What I really really want

This week's most significant event is, of course, the reunion of the Spice Girls, as it reminds us of an overlooked benefit of financial liberalization and technical progress.
The thing is, the massive success of the Spice Girls was largely unpredictable.  Who would have forecast that five girls of (generally speaking) average appearance and worse voices would sell so many records? They look and sound more like Pat Holland than Jolie Holland.
But then a lot of success in any venture is impossible to predict. Many best-selling authors - including J.K. Rowling - were rejected many times by publishers. Even successful entrepreneurs reject profitable inventions. Decca famously turned down the Beatles. When Arsene Wenger (pbuh) arrived at Highbury, people asked: "Arsene who?" And none of the three most successful Prime Ministers of the last century - Attlee, Churchill and Thatcher - were generally predicted to do so well.
Great success is, then, what Nassim Taleb calls a "black swan" - an extreme unpredictable event. The fact that Dr Taleb can get a best-seller from stating the bleedin' obvious corroborates his point recursively.
How many great-selling books, popular bands or successful companies have we not had because they've been turned down?
And this is where a benefit of easier finance and technical progress comes in.
When money is tight, financiers might be able to raise the money for one in a 100 proposals. That means there's a great chance good businesses will never get started. And if it costs a lot to print books or CDs and promote bands and authors, few will be signed up and many potentially successful ones will be rejected.
However, if finance is easier and the costs of printing and marketing are lower, fewer potential successes should be filtered out. In this way, technical progress and easier finance can promote economic growth.
They can also make the economy more of a meritocracy, in the sense of increasing the chances that ability - in the sense of shifting units if not in the sense of having high cultural value - will thrive.
However, I'm not sure that this is an unmixed blessing.

Comments

[Workshy Fop]

All the same, in the entertainment industry, where big companies have huge amounts of finance to chuck at bands, it generally won't lead to improved quality. They'll just sign loads of bands and hope that something hits, rather than nurturing a particularly talented artist, and helping them to develop a career.

It also tends to suffocate independent labels, who can't compete. Like Chelsea taking all the best 15 year old players from round the country and sticking them in the reserves for years, rather than them getting chance to learn their trade properly, like Keegan or Steve Bould or someone.

Maybe the first time those two have been compared, actually.

[James]

Isn't this a little bit what the internet is able to provide particularly in the music sector. Talented (and not so talented) artists can be put in front of many ears at very little cost to the artist themselves.

Such famous successes include Arctic Monkeys, Lily Allen and Sandi Thom. Oh hang on...

[Bruce]

What the Spice Girls show is that talent is an over-rated commodity.

Though the Spice Girls' success was unpredicable, the likelihood that a group of dubious talents should be successful in the mid to late 1990s was farily high.

Though it's not entirely a zero sum game, how many successful bands, books or businesses can there be at any one time? Most industries can only support a certain number of suppliers. "How many great-selling books, popular bands or successful companies have we not had because they've been turned down?" you ask. Lots of bands, books and business have the potential to succeed but by-and-large only a few will actually do so whether the selection process is an A&R man, a financier or the cut and thrust of a liberalised market. However they get there, good luck and fortunate timing will play at least as large a part as talent in becoming successful. In business - and especially the music business - talent is usually not the most important factor.

[Sunny]

Was this blog post simply an excuse to put the picture of the Spice girl you fancy most Chris? I think so! heh.

[Dipper]

Bruvce is right.

Art is a mirror. We look at art and hope to see our dreams and aspirations reflected back to us.

listen to Paul Potts on You Tube singing Nessun Dorma. Then listen to Pavarotti singing the same. Pavarotti is clearly technically better, but for most of us Paul Potts is the man we see when we look in the mirror, and that's why we respond much more to the Paul Potts's of the world than to the Pavarotti's.

[Workshy Fop]

James, is it worth pointing out that Sndi Thom's dubious success can be put down to a promotion company spending tens of thousands on her, whilst presenting her as some sort of bedroom entrepreneur, and lily allen's success is entirely the product of media nepotism?