Social capital, value, and measure: Antonio Negriʹs challenge to capitalism

This article engages one of the most important concepts in Knowledge Management, namely, the concept of “social capital,” focusing upon the problem of measure and value in capitalism, specifically within the period and conditions of post-Fordist production. The article engages work that has emerged from out of the Italian Workerist and Autonomist Marxist movements (as well as French post-structuralist theory) since the 1960s, and it particularly focuses upon the work of the contemporary Italian philosopher and political activist, Antonio Negri.1 In doing so, it presents a more politically “Left” development of the concept of social capital than is often possible within the largely Management-defined discourses common to Knowledge Management. At the same time, however, the article points to the importance of Knowledge Management as a symptom of a turn in political economy, even though Knowledge Management, because of its provenance, has been unable to fully explore social capital as a shift in capitalist notions of value.