The Nerd, an Endangered Species
We at the Pepper have great friends. Yesterday, Supermattalica sent us an e-mail with the header "Pepper Material If I've Ever Seen It." Inside was a link to a Salon interview with Richard Florida, author of The Flight of the Creative Class.
Florida's argument is that creative types are flocking to the same cities (New York, Los Angeles, our beloved San Francisco, Seattle), and now more of them are leaving for other nations as well. The creative talent in the heartland is drying up, leaving husks of cities once reliant on manufacturing but unable to think of a new approach.
As a result, the United States economy will continue to suffer from a dearth of new ideas, and relations between the heartland and the coasts, or city and country, are at an all-time nadir because the Court of George II has capitalized on the scared, confused people who think that the "creative class" - read, gay people and Hollywood liberals - looks down upon them.
Now, Salon gets it wrong when they call the article "The Gay/Hipster Index." Not all gays and hipsters are creative. The real issue is the toleration of difference, whether the difference be in sexuality, skin tone, or plumb crazy ideas. We at the Pepper like to think the issue is nerds and most people's hatred of them.
Take a state like Mississippi. When a person doesn't feel respected, what do they do? Leave. The smart kids leave. We at the Pepper have blogged about this before regarding Iowa. You can't drive away all the smart people and then ask, "Why is everyone leaving?"
We at the Pepper wrote a post about how Iowa tried to keep the creative class in the state by dropping the state income tax for anyone under 30. As we at the Pepper said at the time, "Oh, and this tax cut will save an under-30 in Iowa 12 bucks a week. Even though that will amount to more the more you earn, big fat deal. Wow. We at the Pepper are impressed. Where do we sign up?"
We at the Pepper said that maybe if small-towners treated creative people with some manners, they might ... stay. And vice versa. We at the Pepper freely admit to looking down on red-staters, but it's not right to lump all people outside the "creative" cities together. Bad taste is universal, right?
Florida argues that there's a class divide separating the "creative cities" from everyone else, and both sides need to start communicating with each other. That's precisely what the Court of George II doesn't want because that's how they won the election.
The best way to bring about understanding is to make the major jobs in the heartland mean a little more than they currently do, and that involves improving working conditions.
Florida writes:
"Instead of bemoaning low-wage service jobs and then just talking about restoring manufacturing and dealing with outsourcing, someone somewhere has to say that the real key to the future is to make these service jobs good jobs. [emphasis ours] I mean that's the real policy point -- the service economy, which represents 40 to 45 percent of the lowest paying jobs in our economy with the least protection, has to become part of the creative economy. We have to change those jobs in the way industrial jobs were once changed from being terrible jobs to being good jobs."
This point is key. Why can't we make service jobs better? Why can't service workers have higher wages? Make them good jobs that people might actually want. Let's admit it - America runs on a service instead of a manufacturing base.
People get bitter in the low-wage sector because they feel looked down upon. And they will lash out at those who have it better than they do. Is it a coincidence that gay people are one of the richest minority groups in America and are despised by so many low-wage workers? We at the Pepper don't think so.
Comments
This post beautifully answers the blackmail argument that we hear regularly: "Vote Republican, or the stock market will suffer." The point that Republicans want the creative types to cluster in the coastal cities seems both intuitively persuasive and true from personal experience. This Republican-maintained separation between different cultures of work keeps them in power and impairs economic growth.
There's another interesting set of points here, about the US economy moving in the service direction. As a few economists have pointed out, the new economy is divided between the increasingly invisible and globalized "cold" backroom where stuff gets made, and the "warm" front where service workers sell the stuff to you. But I do wonder about Mr. Florida's claim that "the service economy...has to become part of the creative economy." That seems like an idealistic project, but I just don't see how the creative nerds can ever get integrated into the service economy. Service workers unfortunately aren't paid for their creativity, and probably never will be; nerds, conversely, should probably avoid service jobs in order to stay creative. I'm not saying that the two are mutually exclusive, but it seems a little too easy just to call for the two to be brought together.
The Pepper takes, I think, the more practical route in calling for improved wages and working conditions, which would also feed money back into the economy. For those service workers who work primarily for pay, let them be paid better. Meanwhile, for the creative types who will never work just to be paid, let's guarantee that their work at least gets recognized and paid.
Posted by: DrPepper | April 23, 2005 11:39 PM