Читать книгу Innovation in Clusters - Estelle Vallier - Страница 27

Just as some observers attributed the emergence of industrial districts to a broader economic paradigm shift, some literature sees the changes of the 1970s and 1980s as a shift from industrial to cognitive capitalism, that is:

In this new form of capitalism, the cognitive and intellectual dimension of work becomes dominant, and the central issues of capital development and some forms of property development are directly related to the transformation of knowledge into a fictitious commodity (Vercellone 2008, p. 72).

From then on, this economy would be based, not on knowledge, but on its exploitation, becoming, like information, a property in its own right. Moulier-Boutang, with reference to Karl Polanyi, believes that the new great transformation is embodied in cognitive capitalism, through global financialization and the digital revolution resulting from NICTs (Moulier Boutang 2007, p. 72). In this context, knowledge, creation and invention, which Moulier-Boutang synthesizes in the concept of immaterial work, are at the center of the mode of production. André Gorz, a philosopher in cognitive capitalism, draws up a non-exhaustive list of common goods that are ultimately usurped by the labor, privatization and commodification of this capitalism: biodiversity and common spaces, either urban or natural; genetic heritages; cognitive, cultural, affective and communicative resources of individuals; living knowledge in general, the product of cooperation and human interaction (Gollain 2010, p. 552). Thus, Gorz considers that cognitive capitalism is the crisis of capitalism. Having lost its relevant categories, capitalism seeks to surpass itself by exploiting an abundant resource, human intelligence, in order to produce scarcity (Gorz 2003, pp. 81–82). We have entered a capitalism that mobilizes competition through intensive innovation, in which the cognitive and creative capacities of individuals are at the service of an increased search for innovative products (Hatchuel et al. 2002, p. 32). It is therefore believed to have the power to counteract major trends, such as the relocation of industrial jobs or, to use the accepted expression, to slow down the “deindustrialization” of France (Guillaume 2008, p. 296) by converting industrial basins into valleys of knowledge. The logic of post-Fordist specialization and the production of scarcity linked to the development of cognitive capitalism are thus at the heart of local policies, which are seen as genuine “remedies for industrial decline”.

In addition, in the early 1990s, there was a rapid spread of management theories from across the Atlantic, which developed a reading of the territory in terms of competition. They observed the effects of centripetal forces of agglomeration and at the same time centrifugal forces of international activities. Krugman was particularly interested in the differences between territories based on the positive externalities of agglomeration (Krugman 1991). At the same time, and in the same vein, Michael Porter developed the principle of comparative advantage, the keystone of his cluster concept. He transfers to territories an industrial logic of building assets in a competitive relationship within a market (Porter 1993). Specialization enables a comparative advantage to be put forward. In a capital mobility context, we are witnessing an explosion of competition between territories to attract the most qualified workers and businesses. Advantages are not given, but deliberately constructed (Carré and Levratto 2011, p. 360). From the point of view of economic development policies, this implies a shift from a territorial policy focused on local redistribution issues to a policy focused on externalities and attractiveness issues (Béhar et al. 2013, p. 20).

As early as 1989, David Harvey, in a critical view, drew attention to this shift from “managerialism to entrepreneurialism” in local policies. The “managerialism” of the 1960s was focused on services to residents, whereas “entrepreneurialism” is based on policies oriented towards an exogenous economic development strategy (Harvey 1989, p. 3). Harvey, too, places this orientation in the context of the recomposition of capitalism since the 1970s (the transition from a Fordist-Keynesian regime of capital accumulation to a regime of flexible accumulation), which has led to the development of interurban competition for resources, jobs and capital. This competition has been largely accompanied, even encouraged, by the state, notably through the logic of the call for projects, which acts as a means of territorial differentiation (Brenner 2004). By entering into this competition, local public actors have become veritable promotion agencies for their territory in order to attract investors, especially from overseas. The standard-bearers of this promotion are therefore the specific advantages that the territory possesses compared with its rival territories (Carré and Levratto 2011, p. 336). Beyond this mission of promotion, the public actor must take charge of the economic and social regulation that was previously assumed by the large Fordist enterprise that du Tertre and Laurent define under the term territorial regulation as:

The capacity of a localized and institutional social system to guarantee accumulation processes in its territory, to maintain economic activities there, to develop and protect its natural resources and technological achievements and to guarantee social peace. Territorial regulation thus results from the necessity to regulate the conditions through which sectors are deployed and resources are allocated (Laurent and Du Tertre 2008, p. 15).

In this context, the public actor must encourage, mobilize, coordinate and structure interactions and resources (Béhar et al. 2013, p. 17). Thus, using the logic of Porter’s comparative advantage, Anna Lee Saxenian questions the difference in development between the American West Coast innovation hub, Silicon Valley, and the East Coast hub, Route 128 (Saxenian 1994). By looking at the structure of the social networks of the two clusters, Saxenian opens the way to an abundance of literature on the role of geographical proximity, on the typology of commercial and scientific exchanges and on the place of non-market interindividual relations in the coordination of actors (Lanciano-Morandat et al. 2009, p. 178).