Capitalism & creativity

It’s increasingly difficult to distinguish between serious journalism and the Daily Mash. So it is with this piece from the excellent Andrew Hill, who describes how:

executives and entrepreneurs are “microdosing” on illicit substances and submitting to transcranial magnetic stimulation — normally used to treat depression — in search of creative highs.

Such activities seem to me to completely mischaracterise the creative process, especially under capitalism.

For one thing, most new ideas are bad ones: the replication crisis in academia reminds us of this. Creativity doesn’t arise from a high or spark of genius, but from the dedication to keep going through the failures until you find the success. Thomas Edison, one of the most creative capitalists of all, said: “I have gotten a lot of results! I know several thousand things that won’t work.” That was why he claimed that “genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” In the same spirit James Buchanan used to advise graduate researchers: “keep the ass in the chair.”

In this context, it’s apt that Andrew should mention Richard Branson “’birthing’ Virgin Galactic in a Necker Island hot-tub under the stars.” The important fact about Virgin Galactic is that it has so far failed to achieve what the USSR managed in 1961: putting a man in space. Grunt work matters at least as much as “birthing.”

Secondly, creativity is not the road to riches. As William Nordhaus famously pointed out, innovation isn’t often very profitable. And where it is, it is thanks to intellectual property laws and to monopoly power rather than to innovation itself. As Warren Buffett said, profits require economic moats – barriers to entry. The digital age has much in common with the feudal age: in both, wealth comes from the power to exclude others. Where this power is lacking, even the greatest creative talents find life “monetarily impossible.”

Thirdly, the binding constraint upon creativity is not so much our minds as our institutions. One of these is the intellectual property system. Another is access to finance. Danny Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald have shown that it is this (pdf), rather than character traits, that makes an entrepreneur – thus vindicating Kalecki’s claim that “the most important prerequisite for becoming an entrepreneur is the ownership of capital.”

And of course yet other constraints come from managerialist capitalism. One of these is that, having learned that innovation doesn’t pay, firms have learned to do less of it. Another is that the pursuit of efficiency means people have less downtime to innovate. Yet another is that creativity comes from making connections but the silo mentality fostered by hierarchical management prevents these being made. Yet another is that some innovations such as new financial assets require that a collective action problem be overcome, which individual capitalists cannot do.

In my tiny trivial way, I exemplify these points. The best financial advice is well-established, and embellishments to it might well be worse than useless. And even if I were to have the most brilliant idea for a book, I’d not be able to find the time to write it or a publisher. So there’s not much point my being creative.

What’s true of me is even more true for most people. Andrew discusses “flow” – complete absorption in an activity. Most of us, though, find this outside work: in sport, music, gardening or crafts (I’m amazed how many of my friends here in Rutland have craft rooms). Perhaps the principal way in which capitalism fosters well-being is by permitting a shortening of the working week. As for how far such shortenings are due to geniuses having creative highs, I leave that verdict to Clay Davis.

Comments

[odeboyz]

"I'd not be able to find the time to write it (my most brilliant book) or find a publisher."

Did you forget your book' The End of Politics' which is sitting on my bookshelf?

[aragon]

Well you will read the FT :)

People engaging in enhancing their abilities with chemical's etc is nothing new nor relevant to creativity.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/07/style/microdosing-lsd-ayelet-waldman-michael-chabon-marriage.html?_r=1

"Since then, microdosing has been embraced by a subculture of boundary-pushing (and law-flouting) career-minded people as something of an illicit, chemical form of yoga — an alternative health regimen intended to bring mental balance, as well as enhance productivity."

Capitalism's problem is an excess of rent seeking. Not innovation.

Innovation is still happening...
MIT has an annual list of 10 breakthrough technologies, including Quantum Computers.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603495/10-breakthrough-technologies-2017-practical-quantum-computers/

"Eventually, expect 100,000-qubit systems, which will disrupt the materials, chemistry, and drug industries by making accurate molecular-scale models possible for the discovery of new materials and drugs. And a million-physical-qubit system, whose general computing applications are still difficult to even fathom? It’s conceivable, says Neven, "on the inside of 10 years.""

Innovation benefits mankind, and should be undertaken buy the state which has interests outside the monopoly control of markets.

[Henri Rouquier]

«Such activities seem to me to completely mischaracterise the creative process, especially under capitalism.»
And "capitalism" being a Marxist ideology, think of the creative process, "especially" under a constitutional democracy.

[Abdullah]

I've never written a good ad on any kind of drugs, smart or not, and nor has anyone I know. But I have had good insights through the process of obliquity although there's less time for it nowadays.

[Blissex]

Pretty nice arguments throughout, as "innovation" matters only when it is valuable, and what's valuable is indeed a matter of incremental change and experimentation.

The people who try to enhance themselves into higher performance are perhaps victims of the aynrandian propaganda of their own class that all wealth is created by superior heroes.
While the economic systems of countries like Korea or Germany or Singapore of Japan are based on training everybody to improve a bit.

BTW there is an interesting book making the argument that people have been self-medicating with alcohol, books, coffee for a long time, and that it may not be coincidental that widespread coffee use and industrial capitalism happened roughly at the same time.

Just found this amusing link on the same topic:
https://redflag.org.au/article/global-grind-capitalism-through-coffee

[Bonnemort]

I suppose Richard Branson's more well-known, but the most impressive example of birthing without doing is surely Theranos. Apparently a black polo-neck won't make you the new Steve Jobs.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/06/theranos-lab-closures-walgreens-centers-layoffs-elizabeth-holmes

[SJB]

Unions gave us a shorter work week. Capitalists only "permitted" it because of the activism of the CIO in the 1930's, along with FDR using that worry along with the threat of communism (with Russia being a viable example) to push them into allowing unions. After that, WWII, the post war boom and active enforcement of labor rights kept the unions strong, until starting in the 1970's, capitalists began to take power back using trade, weakening of labor and antitrust enforcement, and ever-increasing lobbying, among other tactics, to destroy unions and their influence. Now we in the US work harder than in any other industrialized country.

I'd say capitalists are pretty creative at taking advantage of the rest of society. Just like the powerful do in all hierarchical societies, with or without technology or capital.