The fall of the creative class

In the midst of a global recession we talk constantly of work; whether we have it, whether we will lose it, our chances of getting more of it. What remains of our manufacturing industry is under threat; our car and clothing industries shrink or go offshore, while the promise of ‘green’ jobs seems for the most part to be elusive, particularly in the light of the government’s mixed messages concerning alternative energy. For the Rudd government, our future remains in the knowledge economy – laptops and new buildings for school children, more students in universities, creative types in the arts, and commercial patents in the sciences. Yet the precarious nature of manufacturing and service work is spilling over to knowledge work, giving little guarantee that the prestige and status that once governed intellectual labour will remain. In a globalised economy the relation of work to place is becoming as important as the type of work done or the training an individual has. For Princeton economist Alan Binder, the crucial distinction no longer lies between the privileged subjects of the knowledge economy versus those with less education, but rather between those whose services are detachable from their location, whose labour can be sent down ‘the wire’, and those whose work must be done on site. Job security becomes more likely for the latter because, as Binder observes, ‘you can’t hammer a nail over the internet’.