ABSTRACT
The belief that the industrial economy would be eternal has long been a defining dogma of modern societies. Born at the end of the eighteenth century, it was the product of innovative technology and aggressive rulers. It adopted the arts and culture as a sort of ethical justification of bourgeois power. After the creation of the nation-state as the institutional format of manufacturing capitalism, economics began to adopt the appearance of a precise science, while culture became the exclusive form of decoration for the ruling class. The passage between the post-industrial paradigm and the knowledge-based economy requires a new interpretation of both the discipline of economics as a critical toolbox and culture as a shared perspective and evolving identity.
