Creative economies of tomorrow? Limits to growth and the uncertain future

Abstract

This article contributes to emerging critiques of UK creative economy policy by challenging the unremitting celebration of “growth” as the primary indicator of economic success. The ecological fallacies of “exclusive” growth and the social and environmental injustices that “creative growth” has occasioned are initially discussed–and a range of possible other understandings of growth introduced. The article concludes that under conditions of real economic stagnation and incipient environmental crisis, growth needs to be made limited, but also more fully socialised in a dual sense; made more evenly and equitably redistributed in terms of benefits and rewards, as well as re-conceived in terms that afford greater priority to non-economic values and human prosperity indicators.