Towards the information economy

Abstract

In the deveioped industrial countries there are a great number of publications deseribing the information economy or information society in a wider sense, as the next stage of socialeconomic development. Stalistical data prove ihat the weight of information-related branches is increasing eiiher relating to the composition of labour force or to their contributions, to GDP. The information sector is turning into a basic force ofthe economies. Certain researches showed thai the activity of the branches generating, producing, processing, distributing and analysing information plays a more and more significant role also in Hungary meaning the requirement of increasing the investments and a more rational organization in this sector. Bourgeois theories dealing with the emergence of information economy might be evaluated as new stages of researches into the specific features if the so-called post-industrial society. A comprehensive economic analysis of information economy in the socialist countries is only in its infant state though economic investigations of certain subsectors of the information sector are abundant. Some researchers point to the fact that the growing proportion of employment in information branches within total employment illustrates the prevalence of the results of scientific-technical revolution in the social division of labour and it is a trend which was foreseen by Marx as well. In view of the fact that libraries and similar institutions represent a modest, but very essential segment of the information sector as to their quantitative indices the tendencies of the development of information economy are enforcing them to play a more and more active role in the economy as a whole.