Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Post-Catholic Creativity
In his book The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida highlights the flaws in the conventional assumptions about the relationship between investment, technology, human capital and economic growth.
For the developed economies, job creation and economic growth is possible only in sectors where there exists’ the capacity to create and use new knowledge. Furthermore, those individuals capable of creating and using new knowledge – The Creative Class - are attracted to open and diverse communities where difference and experimentation are celebrated.
Individuals such as artists and musicians have always been seen as part of the creative class. But as Florida points out, scientists and entrepreneurs share many of the same motivations and articulate many of the same needs. As a consequence, they also form part of the creative class.
For this reason, cities and regions must aspire to being the types of places that members of the creative classes are attracted to. Such places are tolerant and open and have an appreciation for all types of creativity. Most importantly, they must promote and facilitate meaningful interactions between artists, musicians, scientists and entrepreneurs.
In a more recent study, entitled Europe in the Creative Age, Florida has examined the state of the creative class in Europe. His findings are very enlightening.
The creative class makes up more that 25% of the work force in seven of fourteen European countries, and nearly 30% in three – the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland. Creative class workers outnumber traditional blue-collar workers in these three countries, and also in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark.
The creative class is growing rapidly in the majority of European countries, but Ireland outpaces all other nations with a 7% annual growth rate since 1995.
Not all European countries, however, are undergoing the transformation implied by the above statistics. For example, in Italy and Portugal less than 15% of the members of the workforce are in the creative class.
On this basis, it might appear that there is much to be happy about from the Irish point of view. Despite significant progress, however, Ireland still has a long way to go and occupies a position in the bottom third of the table. In short, there is much more to be done before Ireland could hope to compare with the leading Scandinavian countries.
A deeper analysis of the data used to assess Ireland increased capacity to create and use new knowledge shows that our performance in some key areas needs to improve significantly.
Specifically, while the number of people who are creating and using new knowledge is increasing rapidly, the number of people with a primary degree or higher is relatively low as is the number of scientists and engineers working as researchers in industry.
Furthermore, we are still spending a relatively small proportion of our nation’s wealth on research and development and we are still failing, in part as a consequence, to produce sufficient numbers of patentable innovations that are exploited by industry.
The cross-party consensus that exists to increase funding for research and development and for the protection of intellectual property by public and private research organizations offers some grounds for optimism. These grounds would disappear immediately, however, if we were to return to the stop-go approach to funding research and development that characterized the approach of successive governments in the past.
Most interestingly, perhaps, Ireland scores very poorly on tolerance. We are as accepting of minorities as most other European countries. Also we are as accepting of others views and lifestyles. Where we differ markedly from our European neighbours, however, is in our adherence to traditional religious and social views. Specifically, in our views toward God, religion, nationalism, authority, family, women’s rights, divorce and abortion. In these respects we are most similar to parts of the US, specifically those parts of the US shunned by the members of the creative class and characterized by level of development typically associated with the poorest regions of the world.
What is different here is that there is no cross-part consensus on, or indeed even any cross-party debate, on the relationship between our ability to foster the growth of the creative class that will underpin economic and social development and our adherence, explicitly or implicitly, to traditional views that evidence suggests militate against such growth.
Growing evidence would seem to suggest that in some respects we will be forced to choose between economic development, based on the emergence of a strong and vibrant creative class, and adherence to our traditional, specifically Catholic, views.
This perspective should further invigorate the debate about our changing sense of ourselves in Ireland and our relationship with our past and the nature of our future.
Donald Fitzmaurice
For the developed economies, job creation and economic growth is possible only in sectors where there exists’ the capacity to create and use new knowledge. Furthermore, those individuals capable of creating and using new knowledge – The Creative Class - are attracted to open and diverse communities where difference and experimentation are celebrated.
Individuals such as artists and musicians have always been seen as part of the creative class. But as Florida points out, scientists and entrepreneurs share many of the same motivations and articulate many of the same needs. As a consequence, they also form part of the creative class.
For this reason, cities and regions must aspire to being the types of places that members of the creative classes are attracted to. Such places are tolerant and open and have an appreciation for all types of creativity. Most importantly, they must promote and facilitate meaningful interactions between artists, musicians, scientists and entrepreneurs.
In a more recent study, entitled Europe in the Creative Age, Florida has examined the state of the creative class in Europe. His findings are very enlightening.
The creative class makes up more that 25% of the work force in seven of fourteen European countries, and nearly 30% in three – the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland. Creative class workers outnumber traditional blue-collar workers in these three countries, and also in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark.
The creative class is growing rapidly in the majority of European countries, but Ireland outpaces all other nations with a 7% annual growth rate since 1995.
Not all European countries, however, are undergoing the transformation implied by the above statistics. For example, in Italy and Portugal less than 15% of the members of the workforce are in the creative class.
On this basis, it might appear that there is much to be happy about from the Irish point of view. Despite significant progress, however, Ireland still has a long way to go and occupies a position in the bottom third of the table. In short, there is much more to be done before Ireland could hope to compare with the leading Scandinavian countries.
A deeper analysis of the data used to assess Ireland increased capacity to create and use new knowledge shows that our performance in some key areas needs to improve significantly.
Specifically, while the number of people who are creating and using new knowledge is increasing rapidly, the number of people with a primary degree or higher is relatively low as is the number of scientists and engineers working as researchers in industry.
Furthermore, we are still spending a relatively small proportion of our nation’s wealth on research and development and we are still failing, in part as a consequence, to produce sufficient numbers of patentable innovations that are exploited by industry.
The cross-party consensus that exists to increase funding for research and development and for the protection of intellectual property by public and private research organizations offers some grounds for optimism. These grounds would disappear immediately, however, if we were to return to the stop-go approach to funding research and development that characterized the approach of successive governments in the past.
Most interestingly, perhaps, Ireland scores very poorly on tolerance. We are as accepting of minorities as most other European countries. Also we are as accepting of others views and lifestyles. Where we differ markedly from our European neighbours, however, is in our adherence to traditional religious and social views. Specifically, in our views toward God, religion, nationalism, authority, family, women’s rights, divorce and abortion. In these respects we are most similar to parts of the US, specifically those parts of the US shunned by the members of the creative class and characterized by level of development typically associated with the poorest regions of the world.
What is different here is that there is no cross-part consensus on, or indeed even any cross-party debate, on the relationship between our ability to foster the growth of the creative class that will underpin economic and social development and our adherence, explicitly or implicitly, to traditional views that evidence suggests militate against such growth.
Growing evidence would seem to suggest that in some respects we will be forced to choose between economic development, based on the emergence of a strong and vibrant creative class, and adherence to our traditional, specifically Catholic, views.
This perspective should further invigorate the debate about our changing sense of ourselves in Ireland and our relationship with our past and the nature of our future.
Donald Fitzmaurice
