Successive transformations of economic society from agricultural to industrial form and beyond to the service economy have consolidated a process of economic change with its own inner logic of tremendous power, a logic which harnessed continual technical and organizational innovation to the pursuit of profit. The intertwining of emergent knowledge and economic adaptation within the instituted frame of modern capitalism is at the core of economic self-transformation. This article treats this topic in three parts: the relation between new knowledge and economic transformation; some consequences of technical change; and the residual productivity debate.