Culture is not an industry

Culture is at the heart of what it means to be human. But twenty-five years ago, the British government rebranded art and culture as ‘creative industries’, valued for their economic contribution, and set out to launch the UK as the creative workshop of a globalised world.

Where does that leave art and culture now? Facing exhausted workers and a lack of funding and vision, culture finds itself in the grip of accountancy firms, creativity gurus and Ted Talkers. At a time of sweeping geo-political turmoil, culture has been de-politicised, its radical energies reduced to factors of industrial production. This book is about what happens when an essential part of our democratic citizenship, fundamental to our human rights, is reduced to an industry.

Culture is not an industry argues that art and culture need to renew their social contract and re-align with the radical agenda for a more equitable future. Bold and uncompromising, the book offers a powerful vision for change.

'Imaginative culture – art, stories, decoration, styles – is how we anticipate the future and feel our way into it: our antennae. Treating culture as an industry subject to the crude rules of neoliberalism doesn’t make any more sense than treating healthcare the same way. Justin O’Connor’s brilliant book argues for a holistic, ecological vision of culture in which it is seen as an essential part of the maintenance of a functioning society.' – Brian Eno

‘Culture is not an industry radically remakes the case for culture and cultural policy in the twenty-first century. Rejecting the trend for culture’s depoliticisation and the illusions of the "creative industries", O’Connor proposes a dynamic new approach where culture is recentred as foundational to citizenship, democracy and a new kind of economy.' – Mark Banks, Professor of Cultural Economy, University of Glasgow

‘A passionate and well-argued “corrective” that seeks to rebalance the cultural scales away from the economic to a larger sense of social purpose. The book’s central argument is that we must reclaim art, give it place and recognition in all and every society that wishes to live well and without fear. I’ll buy that…’ – Josephine Burns, Co-Founder of BOP Consulting