Abstract
This essay considers how policy thinking about culture has been steadily transformed into an overwhelmingly economic subject matter whose central trope is the “creative economy”. The development of current ideas and their background are discussed. Policy ideas first fully developed in the UK have had a global resonance: the illustrative examples of the European Union and the United Nations are discussed. The embedding of creative economy thinking in British cultural institutions such as the BBC and cultural support bodies is illustrated. The impact of current orthodoxy on academic institutions and research is also considered. Countervailing trends are weak. New thinking is now required.
Highlights
In reflections on different forms of academic writing, the philosopher Vilém Flusser (2002, 194) remarked that the “essay is not merely the articulation of a thought, but of a thought as a point of departure for a committed existence”
Flusser counter-posed this style of argument to what he called the “academicism” of the treatise, which claimed the qualities of rigour and detachment. Were he one of our contemporaries writing about the creative economy, he would probably inveigh against the fetishism of “evidence-led policy”, which has been key to the discourse I shall describe here
It is not surprising that in Brussels as in London, the economic value of European culture is routinely summarized in a familiar kind of headline statement: that the creative sectors represent more than 3% of European GDP and employ some 3% of the European Union (EU)’s workforce (EC 2016)
Summary
In reflections on different forms of academic writing, the philosopher Vilém Flusser (2002, 194) remarked that the “essay is not merely the articulation of a thought, but of a thought as a point of departure for a committed existence” The virtues of this particular style of expression greatly appeal to me for present purposes, which involve the somewhat dogged pursuit of an argument because it matters greatly. Flusser counter-posed this style of argument to what he called the “academicism” of the treatise, which claimed the qualities of rigour and detachment Were he one of our contemporaries writing about the creative economy, he would probably inveigh against the fetishism of “evidence-led policy”, which has been key to the discourse I shall describe here. I have been increasingly struck by how difficult it is not to talk approvingly and largely uncritically about the “creative industries” and the “creative economy” These tropes presently dominate policy debate and media discussion about culture.
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