The knowledge economy is marked by recent trends in technological advancement, globalisation and increasing knowledge intensity. Through new technologies like Open Educational Resources (OER), knowledge can be freely accessed by individuals around the world, blurring traditional notions of ownership and prompting a social transformation manifested through values based on open knowledge access. This paper examines the extent to which values of openness are at odds with the capitalist frameworks underlying the knowledge economy and considers whether the influence of openness is transitory or whether a new capitalism must evolve in order to support social forces based on these values.