Common sense, and a great deal of evidence from a range of countries, shows that education clearly enhances opportunities in the labor market, as those with the best qualifications enjoy superior job prospects. A matter of fact is that in a number of developing countries, however, many highly educated young people remain unemployed. For some reason, we sees no economic justification for utilizing those skills. So this belief appears schizophrenic right from the start.The complexity of that itself is a sign of difficulty that needs to be solved. In industrialized countries, more than 50 per cent of young people obtain university degrees, and the demand for educated workers lags far behind the supply, leading to qualification inflation. Because I’m pissed off today, in some part, because of political impotence, allow me to open a bracket. Political leaders want to speak about innovations, start-up’s, new applications, economic growth, and competitiveness. One can make such arguments, but sometimes, or often, we hear municipal commissioners and politicians talk about the need to entice more entrepreneurs to the region. Then is a good time to ask them about their innovation system. You know, that special arrangement of skills, knowledge, pervading attitudes, creative processes, flexible structures, rewards, invention, knowledge exchange and cross-pollination, which generates swift and continuous innovation throughout your community. Oh, we don’t have one of those. When asked described the specific plans to stimulate and nurture an enterprising spirit to it all, consider the catch phrase that drives the regional approach to what they do: they interact in Triple Helix constellations! Given the latest rhetoric on regional development, it’s obvious that the bulk of the homework not being done here. To emphasize about Triple Helix is really not the issue here, which’s the good news. The bad news is that current realities have to be sympathetically critiqued. We have to be brash enough to dare ask about the Emperors new clothes. If you scratch just below the surface, those triads is clearly an theoretical über-stretch, and this reality deserves more than a mere paragraph or parenthesis here. It pays to approach the rhetoric of policy makers around the learning society and theories regarding regional development with skepticism. There is a need for greater clarity in defining the meaning of the theories, and for establishing criteria which ask why all this implementations to be interpreted as legitimated. The notion of Triple Helix may have some theoretical and analytical potential, but it does require considerable work if that potential is be realized. This is where some myth busting is required. A plethora of reports is produced that wax on the perennial themes of the inferiority of ideas from the most obscure corners of post-modern philosophies. Lets put it into another perspective, the development of the knowledge economy, as viewed from government perspective, sounds great for universities and researchers which out of a knee-jerk reaction think: we have the raw materials, so the future should be bright for us! The precooked recipe so to speak converges with their own priorities. And they are a crucial part, but are not the full equation. Simply because of the fact that everybody has to eat does not mean that farmers are very wealthy. Having raw materials does not imply profits, it does not even imply being able to sell, or to be competitive. While generating new knowledge is as important as ever, being able to apply existing knowledge is increasingly becoming the most crucial hurdle in our society and industry. Through Triple Helix collaboration a cross-pollination is supposed to take place which leads to better growth. In general, a triad of university, industry and government in which the university is expected to take the roll as leading actor. It’s argued that the dynamic of society has changed from one of strong boundaries between separate institutional spheres and organizations to a more flexible overlapping system, with each taking the role of the other. The mere fact of having formed the partnership being taken as a sign of action. I guess there are those who are certainly aware, now and then, that their acts lead to nothing much. Their psychic, however, is elastic enough to subsume the continuous doubts about their activities into their character as a factor of survival. What’s the scope of this alchemical terminology? It is built on a grandiose theoretical construct by sociologists Harry Etzkowitz and Loet Leydesdorff. Both Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff are deeply rooted in traditions far from economics. Nor do they have a theory with careful empirical work. Etzkowitz has his roots in the Marxist radical sociology movement. Leydesdorff has written a book in which he develops a programme for a postmodern, deconstructionist research method for sociology. They introduced the concept of Triple Helix to describe the current melting down of socio-institutional boundaries that was brought about by the technological explosion. In particular, on the changing definitions of government, academia, and industry, and all the effects this might have on the way our societies are shaped and governed. Let’s ponder how Professors Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff summarizes it: “The Triple Helix model extends the basis of structural-functionalism by introducing the notion of meaning from symbolic interactionism: social functions are discursively constructed, and they can be deconstructed and reconstructed reflexively. Thus, one can no longer accept a dialectics between ahistorical functions and historical institutions. The institutions are needed to carry out the functions, but they can be expected to be changed while doing so. The functions are continuously under reconstruction and the institutional elements of the systems have been generated by these reflexive operations.” Does it make a lot of sense, or do you feel the squeeze? The sociologists put it very well, for sure. It does almost call for a higher degree in one of the obscurer corners of science. The truth is that we have no time to listen to such nonsense, these worthless aphorisms are favoured by people afraid to admit that their strategies are seriously out of date. We get the same sort of feeling as with the Marquis de Sade who shouldn’t be let outside the walls, likewise such postmodern sociological theory should not be let outside the seminar rooms. The theory is nothing more than postmodern crack, at the most consensus-hallucinations. Remarkably for a theory without any empirical work appears to have reached into every corner of socio-economic development in terms of volume, if not quality, in a relatively short period of time. As with many other popular theories it encapsulates the bait of salvation and prosperity combined with the threat of damnation to promote interest and adaption - you will be doomed if you lose faith in the doctrine. Within this context, a conclusion can be put forward; just as true as with many other popular theories of today regarding development, it’s the terminology that creates reality. A spectacle used for the gratification of the spectators. It is the neoliberal master plan that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. Close brackets. Have good day!
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 13:12:02 +0000
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