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Informationalism and the network society 29nerve system of the global, informational, capitalist economy (Hutton andGiddens, 2000).Financial valuation determines the dynamics of the economy in the shortterm. But in the long run, everything depends on productivity growth. This iswhy the source of productivity constitutes the cornerstone of economicgrowth, and therefore of profits, wages, accumulation, and investment. Andthe key factor for productivity growth in this knowledge-intensive, networkedeconomy is innovation (Lucas, 1999). Innovation is the capacity to recombinefactors of production in a more efficient way, and/or produce higher valueadded in process or in product. Chapter 6 in this volume reminds us of thisbasic fact. Innovation depends on innovators. And innovators, as analyzed inchapter 2, depend on cultural creativity, on institutional openness to entrepreneurialism,on labor autonomy in the labor process, and on the adequatefinancing of this innovation-driven economy.The new economy of our time is certainly capitalist, but it is a new brandof capitalism. It depends on innovation as the source of productivity growth,on computer-networked global financial markets, whose criteria for valuationare influenced by information turbulences, on the networking of productionand management, internally and externally, locally and globally, and on laborthat is flexible and adaptable in all cases. The creators of value have to be selfprogrammable,and able to autonomously process information into specificknowledge. Generic workers, reduced to their role as underlings, must beready to adapt to the needs of the firm, or else face displacement by machinesor alternative labor forces.In this system, rather than exploitation in the traditional sense, the key issuefor labor is the differentiation between three categories: those who are thesource of innovation and value; those who merely carry out instructions; andwhose who are structurally irrelevant, either as workers (not enough education,living in areas without the proper infrastructure and institutional environmentfor global production) or as consumers (too poor to be part of themarket). For the mass of the world population their primary concern is how toavoid irrelevance, and, instead, to engage in a meaningful relationship, such asthe relationship we used to call exploitation. Because exploitation does have ameaning for the exploited. The danger is, rather, for those who become invisibleto the programs commanding the global networks of production, distribution,and valuation.Communication, Media, and the Public SpaceIn the realm of communication, the network society is characterized by apattern of networking, flexibility, the recombination of codes, and ephemeralsymbolic communication. This is a culture primarily organized around and