Robin Neill asked: 
 
> 
>QUESTION.  is there an EPISTEME, corresponding to postmodern 
>technical and informational circumstance, that is not expressible in 
>traditional economic discourse? 
 
I don't think that I have a complete answer. But let me try to briefly 
sketch out _epistemoi_ that correspond to different technical and 
informational circumstances (not that I am so naive as to believe that 
social being automatically determines social consciousness, but there 
certainly is a powerful elective affinity there...) 
 
============== 
 
MERCANTILIST (1500-1750): Principal problem--increase of resources 
available for military/financial mobilization by the nascent nation state. 
Policy levers--bounties on exports and restrictions on imports that 
together lead to an overvalued exchange rate and a low commodity value of 
gold and silver within the territory. A nation is "wealthy" if it can 
quickly get its hands on enough precious metals to pay for an army abroad. 
 
COMMERCIAL (1700-1850): Principal problem--maintaining and enhancing the 
prosperity of the _bourgeoisie_. Policy levers--elimination of monopolies; 
perhaps a low price of grain (as in Ricardo's _Essay_on_Profits_. Concern 
with "equilibrium" levels of prices; identification of "equilibrium" with 
"nature." A nation is "wealthy" if its economy is growing, if the property 
of its _bourgeoisie_ is secure, and if government policies that explicitly 
hinder enterprise or tax commerce to support an archaic military nobility 
are eliminated. 
 
INDUSTRIAL (1850-1940). Principal problem--harnessing invention and 
technological progress to increase production. Policy levers--antitrust 
policy to try to restrict the monopolies that come about because of the 
exploitation of economies-of-scale that arise under modern machine 
technologies. Concern with the regulation of "natural" monopoly; with the 
government's role in providing "infrastructure"; and with the taming of 
union and socialist movements. Fear that overmighty industrialists--John D. 
Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie--will push prices far away from 
"equilibrium" by exercising their monopoly power. A nation is "wealthy" if 
plutocrats' power is somewhat restricted and if government provides the 
transportation and public service infrastructure necessary for the 
industrial city. 
 
KEYNESIAN (1930-1980). Principal problem--keeping fluctuations of 
investment generated by the business cycle from creating mass unemployment. 
Policy levers--fiscal and monetary policies to maintain aggregate demand; 
some degree of investment planning; incomes policy to improve 
output-inflation tradeoff; "natural" rate of unemployment. A nation is 
"wealthy" if unemployment can be kept low enough that it does not swing 
elections. 
 
POST-INDUSTRIAL (1975-present). Principal problems--inconsistency between 
an economic system that assumes price can equal marginal cost with the 
approaching dominance of knowledge and communication industries in which 
marginal cost is effectively zero, and thus some degree of exercise of 
monopoly power is omnipresent; upgrading educational level of labor force 
fast enough to stop massive deterioration in the distribution of income. 
Policy levers--"active" labor market policies; attempts to establish an 
"appropriate" regime of intellectual property rights; government support of 
education and research establishment. A nation is "wealthy" if its 
high-technology sectors are dynamic and growing. 
 
============ 
 
There is a sense in which the post-industrial and mercantilist _epistemoi_ 
(ways of looking at the world? problematics? centers of concern and focuses 
of attention?) are harder to express in my native tongue--modern 
economics--then the commerical, industrial, or Keynesian _epistemoi_. 
Perhaps Robert Reich's _The_Work_of_Nations_ is the best attempt to lay out 
the post-industrial view. 
 
But even though I think that it does correspond to postindustrial technical 
and informational circumstances, and even though it is hard to express in 
traditional economic discourse (although people like Paul Romer are trying 
very hard), it is far from clear to me that _postmodern_ cultural studies 
has anything to contribute or is the right language in which to try to 
think about conceptual frameworks helpful for analyzing post-industrial 
economies. 
 
Brad De Long