Cultural Economy

A. C. Pratt, London School of Economics, London, UK

& 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

For many years Economic Sociology, and Geography

Glossary (which drew on the same formulations), upheld this
Cultural Industry A term coined by Adorno to distinction. It is only relatively recently that writers have
negatively characterize the mass production (and sought to challenge this dualism (the economic and the
consumption) of culture. social); in so doing they have opened up the field for a
Cultural Industries A term developed by French reconsideration of the explanation of economic action
scholars, and developed by British writers, that stresses proper and thus challenged neoclassical Economics on its
the variety of cultural production, and underlies a own grounds. This is the key to understanding the cur-
positive role in economic development. rent re-engagement with the cultural economy.
Creative industries A term used by the UK This is a complex and emerging field. In brief we can
government to promote its intellectual property/content identity at least six lines of current debate about the
industries. The term has been adopted internationally. cultural economy. There is no space to elaborate on these
The adjective ‘creative’ is not as controversial as here. First, researchers have sought to show how eco-
‘cultural’, and creativity seems to align it to the nomics is one rhetoric amongst others; it is a mode of
information economy. argumentation rather than revealed or undisputed truth.
Economization The notion that cultural has been Second, others have sought to demonstrate how truth
drawn into economic production (and separated from the claims are sustained in economics (and science) via a web
arts).
of correspondences. Third, in an anthropological turn
Culturalization The idea that the economy as a whole
some have sought to examine the practices by which
has become more ‘cultural’ in the sense that values and
economic life are carried on. In other words to see how
design rather than simple price are market signals.
economic life ‘is done’. We can note the contrast with
Cultural Industries Production System A term that
economists who argue about how economic life ‘should be’
expresses the span of material cultural production
done. Fourth, we can point to anthropologists of material
processes across production and consumption, and all
culture who have rendered the economic field into the
points in between.
familiar language of kinship. Fifth, alongside these has
been a Deleuzian influenced debate about performativity
and affect which has on one hand highlighted the role of
The Cultural Mode of Economic Action: the ‘passions’ in economic life, and on the other hand,
The Cultural Economy sought to recast the economic field within a post-
representational mode. While these lines of theory are in
Arguably the longest running debate about cultural essence Economic Sociology, they have also shaded into
economy can be tracked more precisely to its status as a Economic Anthropology, and more generally come to
‘mode of analysis’ and to debates about the role of eco- encompass the cultural turn in the social sciences; hence
nomic sociology as a ‘subdiscipline’ and its position vis-à- cultural analyses of the economy. In so doing, the cultural
vis economics. In the early variants of classical Eco- turn has been strongly articulated as a methodological
nomics what we now consider the social, cultural, and critique against quantitative and in favor of qualitative
political were an internal part of Economic discourse. approaches. Sixth, we can identify a dimension of debate
Later, neoclassical analyses sought to concentrate on that has sought to explore the moral dimension of social
atomistic, uniquely economic activities described in and economic life; for some writers, this has been aligned
terms of rational calculation. In effect, this created a to a critical take on the ‘cultural turn’.
‘boundary dispute’ with respect to the social. In soci- Much of the theoretical debate about the ‘cultural
ologist Talcott Parsons’ influential formulation of Eco- turn’ in the discipline of geography has been positioned
nomic Sociology, this divide was formalized (and against Marxist structuralism and production, while
remained so for 40 years or more). In Parsons’ view, theoretical debates about postmodernism and post-
neoclassical Economics should be separate from the so- structuralism highlighted the play of images. In the
cial: Sociology was allocated the task of exploring the practice of advertising, filmmaking, and similar forms, it
‘social setting’ for economic action, economics was left was used to frame the consumption experience. Although
with the ‘pure Economics’. Thus the social (and cultural) not a necessary consequence of such an approach,
dimensions of the economy were allocated to ‘context’. more often than not the object of interest has been

407
408 Cultural Economy

consumption. There are a lack of new Cultural Studies, The cultural studies tradition has also argued that the
Economic Geographies, or Cultural Geographies that high–low culture distinction is false, but from a different
apply their attention to production, let alone production discursive point of view. It is argued that there is a case,
‘and’ consumption. In Economic Geography the ‘cultural albeit not in such clear terms, to promote forms of cul-
turn’ was in part figured as a reaction to the economically ture that are not commercially orientated in order to
reductivist, or productivist, focus. Such a shift can be promote diversity or representation. There is a long
evidenced by the renewed interest in business organiza- history of the analytical elision of high culture with
higher social classes. Against this the value of the cultural
tion; some researchers have examined the unusual forms
studies tradition has been to recognize that culture is
of economic organization, namely ‘project working’, that
‘classed’ (and ‘spaced’); that is, it is associated with, and
are commonly found in the cultural economy. In parallel, the product of, particular class fractions. Thus, the insight
there has been a growth in management literatures that in favoring one particular esthetic, one serves to
concerning the cultures of management, and the par- support and legitimize that particular class (or regional)
ticular innovative practices that constitute the creative/ position and worldview.
cultural industries. The instrumental focus of this Increasingly culture is being used in instrumental
knowledge seeks to achieve competitive advantages ways to promote cities – for example, by creating dis-
through innovation or product design. tinctive modern art galleries. The argument here is that
A common dualistic couplet deployed in the analysis cultural differentiation is a way of marking place-rooted
of the cultural economy is that of culturalization–econ- uniqueness (inherent or created). A line of argument in
omiztation. As a dualism this is, on the one hand, pre- continental Europe has been the discussion of local food
sented as economic activities being increasingly inflected cultures, or food products that differentiate place and
with cultural topes and performance, etc., rather than markets, and are supported by ‘regional branding’. A
simple differentiation of value. This has been taken as an different, commercial, articulation is the increasing use of
account for the deployment of culture to increase market the ‘experience economy’ to promote a ‘feel good ex-
segmentation and develop niche markets in a circum- perience’ that helps to sell (otherwise similar) goods and
stance of oversupply, or market saturation. Some writers places: from people dressing up and performing service,
make a link with flexible specialization and what they to street theater and animateurs. Ethnographic research
term a reflexive turn, that is indexed to growing demand has highlighted the ‘hidden’ or emotional labor in such
from consumers for an ever differentiated product mar- practices. The latest version of this is the use of cities to
ket (by design) and the organizational and productive attract what has been termed the ‘creative class’ because
means to satisfy it (flexible specialization). Hence, it is this group of workers who work in hi-tech are attractive
argued, culturalization is endemic in late capitalism. to new hi-tech companies who are drawn to labor pools.
Economization is commonly overlain with a moral The key point that detracts from this work, for the
sentiment. This is the classic formulation of Adorno purposes of this article, is that it is focused on cultural
writing in the late 1930s that rejected commodification as consumption, not production; and, that culture is being
separating art from its aura. It is from this perspective deployed in an instrumental manner.
that Adorno labeled (and defined) the Culture Industry
in such negative terms. At one and the same time he
sought to legislate what was culture, and to equate this The Economy of Cultural Products and
with the market, thus creating an unhelpful market/ Services: The Cultural Economy
nonmarket equation with art and commerce. Later work
by political economists – common In Media and Com- If we turn our attention to the part of the economy
munications studies – has carried on Adorno’s moral dealing with the production of cultural goods and ser-
baggage and added its own critique of power and control. vices, the ‘cultural economy’, then we are immediately
Returning to the foundational provision of cultural faced with two problems. First, what are its boundaries
goods, cultural policy has been based upon market failure and definitions? and second, why has it grown? Em-
associated by inadequate price signals. Thus, ‘creeping pirically, these two problems are interlinked as the
economization’ is feared to morally ‘devalue’ culture; taxonomies used for empirical data collection on eco-
hence, the necessity of public intervention to counter these nomic activities are based upon historically determined
‘incorrect’ market signals. Other binaries such as high–low conceptions of the economy which are themselves con-
culture, or public–private, for profit–not for profit have structed around concepts of a normal (old) industrial
served to reinforce the notion that commercial/mass cul- economy and are intrinsically ill-prepared to identify
ture/private/for profit are aesthetically inferior, despite the ‘newness’. This is a problem associated not only with
fact that the arguments (on one hand Adorno’s ‘aura’, and culture, but one with new technology-based industries,
on the other, market failure) are different. and the service sector more generally.
 Cultural Economy 409

The section titled ‘The cultural mode of economic the cultural industries: moreover, the cultural economy
action: the cultural economy’ has already differentiated and creative economy.
the ‘cultural economy’ from the ‘cultural’ economy, the Alongside enumerating and defining the cultural
latter would include the cultural dimensions of the economy there has been a debate concerning its spati-
whole economy. Adorno, when he coined the term ality. The cultural economy has a distinctive geography,
‘culture industry’, was seeking to point to those parts of one that is strongly, although not exclusively, articulated
the economy that were mass producing what he iden- to urban areas in the developed world. A particular
tified as inferior culture. A radical transposition of the policy-driven debate has concerned the agglomeration of
notion was developed by French Media and Com- cultural industries, so-called ‘clusters’. While policy-
munications scholars in the 1980s; they sought to take makers have, as with other industries, sought to promote
this economy seriously, and to recognize that the ‘Cul- clusters, there is currently a poor understanding of the
ture Industry’ was a legitimate expression of culture and process of interaction at the local scale, empirical work
that its production was ‘plural’ and various: they re- on the cultural economy points to the role of knowledge,
named it as ‘the Cultural Industries’. This notion has reputation, and untraded dependencies; moreover, these
been discussed in the UK (and much copied elsewhere), are both localized and face-to-face, and internationalized
and underpins the policies of the 1980s for cultural re- through in such nodes. This articulation of place and
generation pursued by UK metropolitan authorities. globalization in the cultural economy is taken up in the
Conceptually, two lines of emphasis have emerged from debate about cultural industry commodity chains.
this root: first, those that stress the textuality of the Once we have accepted that the cultural economy
cultural industries and have a closer theoretical lineage does exist, and that it has grown very rapidly from a
to Media and Communications studies; and second, relatively insignificant economic and cultural low point,
those that stress the production system of cultural we must consider the question ‘why?’ This is an area of
products and services that have a closer alliance with ongoing research. There are two lines of debate. First,
Economic Geography. Yet another term has recently without doubt, arguments concerning the growth of in-
become popular with policy makers: the creative in- come, leisure time, and the proportion of disposable in-
dustries, although there are critical differences in the come spent on culture account for one part of the
interpretation of this term in practice usage overlaps. ‘demand’. However, to this we need to add the creation of
The cultural industries production system approach demand through the development of various means of
has been proven important for policymakers; it seeks to persuasion (advertising) and the social transformation
join both questions of the ‘breadth’ of culture (activities wrought by the extension of full-time education, and
that should be included: film, television, books, computer increased participation in tertiary education. This latter
games, theater, music, etc.), and the ‘depth’ of cultural process is linked to the creation of a cohort of young
production (activities that are required to produce cul- people with few responsibilities and a considerable
tural outputs: manufacturing, distribution, and con- amount of money and time. Added to this economic
sumption). Some analyses have concentrated on the potential is the creation, from the mid-1950s onward, of
former and operationalized this through counting num- the social identity of ‘teenager’ that has been heavily
bers involved in artistic occupations, other analyses have inflected with advertising. Finally, the cultural explosion
explored cultural trade. The cultural industries pro- and liberal forms of artistic expression that developed in
duction system approach argues that occupation – as the 1960s. There is no space to explore these linkages,
used by Florida – offers partial analyses, as well as failing although it goes without saying that their interrelation-
to capture the social reproduction of labor and know- ships need care in interpretation.
ledge in the cultural industries. Andy Pratt has developed A second theme of accounts of the emergence and
a statistical framework that seeks to both define and growth of the cultural economy is via an extension of the
operationalize both the breadth and depth definitions work on the postindustrial modernization of society.
which focus on ‘industry’ rather than ‘occupation’ as a Researchers have proposed that the information, know-
fundamental unit of analysis; it is an approach that has ledge, and creative sectors of the economy constitute the
been subsequently taken up by national governments and ‘quaternary sector’, succeeding the agricultural, manu-
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural facturing and service sectors as the ‘highest stage’ of
Organization (UNESCO) in the production of so-called growth. This line of argument has been criticized arguing
‘mapping documents’. One outcome of such studies has that the linkage to production is empirically evident (and
been the fact that the creative/cultural industries/econ- important) rather than absent, as implied in the post-
omy constitute around 10% of some economies; indeed, industrial conceptualization.
they are the third major industry in London. Overlain on Beyond these disputes about the long-term develop-
this political-driven discourse has been a further con- ment of economies and the role of the cultural economy in
fusion concerning the terms the creative industries, or such a transformation are a number of important empirical
410 Cultural Economy

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