Culture, cognition and knowledge-based development Ahmad Raza, A. Rashid Kausar and David Paul Abstract Purpose – The purpose of this article is to provide a theoretical critique of the concept of the knowledge-based development. Design/methodology/approach – A cross-disciplinary critique is discussed. Findings – Provides cross-disciplinary analysis and critique of the concept of the knowledge-based development. Originality/value – This paper provides a deeper analysis of the knowledge-based development and proposes a broadening of the current paradigm on the economic development by integrating psychological and anthropological points-of-view. Keywords Design and development, Culture (sociology), Cognition Paper type Conceptual paper 1. Perspectives on development The concept of ‘‘development’’ is deeply rooted in evolutionary epistemology of the social scientific discourse. Western social thinkers tend to interpret ‘‘development’’ in the socio-economic systems in an evolutionary perspective (Siebers, 2003). Evolutionary theory has influenced many social theorists to speculate that the developments in the social and cultural systems are subject to the general evolutionary causes (White, 1949; Childe, 1982; Harris, 1997; Havilland, 1999). They have explained the socio-economic progress of the human societies in a linear and causal fashion corresponding to the change in the material and technological conditions. The ‘‘development’’ in socio-economic systems was perceived to be the reflection of the material growth of the human societies. Karl Marx developed this thesis into full-grown social philosophy of change and the economic growth. His notion of the economic development was based on the concept of dialectical materialism and constituted a direct critique of the classical political economy. The classical theories of the economic development, though competitive and evolutionary in outlook had not given much credence to the social contexts of wealth, capital and labor relations. He wrote in his book, Capital, about the linear growth of the capitalistic economic development in these words: One capitalist always kills many. Hand in hand with this centralization, or this expropriation of many capitalist by few, develop on an ever-extending scale, the cooperative form of the labor process, the conscious technical application of science, the methodical cultivation of the soil, the transformation of the instruments of labor into instruments of labor only usable in common, the economizing of all means of productions by their use as the means of productions of combined, socialized labor, the entanglement of all people in the net of the world-market, and with this, the international character of capitalist regime (Marx, 1974, pp. 714-715). In Marxist analysis labor, capital and means of production were interpreted in a ‘‘socialized’’ context. The social inequalities of the economic development created a class-consciousness among the proletariats. This proletarian consciousness, through a DOI 10.1108/13673270610691242 VOL. 10 NO. 5 2006, pp. 137-145, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1367-3270 j JOURNAL OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT j PAGE 137 Ahmad Raza is a Senior Research Associate in Management Sciences and A. Rashid Kausar is a Professor of Knowledge Management, both at the School of Business and Economics, University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. David Paul is a Professor of Management at the Centre for Professional Development, University of Macquarie, Sydney, Australia.