Digital Publics by John Michael Roberts

Author:John Michael Roberts [Roberts, John Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General, Media Studies
ISBN: 9781136177446
Google: AylWBQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-11-13T05:58:26+00:00

6 Financialisation, neoliberal state projects and the public sphere

Introduction

Since the 2008 crash, governments, global institutions, policy makers and public intellectuals have argued that knowledge-based and service economies provide the means for capitalism to recover. Engelbrecht (2009), for instance, cites from a 2009 OECD policy document, which aims to revitalise post-2008 economies. The document states:

Many of the existing stimulus packages put some emphasis on deploying ICT infrastructure and a ‘networked recovery’ – i.e. the notion that ICT infrastructure and its use are a tool to revive the economy through new innovative services and offer solutions to pressing social problems.

(cited in Engelbrecht 2009: 407)

Similarly, creative economy guru Richard Florida argues that one way to recover from the crisis is to invest in the creative sector. He says that the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted that 15.3 million new jobs will be created in the USA between 2008 and 2018. Most of these, roughly 13.8 million, will be in creative, professional and service occupations. For working-class jobs, construction and transportation will be growth sectors, but overall working-class jobs will increase by only 1.5 million jobs. Another 1.2 million jobs will be lost in manufacturing (Florida 2010: 118). This and other data lead Florida to suggest that the US and other major economies need to invest more in knowledge-based and service sector occupations in order to help rebuild the economy. ‘The service economy offers a tremendous potential for tapping the creative contributions of frontline workers and turning them into improved productivity’ (Florida 2010: 122). Companies in the service sector have the capacity to tap into the creative potential of their workforce, encourage employees to present ideas to improve the company in question and then open up routes for employees to be promoted for their innovations within the company itself.

As we know, of course, one strand in the cultural political economy argues there is a close relationship between finance, information and knowledge. As Pryke and du Gay observe, finance has significantly altered the way in which it operates through new technologies, knowledge and practices that enable finance to perform its ventures in new ways. Digital constructions and representations of financial transactions on trading floors is just one illustration of how financial trading is dependent on cultural practices of information (Pryke and du Gay 2007: 343). Yet, as Clarke (2010: 390) perceptively observes, while countless people might now have less or little faith in neoliberal free markets to fix problems and provide avenues for profitable ventures, it is still nevertheless the case that many others still believe in the virtues of an entrepreneurial society based on ‘choice’ and ‘freedom’. They want to ensure that the continual contracting out and privatisation of public services and the wider public sphere should proceed unabashed.

What this last observation alerts us to is how neoliberals and financial practitioners have pushed forward the financialization agenda through the state. Indeed, neoliberalism operates closely with the state in implementing ‘free markets’ across society. In fact, they both promote an audit and target culture in the public sector that establishes internal markets and competition between services.

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