|
White Paper: Harnessing the Power of a Knowledge-Based, Technology-Driven Economy
The Creative Compact: An Economic and Social Agenda for the Creative Age
Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class and one of the world's leading social theorists and public intellectuals, believes that human creativity is the engine of economic growth. In this final installment of Professor Richard Florida’s Creative Compact, Florida concludes his argument for a new social compact that will ensure our future economic success. Florida reasons that although the United States faces real security issues, it is imperative that we maintain an open society. Florida concludes that the United States must take the lead is forging a Global Creativity Initiative that would focus on developing new approaches to investing in people.
Professor Florida is a keynote speaker at the National Conference on the Creative Economy, hosted by Fairfax County, October 24-25, 2007, where he will present his latest thinking on how the Creative Economy will affect companies and communities. To register for the conference, visit this link.
[Principle 1: Every Human Being is Creative, Principle 2: Encourage Entrepreneurship Across the Board, Principle 3: Expand Innovation, Principle 4: A Social Agenda for Creativity, Principle 5: Restructure Education for Creativity, Principle 6: The University as Creative Hub, Principle 7: Make Every Community a Creative Community, Principle 8: Leverage the Local]
Principle 9:
Recommit to Openness and Diversity
The United States faces real security concerns. But none of them can trump the need to remain an open society. To be certain, security is a real issue in post-9/11 world - and it is not one that is going to disappear soon. Whatever one thinks of the specific issues of Iraq, Afghanistan, or Al Qaeda, the fact is that global terrorism has long been a serious problem - and it is now one that the United States and other advanced countries must deal with effectively. But it is important for both business and political leadership to recognize the economic costs of being over-zealous and to think of the serious trade-offs to economic security and long-run competitiveness that are involved.
We are concerned as we never have been before about the economic stability of our jobs. I’m referring of course to outsourcing. In the last few years, it has finally hit home to the average American how truly global this economy is. Politicians and the populace have in general reacted viscerally, blaming foreign countries for taking our jobs. The rise of economic nationalism on both the left and right is as dangerous to our nation’s future as social conservatism. It would be a huge mistake to impede the movement of talented people to economic opportunity, whether here or abroad. This can only hurt our competitive advantage in the long run, and we need leadership brave enough to tell some hard truths to our workers. Our own economic security hinges on the free circulation of talent, and we can no longer let outsourcing be the political bogeyman that no one is willing to confront.
Neither can we allow the debate on immigration to be framed by our tendency to celebrate high-skilled immigrants as we denigrate and obstruct the contributions of those in other sectors of our economy. Too often nowadays, I hear calls for the easing of visa restrictions for high-skilled laborers and high-skilled laborers alone. Gary Becker, whose work I greatly admire, invokes a sort of prioritization system. His (and others’) intentions are good: the basic argument is that we need to consider how much these high-end people mean to our economic success. I would expand the call, though, to realizing how much all immigrants mean to our economic life. We know that immigrants add value, and that low-skilled immigrants have helped to propel the American economy. It’s time to start acting like it. Our future as a truly open society depends on it.
Principle 10: A Global Agenda
An economic and social agenda for the Creative Age cannot be a one-country strategy. A truly global economy requires global institution building. Like it or not, we live in a multilateral world, where economic power is exponentially dispersed compared to even 50 years ago. The United States, still the world’s most dominant power, must take the lead here, abandoning any semblance of unilateralism and truly embrace the world in navigating mutually beneficial multilateral solutions and strategies for the prosperity and inclusion in the creative age.
To start with, it would be useful if we could all be using the same language, statistically speaking. The challenges of the creative age are hard enough to conceptualize and pinpoint as it is; the lack of a unified, standardized system of economic measurements makes that task all the more difficult. It’s time to get serious about collecting comparable global statistics - a census for the world, if you will. Such a system will be enormously difficult to institute, no doubt. All the more reason to start trying as soon as possible.
Similarly, to get a better idea of the scope of activity across the world, a true global forum on creativity is in order. We currently have global summits such as Davos to bring together CEOs to talk about tax rates and other business climate issues. Why not start comparing the best practices of our creative centers, discussing the business of more open societies with competitive people climates? Today, many international organizations, from the International Monetary Fund to the World Bank, are concerned with investment, trade, and competitiveness, while the United Nations and other groups tackle policy, security, or equity. Left out are the crucial dimensions of the new creative age, the “other” two T’s, talent and tolerance, which can potentially lead to common prosperity. What we need more than anything now is a focal point for the discussion of migration and global talent flows, for someone to make the case for a fair and equitable global framework for managing the flow of people worldwide. Such a forum can no longer be the exclusive province of business leaders and government ministers but must be truly open and inclusive, designed to tap the ideas and creative energy of a much broader cross-section of people from around the world.
Such a Global Creativity Initiative would focus on developing new approaches to investing in people. It could orient its efforts around a “Global Compact” - a Global New Deal of sorts - which would encourage free flows of capital and people, while taking steps to mitigating worsening class divides, provide a viable social safety net, and ensure social and economic freedoms, while building the creative ecosystems and infrastructures required for economic prosperity.
By devoting its energy and its power to this kind of effort to spread the benefits of the creative economy across the globe, the United States can reclaim it status as a truly open and free society and lead the world and its people in becoming a more prosperous and less divided place. More importantly, it can reassert itself as a risk-taking society, one that encourages entrepreneurship and experimentation by caring for its people and providing for their basic security - physical, social, political, and economic. Maybe I’m an eternal optimist, but I think the United States can continue to be a beacon of openness not just for the global creative class - and, indeed, for the whole of humanity. It has a long history of resourcefulness and creativity to draw on, and it has transformed itself many times before.
Richard Florida, Professor of Business and Creativity at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, is a keynote speaker at the 2007 National Conference on the Creative Economy, hosted by Fairfax County, October 24-25, where he will present his latest thinking on how the Creative Economy will affect companies and communities. Sponsored in part by FORTUNE magazine, the conference will examine the role that a strong, creative workforce plays in the growth and success of businesses and communities in an information-based economy. To register for the conference, visit http://www.creativeeconomies.org.
Thousands of companies have chosen Fairfax County, Virginia, located minutes from Washington, D.C., as the best place to position their business. Fairfax County, which the U.S. Department of Labor described as the private-sector job leader in the Washington area, is home to seven Fortune 500 companies, 5,400 IT companies and more than 360 foreign-owned firms.
A U.S. Department of Labor study called Fairfax County the private-sector job leader in the Washington area, and a Time magazine columnist described Fairfax County as "one of the great economic success stories of our time." With a talent pool like that, you know your options will never run dry. Fairfax County also features a quality of life that's hard to beat, with a top-ranked public school system, excellent public services, innovative George Mason University and Northern Virginia Community College, and access to Washington’s historical and cultural activities.
To find out what Fairfax County can do for you and your business, contact the award-winning Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. It has experts to guide you as you plan for your business– at no charge. Call 703-790-0600 or check out www.FairfaxCountyEDA.org.
| |
