Abstract

The patron of the chapter is Yoneji Masuda, who is also considered the author of the concept of the information society, according to the title of his book, which was published in 1981. However, this concept appeared earlier in Japan, which was racing against the United States in this field. Masuda had no doubt that the axis of transformations concerning social organization, especially in the context of the economy, is the computer and the technology associated with it. These were the times of the formation of a new way of defining society and new definitions of society were emerging, such as post-industrial society. The chapter seeks to organize this issue by describing extensively the ideas of two of its most important legislators: Fritz Machlup and Graham Bell. Machlup’s idea refered to the phenomenon of information as the basis of social processes, which led him to formulate the important role of knowledge. In a comprehensive book, Graham Bell addressed the subject of knowledge, making it the basis of the existence of post-industrial society. The problem of knowledge thus becomes a social and economic problem, without the need to derive its philosophical definition, as well as the direct presence of man as an instance of knowledge. It appeared as an autonomous social phenomenon that also become an important political context because it served the distribution of power. This aspect of knowledge was already described by Plato, followed by Francis Bacon and Thomas Hobbes. The latter formulated a maxim known to this day: scientia potentia est. This means opening the problem of knowledge to a new level: knowledge becomes the basic variable of social structures such as the state. The mutual relationship of knowledge and power would be ordered by Michel Foucault.