Angela McRobbie: The Artist as Human Capital and New Labour's Creative Economy

Vocabulary flashcards covering Angela McRobbie's analysis of New Labour cultural policy, the creative economy, labour reform, and the figure of the artist as human capital.

Labour Reform (in New Labour's Creative Economy)

The restructuring of work under the UK New Labour government starting in 1997, which promoted entrepreneurship, self-direction, and business to displace traditional sociological ideas of working life, labour conditions, and industrial policy.

Biopolitics (Foucault)

A theoretical framework emphasizing dispersed, corporeal power addressing subjects directly, used by McRobbie to explain how policy incentives and anticipated rewards make risky, precarious creative work appealing and exciting.

DCMS (Department of Culture, Media and Sport)

The UK government department established under New Labour from the former heritage department, led by Chris Smith, which produced the 1998 and 2001 Mapping Documents and sought to draw culture closer to the Treasury.

Chris Smith

The New Labour Minister for the newly created Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) who aimed to align the department and culture with HM Treasury.

Cool Britannia

The cultural branding and Downing Street parties in the early New Labour years that celebrated the economic value of the creative industries and popularized the egalitarian slogan that 'everyone is creative.'

NESTA

The key independent institute for formulating creative economy ideas and policies under New Labour, which was re-designated as a charity by 2010 and shifted its focus from 'creativity' to technology-driven 'innovation.'

Nicholas Garnham's Critique

The critique arguing that New Labour used an 'artist-centred' approach to lend moral prestige to the software and knowledge economy, while masking that economic value primarily resided in intellectual property and copyright.

Living on Thin Air (Charles Leadbeater)

A 1999 book focusing on Silicon Valley, biotechnology, and the knowledge economy, arguing that an individualized workforce reduces the need for the state and its protective measures.

Precarity as Governmentality (Lorey)

A concept identifying how structural insecurity, uncertain outcomes, and short-term work are institutionalized through policy and education to govern modern subjects.

Hybrid Cultural Policy (David Hesmondhalgh)

Hesmondhalgh's concept describing New Labour's cultural policy as an amalgam of social democratic anti-elitism and job-creation infrastructure alongside market-driven consumer-citizenship.

Stuart Hall's Critique of New Labour Neoliberalism

The analysis stating that New Labour pursued neoliberalism while keeping social democratic elements marginalized or in 'cold storage,' replacing the principle of equality with social inclusion and meritocracy.

New Public Management

An administrative paradigm involving management consultants, internal markets, benchmarking, and notions of 'excellence' imported into arts administration and higher education to justify privatization and cost-cutting.

Staying Ahead (Work Foundation)

A widely discussed report on the creative economy that failed to address working conditions, labour rights, or the downsides of freelance and self-organized labour.

De-massification

The relinquishing of the concept of the collective industrial working class and trade union representation in favor of individualized autonomy and flexible professional networks.

Creativity Dispositif

The apparatus wherein public relations and celebratory proclamations of talent function as policy to produce and normalize self-directed, entrepreneurial subjectivities within the education system.

Creative and Cultural Skills

A Skills Council funded with £12 million by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2006 to establish sector skillsets, which was ended by the Coalition Government in 2011.

The Artist as Human Capital

The conceptual model where the figure of the artist is co-opted as an ideal prototype for contemporary capitalism—a self-reliant, multi-tasking, entrepreneurial worker who operates without state safety nets or union protections.