The need for the development of the strategy of social and economic breakthrough, which is based on the formation of a new type of economic system based on knowledge. The authors point out that knowledge defines all features of socio-economic processes in the new economic conditions. The article defines knowledge as an economic category, proposing a model of a single economic field and the principle of priority development of intellectual products in the emerging knowledge economy. The article concludes that the basic condition for the effective development of the knowledge economy is the implementation of the capital return mechanism in the industries creating the aggregate surplus value of the product.