Abstract

This paper deals with the new competitiveness standards that are being set in
contemporary capitalism by more cooperative environment among economic agents. It is
argued that economic efficiency can be traced to contemporary forms of cooperation at
grass root levels of the social organization of production, pushing the arena of competition
upwards. Even more efficient performances of flexible automation technologies seem to presuppose
intra-firm and inter-firm cooperative environments, radically departing from previous
conflictive relation standards of modern capitalism. So much so that one of the pillars
of orthodox economics, namely the theory of the firm, have been undergoing profound
modifications to cope with these new facts of contemporary economic life.

JEL Classification: D21; F23; P13.