Untitled - socium.ge

428 Pekka Himanenhype in which the focus is on the technical surface of the Internet, while themuch more important structural changes of the economy are missed.) Thereare many creative jobs that require a lot of physical presence at particulartimes. Furthermore, there are a lot of routine jobs where the workers havepractically no control over time. Again, the development has both a positiveand a negative side: for many workers it provides a real opportunity to patternwork and other aspects of life in a way that better suits one’s own situation,but at the same time there is the risk that flexibility remains only an elitistpossibility or that flexibility is misused at the cost of leisure time so that thebalance between work and family life becomes unsustainable.However, these reservations do not change the fact that there is now a newstructural flexibility. And Weber’s description of the Protestant ethic’s relationshipto time clearly does not fit the observed dominant trend in the developmentof the informational economy. The relationship to time has to beredefined because work is now primarily defined by projects and results ratherthan fixed hours in a certain location, and because the line between work andleisure has been made more flexible by the new information technology.THE MONEY ETHICAs for the third element in Weber’s analysis of industrial capitalism, its relationshipto money, here informational capitalism continues its spirit in animportant way. As in the industrial economy, money is still a goal in itself. Theinformational age is at least as money-centered as the industrial age. Thegrowing role of the financial markets – where money is made from money –is a good symbol of this.But, at the same time, this symbol of the informational economy alsoreveals that there has been an important shift in the relationship to money inthe new economy that is different from industrial capitalism and yet continuesto be capitalist. In the Protestant ethic, both work and maximizing money aredescribed as goals in themselves. However, these goals can come into conflict.If one really puts work first as the highest value, one is ready to work even ifit does not maximize one’s income (it is a duty). And if one really puts moneyas the highest value, work becomes only one means to that goal. Makingmoney without working would be the ideal. But the idea of living idly on anincome from stocks investments is the very opposite of the Protestant ethic’sideal. So, at bottom, the Protestant ethic resolves the conflict between workand money as goals in themselves by placing work as the higher goal.This is where there is a difference between informational and industrialcapitalism. On a societal level, money has become the higher goal. In fact, theidea of making money directly from money in the stock markets is idolized.