Mohammad Momin Khawaja
IN the last few decades, social transformations inclusive of cultures, institutions, and historical trends, have brought about a new type of social structure known as the network society. As it is, our world is a technological paradigm centered around the smartphone, microcomputer, microelectronics, and the internet and related communications information technologies. Such resources have made humankind efficient, better organised, and more productive towards objectives and goals. Our capacity to store, process, and use information in order to generate knowledge goes towards productivity and competitiveness in various and diverse economic units in our societies.[1]
Financial markets, science and technology, sale and trade of goods worldwide, advanced business services, communication media, production firms and related networks, and skilled labour works are all core activities that make up the functional components of a modern advanced economy in the network society.[2] The network enterprise is a functional unit of business organisation in this new global economy. This provides for better connectivity and flexibility towards informational production. Specific business projects make up this network connectivity within firms, segments of business units, and other work-related assignments.[3]
The use of these information technologies has evolved from being microcomputer-centered technologies to network-centered technologies with network-enabled workstations, mobile devices, and smartphones.[4] Added to this upward trend in technological development is the progress we are making in nanotechnologies. These technologies make the diffusion capacity of information devices far greater. In turn, this results in progress towards a biotechnological revolution as we become more adept and capable of designing and manipulating living organisms, including human beings and human organs.[5]
A fundamental theme in this technological paradigm is that the use of knowledge-based technologies will enhance and accelerate information technologies and the production of knowledge and information in being almost self-expanding in a virtuous circle of development.[6] This resonates well with the rapid research and development of Al technologies that are self-expanding, learning, and exponential in the production and enhancement of knowledge.
Sharing of information leads to greater information cooperation and progress relevant to the defined goals and objectives. The corporation, or firm, is and continues to be the legal unit of capital accumulation. Given that the value of a corporation depends largely on the value of its stock in the market, the capital wealth of the corporation is in fact a financial node in the global financial network.[7]
The new economy, including its pertinent informational, global, and networked components, is a capitalist economy. The whole planet, therefore, is capitalist for the first time in our history.[8]
References
1. Khawaja, M., “Network Society and the Information Revolution’, /O World Press, April, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Castells, M., “Materials for An Exploratory Theory of The Network Society’, British Journal of Sociology, V.51(1), pp.5-24, 2000, London School of Economics.
4. Khawaja, M., “Network Society and the Information Revolution’.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Castells, M., “Materials for An Exploratory Theory of The Network Society.
8. Ibid.
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Mohammad Momin Khawaja is a Sociologist and a Journalist. A graduate of Laurentian University, he writes on current issues of cultural studies, social justice, criminology, philosophy, history and problems of indigenous social welfare systems and human development.
