© GERET 2015

What is the new silk?Creativity, Communication and Culture in the new world economy

Alan FreemanGeopolitical Economy Research Group

www.geopoliticaleconomy.ca

•Multipolar world (geopolitical economy)•New technology (creative industries)

Hence new evidence and new methods of study

What is the new silk?

•UK Department of Culture, Media, Sport (DCMS)•National Endowment for Science, Technology and

the Arts (NESTA)•Researchers• Hasan Bakhshi (UK)• Alan Freeman (UK, Canada)• Peter Higgs (Australia)

•These are the best data in the world

Sources

• Comparable data for US and Europe, from NESTA, available in July• International research project at www.geopoliticaleconomy.ca• Russia, China, Latin America initially

• We invite partners to join• They will have access to results• They can take part in creating new evidence

Sources

•Victorians: steam and trains•Early 20th Century: electricity and steel

•Postwar: oil and motor transport•21st Century: ICT and creative labour

A mass market in designed products

Each age has a characteristic technology

•Decisive feature of the modern economy•Cannot be replaced by a machine•Main driver of economic growth

Non-substitutable (high-end) labour

Financial and insurance

Construction

Creative Economy

Manufacturing

Science economy

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

2013 jobs

Financial and insurance

Construction

Manufacturing

Creative Economy

Science economy

- 1,000 2,000 3,000 4,000 5,000

2030 jobs

The changing structure of British Industry

Science already bigger than manufacturing; creative nearly as big

By 2030 both will be bigger

Total ‘intellectual labour-based’ will be bigger than all others by 2030

Fastest growth in the UK

Creative workers in the creative industries

Non-creative workers in the creative industries

Creative workers outside the

creative industries

Creative Intensity = 2/(1+2) =52%Source: DCMS January 2015 Creative Industry Estimates, Figure 1 (page 3)

What are the creative industries?

Creative industries

1.7m

Science industries

2.4m

1.8m Creative workers

Science workers

1.6m

Creative and Scientific Economies

• Silk consumed by European nobility • Distinctive cloth• Art and spiced cooking • showed they were superior

• ICT creates a mass market in cultural products • One song can be heard by hundreds of millions of people

• Consumers use this freedom to exercise choice. • Choice is part of every product • Modern manufacturers incorporate design and cultural content

• This is why Samsung succeeded.

New mass markets

• Two new mass markets • Electronics, flexible manufacturing, to make the new consumer goods.

• For Russia and central Asia there is a special new challenge. • ‘Re-industrialise’. • Even the old technology must be rebuilt.

• Replace old, mechanical technology • with custom-designed, automated systems • High-Speed train is a classic example.

• High Technology with scientific labour is critical.

New production methods

• Not ‘age of the robots’ – human labour is decisive• Not ‘post-industrial’ – cannot do without the machinery• The machinery supports service delivery• Electronics, ICT, digitalization• Cities• Transport

• The machinery needs high-end labour• Software• Education• Content• Social consumption (aesthetics)

A new marriage of human and technology

What resources are needed?

Humans

Creativity

CitiesTrans-

portElectr-onics

Digitiz-ation

Educ-ation

Food

Society

Hous-ing

Obstacles

• It is a new challenge to ‘produce’ creative individuals• Human development is the principal productive resource• Education, artistic self-realisation, self-development• A technology of human development is self-contradictory• Humans are not machines

• Many resources are inherently collective• Cities• Transport• Software production

Join us!

Don’t worry about

robots imitating

people Stop m

aking

humans behave

like m

achines

Resource

decouple

Creativ

e human

growth

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