From Economy to Ecology: A Policy Framework for Creative Labour

Cre­ativ­ity func­tions as an impor­tant leit­mo­tif in think­ing about the cre­ative econ­omy. How­ever, eco­nomic argu­ments about the speci­ficity of cul­tural value and its dif­fer­ence from eco­nomic value (Caves, 2000; Hes­mond­halgh, 2007; Throsby, 2001) or about the role of the arts, artists and the eco­nomic activ­i­ties of the pro­fes­sional arts are not well grounded in the­o­ries of inno­va­tion or cre­ative indus­try pol­icy for­mu­la­tions. This arti­cle accepts that the most impor­tant pos­tu­late in the cre­ative econ­omy is that it is based on the real­iza­tion of the orig­i­nal expres­sion of an idea, an eco­nomic or gift trans­ac­tion of intel­lec­tual prop­erty – which may be held in pri­vate or in com­mon. Under­stand­ing the cre­ative process of inven­tion and expres­sion, then, stem­ming from the indi­vid­ual artist, entre­pre­neur, or com­pany, is cen­tral to effec­tive pol­icy in guid­ing the cre­ative economy.

An argu­ment is made that the con­cen­tric cir­cles model of the cre­ative indus­try clas­si­fi­ca­tion based on David Throsby’s work (2001) presents the ori­gin and dif­fu­sion of cre­ative ideas in sound, text and image as the cre­ative arts (and is most com­pat­i­ble with a new indus­trial frame­work for the cre­ative econ­omy). Given the dis­tinct attrib­utes of cul­tural pro­duc­tion, com­mod­ity and exchange over time, it is impor­tant to under­stand the role of risk, inno­va­tion, cul­tural entre­pre­neur­ship, pub­lic infra­struc­ture and vol­un­teer or casual labour sup­port in sus­tain­ing cre­ative pro­fes­sional inno­va­tion, and enabling its con­tri­bu­tion to sus­tain­able eco­nomic growth. A com­par­i­son of poli­cies to pro­mote cre­ative labour expres­sion in sev­eral coun­tries reveals a need for more sub­stance, method and critique.

Despite the gen­eral assump­tion that the knowl­edge econ­omy will pro­duce a labour force which resem­bles the cul­tural sec­tor in its core char­ac­ter­is­tics, most coun­tries have not yet intro­duced com­pre­hen­sive cre­ative labour poli­cies to accom­mo­date a more flex­i­ble, mobile work­force, and one which is increas­ingly self­em­ployed. Sev­eral pol­icy rec­om­men­da­tions to address this gap are made, con­sis­tent with an inte­grated con­cep­tion of the cre­ative cul­tural ecol­ogy, derived from urban plan­ning and the study of global cities. What is needed is an entire change of cre­ativ­ity gov­er­nance, and shift to “flex­i­cu­rity” in a labour strat­egy, which acknowl­edges the inter­ac­tion with the social econ­omy and vol­un­teer sec­tor. These poli­cies should be devel­oped on the basis of need, requir­ing more sophis­ti­cated mod­els of the cre­ative labour force. A cre­ative labour force sur­vey is urgently needed to develop them.

Down­load the full PDF here