Information as an economic resource

Abstract

The paper considers the concept of the information as one of properties of the objective reality when it acts as a weightless means of production in the creation of which only a person takes part, his mind ability to the abstract thinking. The purpose of getting this intellectual product with specified set consumer properties set in advance is achievement maximum use which in applied, qualitatively other kind may be used or transferred to other economic agents for pay. That is, the information is perceived not in itself as a certain idea or system of the data, and the information is considered as an economic resource (commodity) which is necessary for consuming in the course of economic activities for the purpose of obtaining of certain useful effect. The authors formulate the concept of information properties as an economic resource because in the economic literature there is no such standard determination. They prove that the information specified in a similar way possesses a number of the important properties, distinguishing it from other economic resources. The non-observance of the law of supply and demand is believed to be the main difference of the information from other economic resources and the information cost is not connected directly with its quantity. But it noted that dependence of cost of the information on the definite moment of its usage and the period of its life is high. The information is the social wealth in scientific sphere of creation of new scientific knowledge and anybody can use it free of charge. The information creation costs much, until it is inaccessible to the third parties, otherwise it depreciates. For this reason methods of representation of the information, its forms and reliability in many respects determine quality of the information for the consumer, providing essential growth of the final results of economic activities. The person always acts as a means of production for it and the capital in this case can be used only as the auxiliary tool. The consumer informative value depends on time of its presentation greatly because lack of time for its processing by managers results in the wrong decisions. It is underlined that studying of processes of the organization and information processing in economic systems is necessary for carrying out from the point of view of the theory of self-organizing systems, instead of that of classical economy. The authors see the special role of information as an economic resource at its transfer to applied consumption where the labour productivity connected with quantity of the produced product will be no longer be the main criterion but a certain criterion of quality of processing of the information used at different stages of workflow. In conclusion the paper that the comprehensive development of production of goods is possible provided that rates of development of technique surpass rate of development of production of material benefits, and accordingly information technology develops faster, than its technique does.