Contemporary Literature, Post-Industrial Capital, and the UK Creative Industries

ABSTRACT

The creative industries, an important means of economic development in the post-industrial UK, position culture as an engine that generates wealth, that encourages social cohesion, and that helps to brand distinct regions for export and consumption. Yet their relevance to contemporary literature has not yet been subject to sustained study. This article lays some groundwork for new inquiry by thinking about writers as members of a creative class. In fact they may exemplify it, as aspects of how they work, live, and value their own autonomy have proven particularly useful to current post-industrial mandates. The idea of the autonomy of the arts has become one rationale behind their use as a plank in the construction of a brand-based visitor economy. Brand UK is meant to strengthen diplomatic ties, encourage corporate investment, and win the loyalty of global citizen-consumers whose appreciation for artistic freedom should guarantee their love for the products, services, and ideals that originate in the UK. Thus the arts' ostensible freedom is emphasized, and must seem viable, for them to be available for conscription into post-industrial government and corporate mandates. Meanwhile new economic applications for the arts influence the value, production and authority of new writing. They also affect its meaning, because writers tend to work against – by self-consciously highlighting – instrumental uses of their texts and of their cultural cachet. This means a notable and productive tension has arisen, as writers' attachment to their separation from corporate and state prerogatives, often reinforced in their literature, may be precisely what guarantees continued instrumental value.