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Creative London in Historical Perspective

The Nearly-New Economy

—Alvaro de Miranda

Current preoccupation with creativity and creative industries is intimately related with the concept of the knowledge-based economy. According to this theory, the spread of information and communication technologies at the end of the 20th century, together with the process of globalisation, has ushered in a new, knowledge-based economy which is radically different in nature from the previous industrially-based economy. In this new economy productivity and growth are primarily determined by the ability to process and use knowledge. In this context, the ability to generate new knowledge and innovate is seen as central to the process of economic growth. This theory has acquired the status of self-evident truth in the eyes of most national and international policy makers, and has played a major role in the development of economic policy, particularly in regard to the economic regeneration of regions blighted by the demise of the old industrial economy, and in the generation of putative economic regions such as Thames Gateway.

But many of the novel characteristics attributed to this new economy are not nearly as new as they are made out to be. Study of radio manufacture and related productive activity in East London and its hinterland reveals scientific and industrial innovation alongside artistic creativity; clustering of firms in relations which combine competition and cooperation (recently re-described as ‘coopetition’); and reliance on burgeoning telecommunications networks as well as the physical ‘hub’ afforded by the London Docks – all of these occurring not just in the 1990s but from the 1920s onwards.

The following paper highlights individual companies which came to be networked in this way, and so illustrates the kind of economy (regionally focussed but with global input) which as a result of their interconnection came into being three-quarters of a century ago. By casting doubt on the novelty of the ‘new economy’ it also questions the supposed international division of labour between creative, ‘knowledge production’ in the West and plain, old production elsewhere.

Read more: Alvaro de Miranda’s Creative East London in Historical Perspective

Alvaro de Miranda developed Innovation Studies at UEL and continues to teach in the School of Social Sciences, Media and Cultural Studies

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