ABSTRACT
The chapter addresses the interaction between knowledge and the marketplace in modern economies, using the case of biotechnology products as the empirical referent. More specifically, the referent is new biotechnological food products already in the marketplace and typically competing with products using different production processes, which the consumer indeed envisions and comprehends as substitute products. The growth of individualism in modern society, as well as the moralization of the market, provides the cultural counterpart for the rise of affluence. In discussing the moralization of the market in the case of biotechnology, it is useful to distinguish between process and product, even though one of the characteristic features of the knowledge-intensive economy is the fusion of process and product. Knowledge is becoming the source of the possibility of economic growth and competitive advantage among firms and among entire societies and regions of the world. The knowledge development speaks about the transformation of modern industrial society into a knowledge society.
