Creative Clusters

Business news from the West reaches Kathmandu slower than the 'bikase' news and political 'basibinyalo,' but Creative Clusters Conference 2007 that took place in London this month was a modest event worth some pondering by policy makers. Even the political soap opera between the SPA and the Maoists can wait for one more minute before it gears up for yet another climax of farce.
The Creative Clusters Conference had representatives from fourty one countries around the globe and the event took off with somewhat unusual a retrospection that the artist is a generator of economic value. In creativity business, the artist, the historian or the thinker is no longer a peculiar outsider who the State or the rich must protect, but an economic contributor in his own right.
The idea of creativity-based industrialisation might sound strange to many who think of economic growth as something totally distinct from cultural wealth and power. In reality, the rapid globalisation has made the creative sector one of the fastest-growing in the world. The world's biggest companies in 1950 used to be all industrial manufacturers and raw materials suppliers: Ford, Standard Oil, General Electric, Philips, General Motors. Now there are some completely new names: Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, News Corporation - television broadcasters, publishers, entertainers. In fact, these sectors are showing annual growth rates between 5 to 20 percent in the world's advanced economies.
Creative production is more about distinction - be it the distinction of value, taste or style. Even the mass producers like Nike and Coca Cola are edging towards distinction, or what some philosophers call 'semiotics.' Their whole manufacturing process is outsourced; the only thing the Nike and Coca Cola manage are the narratives. For this, their language must be analytic and impersonal but intuitive and aesthetic. It is the language of the artist, the creator.
Because creative products are information-based, they cannot grow until digital technologies, communications networks and means of transportation do not take off. All these are public goods and the State is responsible for building the hard and soft infrastructures so that creative businesses have an enabling environment.
If we think about it, the industries that have worked best in Nepal have less to do with mass production and more to do with creative production. The 2000s have shown us, as clearly as the 1990s did, that American-style mass production model of capitalism is not the game for Nepal . Our geographic and cultural comparative advantages lie elsewhere. Tourism, handicraft and art industries are all creative industries. Let us have yet one more round of stock-taking if we are still unconvinced by what our history reminds us time and again that Nepalis are better artisans, better philosophers and better service-providers than better manufacturers.
Maybe modest events like CCC will allow us a moment to consider distinction and creativity as our industrial strategies than continue on the blind race of homogenisation and mass manufacturing. Let's hope that the rise of creative industries on both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific will be our eye-opener that smart production easily outweighs large production.