A Philosophical Question

[steepholm]

I was reading today about the degree to which the UK has moved over the last generation from a manufacturing to a service economy. Which leads me to wonder... which category does writing fall into?

Supplementary: Is the first question profound or trivial? I can't decide that either.

Comments

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I think the answer is "neither". It falls into the "creative industries" category, along with film making, advertising, computer games etc. etc. Apparently (according to something I heard on Radio 4 the other week), the creative industries contribute as much to the GDP as the banking and finance industries.

Which then leads me to ask, why then did we allow such a small part of the economy to dominate everything and lead us into ruin?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Why indeed, in answer to your last question. But I'm still not sure why writing a novel, for example, doesn't count as manufacturing. After all, one is making something (don't the Scots call poets "makars", in fact?), a thing that is then sold.

It's not just a question of being creative or not. After all, my father (a potter) was creative in making pots, which he often then sold. Was he in manufacturing? In a small, hobby-level way, he must have been, though I don't suppose he'd have put it that way. But if he'd been employed to do it in a factory, sitting next to hundreds of other people doing the same thing, we'd have no doubt that he was in a manufacturing industry. But surely scale alone isn't enough to make the difference?

Going back to the writer, for a while I toyed with the idea that only the person who physically prints and binds the book is in manufacturing, with the writer being somehow at one remove. But then, for example, here in Bristol there are people designing aircaft engines for Rolls Royce, and I wouldn't hesitate to say that they are in manufacturing, even though they may never touch an engine part. The same with someone designing clothes for a high street brand. What's the difference between them and writers, if any? The only one could come up with was that novelists tend to be self employed, but does that make them either a) more creative or b) less involved in the production of goods (i.e. books)? That too seems an odd place to draw the line.

I suppose in my own mind it's come down to whether a writer is seen primarily as someone providing a service (a literary "experience") or making a product (a novel, poem, or whatever). Of course, commercial writers are doing both, but which side is uppermost?

[diceytillerman.livejournal.com]

Definitely profound.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Oh good - I did hope so!

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

The comments have been profound, too!! I was going to comment, but now I'm just gobsmacked into silence!!

Thanks for that food for thought!!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'm not sure any of this really matters, but here at least I can maunder harmlessly.

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

You need to read various people - including Marx - on the piano player for several answers. As I recall, the answer's yes. I think Marx would say superstructure, Williams base.

As an entrepreneur champion (no, really) said yesterday, the problem is, people don't expect to pay those people who supply the arts.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Writing a novel = craft
Printing = manufacturing
Promoting one's book on Richard and Judy = service