge economy.
In the long-term labor practice of agriculture and handicraft industry, human intelligence has been brought into full play because of the accumulation of knowledge, the improvement of cognitive level and the improvement of transformation ability, and materialized in production tools, which has played a huge role in material production. The invention of steam engine and textile machine is accidental, but these inventions and their wide application are inevitable. It is precisely because of the development of machinery manufacturing and production that researchers and designers of manufacturing tools are first separated from craftsmen and machinery manufacturing workers. With the extensive use of machines, the expansion of production scale and the concentration of workers, managers are separated from production personnel and specialize in management. Due to the emergence of commodities and the expansion of the market, financial personnel and business personnel are also separated from business managers, specializing in finance and commodity exchange. The emergence of researchers, designers, managers, businessmen and financial personnel is a sign of the development of industrial economy and the germination of knowledge economy.
It is a sign of knowledge economy that workers engaged in controlled labor are separated from material production to enrich the scientific and technological team or engage in other jobs. The extensive use of machines has lightened the heavy manual labor and liberated some manual workers, but most skilled workers are still fixed in the workshop of the factory, especially on the production line, engaged in controlled manual labor. Due to the appearance of computers and robots, and directly embedded in the process of material production, the skilled workers who used to control production and operation were liberated and transferred to science and technology industries or other industries, which improved social labor productivity and increased social wealth. With the development of software industry, this transmission speed is getting faster and faster. At the same time, due to the development of information technology, economic managers have also begun to shift to the science and technology industry. In this way, there have been unmanned production workshops, unmanned factories and unmanned aerial vehicles. The emergence of unmanned factories does not mean that material production does not require human labor, nor does it mean that labor factors in productivity disappear, but that workers' labor time, labor mode and labor object have undergone fundamental changes. These mental workers, outside the direct material production process, focus on the links of technology and information production, and materialize labor such as operating procedures and control machines into computers and software, so as to play a role in the subsequent material production process. After training, most of the liberated people will turn to mental work. In addition to being forced to move, workers also have the mechanism of active transfer. The opposition between manual workers and mental workers is not only reflected in the nature of labor, but also in the difference between the effective amount of labor they provide for society and the corresponding remuneration they get from society (this difference may be quite large). This mechanism has also prompted a large number of manual workers liberated from direct material production to consciously turn into mental workers.
Creative mental work is the core driving force for the development of knowledge economy.
After the emergence of knowledge economy, the contradiction between mental workers and manual workers is constantly changing, and its contradiction is bound to be replaced by the contradiction between creative mental workers and duplicative mental workers. Due to the information technology revolution, the contradiction between creative mental workers and duplicated mental workers began to internalize into the opposition between complex creative mental work and simple creative mental work. Therefore, creative labor has become the only source of value in the knowledge economy. From the perspective of historical development, creative mental work is also the only means of production and source of value in the era of knowledge economy. Mainly in four aspects:
(1) Creative labor is the only way for mental workers. With the development of computer, software, network and other science and technology, the burden of repetitive mental work of scientific and technical personnel is reduced, and the jobs of repetitive mental work will gradually disappear. At the same time, many machines will operate automatically; A lot of management work will also tend to information management, and there are few people who manage and control it on the spot. The liberated repetitive mental workers and managers must be transferred to creative jobs, or they will lose their jobs. With the progress of science and technology, the complexity of creative mental work will continue to increase and the level will gradually improve.
(2) Creative mental work is the main means for people to make a living. As a means of making a living, labor is a universal law of society so far. Make a living by manual labor in an agricultural society. In the era of industrial economy, some people make a living by manual labor, while others make a living by mental labor. In the era of knowledge economy, we should make a living by creative mental work. The stronger the creative labor (newer, more complex and more labor), the greater the value recognized by the society, the more the society gives back, and the higher the living standard and quality of life. On the contrary, the weaker the creativity, the less the value of social recognition, the less the corresponding return and the lower the quality of life.
(3) Creative labor is the fundamental task of workers. According to Ma Si Knorr's hierarchy of needs theory, people's pursuit of quality of life and their desire for new needs are always rising and updating, and will never stay at the original level. In order to meet people's new needs, we must carry out creative work, develop new technologies, create new products, improve product quality and meet people's new needs. The satisfaction of human needs is always restricted by the degree of human understanding of nature and society. Although people's cognitive ability is infinite, due to the limitation of practice, people's cognitive level is always limited. Nature and society are in the process of continuous development and change, and more and more fields need to be recognized, and the task of human creative mental work is getting heavier and heavier. The economic structure in the era of knowledge economy is pluralistic and complex, so is the corresponding technical structure. And more and more creative mental labor will be invested. The information technology revolution is in the ascendant, and the wide application of information technology in the communication field is only the first step of the long March. In addition to information technology, there are biotechnology, marine technology, space technology, nanotechnology and so on. Technological revolution and technological innovation have a long way to go.
(4) Creative labor is the driving force to open up the market. With the wide application of information technology in the communication field, a large number of traditional product manufacturers have been eliminated from the traditional product market because of outdated technology and difficulties in market development. The new technology created by creative mental labor and the new goods produced can monopolize the market for a period of time because they can meet people's personalized and diversified consumption needs, and the market returns are particularly rich. Driven by interests, the competition in the technology market is becoming increasingly fierce. However, the nature and mode of its competition are completely different from traditional market competition and new commodity market competition. The competition of new technology market is the competition of opening up new markets and innovation, not the competition of market capacity and price; Competing subjects repel each other instead of killing each other; The purpose of competition is to make the cake bigger and bigger, not to cut it bigger and bigger in a cake. Therefore, the new technology market is a market with diversified subjects, high technical intelligence, high investment and high return, and it is the main market in the era of knowledge economy. The production of new technology needs capital investment, and more creative mental labor investment. This kind of capital investment may be risky, but it is only an individual phenomenon. If the traditional commodity market is a sunset market and the new commodity market is a transit market, then the new technology market is a sunrise market. Although these three markets coexist and will continue to upgrade, the new technology market will always be a dynamic market. In the transition period from industrial economy to knowledge society, that is, the so-called new economic period, whoever knows this market will occupy more shares of this market and occupy the commanding heights of economic development. It is precisely because the United States first entered this market and occupied a large space in this market that it has achieved impressive results in rapid economic development for ten years.
Intellectual resources are the main resources of knowledge economy.
Without resources, there is no economy. The nature of resources determines the nature of economy, and the quantity of resources determines the scale of economic development. There are only two kinds of resources in the world, one is natural resources and the other is intellectual resources. The most important thing is intellectual resources. No matter what kind of economy needs these two resources, there is only a distinction between primary and secondary. Natural resources occupy a dominant position in industrial society. In the era of knowledge economy, intellectual resources are the most important resources. The more people have this kind of resource, the larger the economy scale and the faster the development speed. The contradiction between creative mental workers and replicated mental workers is changing, which makes the contradiction between complex creative mental work and simple creative mental work the main contradiction, so intellectual resources will inevitably become the main resource of knowledge economy. Although knowledge is also the resource of knowledge economy, as a result of intellectual labor, it cannot be the main resource of knowledge economy, but can only be regarded as an important resource. Knowledge has a long life, but intelligence is infinite. Knowledge is easily copied and loses its value, and intelligence is subordinate to workers, which contains huge market value. The amount of knowledge is always limited, but the intelligence is infinite. Intellectual resources have both huge reserves and huge demands. On the one hand, scientific research, technological invention, product development, production control and enterprise management need a large number of high-quality technical talents and consume a lot of intelligence. On the other hand, we need strong intellectual support in saving and replacing natural resources, recycling and utilizing renewable resources and discovering and developing new resources. Therefore, the development of intellectual resources has become a great driving force for the development of knowledge economy.
As the fundamental source of economy, resources have always been the focus of competition among countries. Agricultural society mainly competes for land and occupies territory. In the early days of industrial economy, people mainly competed for natural resources, divided spheres of influence and seized colonies. In the historical stage of the transition from industrial economy to knowledge economy, people mainly rob innovative talents. With the development of knowledge economy, the competition for innovative talents is becoming more and more fierce, and the means of competition are becoming more and more hidden.
The transition from industrial economy to knowledge economy is a long historical period. During this period, two economic forms coexist. For our country, agricultural economy, industrial economy and knowledge economy coexist. However, the inevitable trend of the historical development of agricultural economy, industrial economy and knowledge economy is unstoppable. We must seize this great historical opportunity, while realizing industrial modernization, formulate the super-long development strategy of knowledge economy as soon as possible, so as to promote the economic development of China. China people are no worse than foreigners. The Chinese nation is an industrious and intelligent nation, with profound cultural heritage, a national tradition of attaching importance to education, population resources accounting for15 of the world population, and especially strong political advantages and the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education. All these are favorable conditions for China to develop a knowledge-based economy. At the same time, the development of knowledge economy mainly depends on people's intelligence and enthusiasm, and there are still domestic and foreign funds available in some areas without huge investment. Therefore, it is possible to develop knowledge economy supernormally on the existing basis. Faced with this situation, we must not follow the rules and walk slowly, but seek truth from facts and make great strides.