The Flight From America

By Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet. Posted May 31, 2005.

When Richard Florida published his upbeat Rise of the Creative Class in 2002, he became the instant darling of progressives everywhere. What's not to like about a man who says diversity, tolerance, and a vibrant cultural life are required ingredients for economic success? And for hip, well-educated professionals, comfortably ensconced in liberal meccas like San Francisco and New York, it bestowed a brand new label, "cultural creatives," that confirmed their privileged position in the new post-'90s economy.

Florida's latest offering, however, is neither as cheery nor as reassuring. While the emphasis on human creativity -- and the concomitant need for tolerance -- remains unchanged, The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent offers a grimmer and more nuanced vision of both America and the world.

This Richard Florida is worried. For one, he fears that the nation's turn to the right -- hostility to foreigners, widening income divide, social conservatism -- endangers the single most important source of U.S. power: its ability to attract global talent. But even when he looks beyond the borders, Florida finds other reasons to worry. Unlike Thomas Friedman, he see the dark side of the global creative economy, whose tendency to concentrate economic wealth must be recognized and controlled for the greater good. The same thriving cities, brimming with talent and ingenuity can easily turn into creative ghettoes that increasingly exclude greater parts of humanity.

Richard Florida spoke to AlterNet from his home in Washington D.C.

In your book, you describe a world where, for the first time, the mobility of capital is being matched by the mobility of labor, at least a certain kind of high-skilled labor. So what are the implications for the way we redefine economic power?

There are two things. For a long time, economists thought in terms of comparative advantage and raw materials. Then in the more recent period, two theories emerged. One was a theory associated with Robert Solo -- it's a really good theory -- that says economic growth is really dependent on how much technology you have.

The second theory that came up in the more recent years is that if you want to grow an economy you have to invest in human capital or talent. And there's increasing proof, in fact, that this is true. But because most economists tend to view either technology or talent as "stocks" that countries are endowed with. All my theory really says is that these are not "stocks" but "flows."

The main thing affecting the flow [of talent and technology] is not, in fact, your education system. A perfect example of that is California. California has for decades under-invested in its primary and secondary education system, and yet has these spectacular universities and a vibrant labor market. It's a great open place to live, and attracts people from all over the world.

What I say in my work is that there's this third T -- apart from Technology and Talent -- called Tolerance. The reason this third T is an important part of economic growth and economic advantage is because it attracts talented creative people from all races, ethnicities, income ranges, -- whether they're white, black, Hispanic, Latino, Asia, Indian, women, men, single, married, or gay. So places that are the most tolerant, the most diverse, the most, in words of the new book, "proactively inclusive" have an addition economical advantage.

And, in fact, that's what I believe has really been the core of America's economic advantage for over the course of at least a century, more likely two centuries. It's not been a lot of raw materials, a big market, or just been our American Yankee ingenuity or even our stock of technology. We, in fact, imported most of our technology in the early days from England and Germany. It's really been our emphasis on being open -- providing economic opportunity, for sure, but being open to people, culturally and politically.

My message is that this is really the core axis of economic competition. And my fear is -- I'll just be quite candid -- that there's absolutely no awareness of this in Washington D.C. It's so terrifying.

Or even if there is an awareness of the economic consequences of intolerance, it doesn't seem to change the outcome. In Ohio, for example, they successfully passed this sweeping anti-gay proposition in 2004 despite warnings from the business community that it would force many of them to relocate -- and this in a state that has its share of economic woes. How do you explain that?

What we typically see in America -- in the media -- as political polarization or culture war is really fundamental class divide. It's as big as the class divide that haunted during the birth of the Industrial Revolution, when the rise of the great working class was stifled by a booming, wealth-creating industrial capitalism. What Roosevelt said -- like him or not -- was that we could only keep this industrial engine moving by including the regular blue-collar working person who heretofore had toiled in heinous conditions at substandard wages in "satanic mills."

What's happened with the rise of the creative economy is the benefits of that economy have been very concentrated in about 30 percent of the workforce -- those of us who work in the creative economy (scientists, engineers, people who work in arts, culture, entertainment, writers) and those of us in the professions. There's certainly a great wage range within that, but on average, people who work in the creative sector of the economy make double people in the manufacturing, triple people in the service sector.

Lakshmi Chaudhry is senior editor of Alternet.

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