Collaborative development of a new concept for an activity

Abstract

In all productive activities in the market economy there is a fundamental inner contradiction between the use value of a produced commodity and its exchange value in the markets. Each technological revolution profoundly changes the conditions of balancing these contradictory demands by enabling the creation of new kinds of use values, the reduction of costs, and a broadened exchange. The culturally available forms of activity can be seen as different concepts of balancing contradictory demands. Currently, the concept of mass production is being replaced by new concepts which utilize the possibilities that the new digital information and communication technologies provide. The creation and implementation of a new concept for an activity is, however, a complex process in which many complementary innovations must be integrated into a functioning whole. In this paper, I will discuss the possibility of applying the principle of collective invention in the creation of a new operating concept.

Keywords

• historical types of work
• the concept of an activity
• activity system
• collective invention