Abundance and the UK Cultural Sector: Rethinking the Future of Arts and Culture
Apparently Abundance: How We Build a Better Future by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson is all the rage in Whitehall right now so I thought I’d better see what all the fuss is about.
Today it can feel like the defining feature of politics and society is scarcity. Abundance offers a compelling, optimistic counter-narrative. Even though the book and its ideas are very firmly rooted in US economics and policy, its core ideas resonate in the UK too. So much so that it got me wondering what if we apply these ideas to the UK’s cultural sector? How might ideas about social and economic abundance reshape our thinking about the arts?
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson imagine a 2050 where clean energy is abundant, resources are plentiful and "AI, labour rights and economic reforms have reduced poverty and shortened the work week." The significance of abundant green sources of electricity (like nuclear, wind and solar) to their philosophy cannot be overstated. Central to their thinking is the idea that “scarcity is a choice” so in their imagined future they imagine law-makers have chosen otherwise. It’s a refreshing perspective in an era often defined by a "politics of scarcity," where we seem to have "lost the faith in our future that once powered our optimism." New technologies, they argue, create new possibilities, so we must invent our way to a better future.
Abundance suggests that many of the constraints to societal progress that we experience in the current political climate are, in fact, self-imposed. Different decisions aiming towards abundance could accelerate greener technologies, better healthcare and more housing, for example. Therefore it’s up to politicians to create systems which enable, rather than restrict, progress.
Most people working in the cultural sector would say that the arts and creative industries could have a profound role in helping people to imagine this future of economic and societal abundance, to articulate its possibilities and to avoid the mistakes of the past. Arts and culture is often about narrative and storytelling so it’s worth considering what narratives are we currently telling about society and the future? Are they narratives of scarcity or narratives of abundance?
The Paradox of Urban Cultural Hubs and Accessibility
A central theme of Abundance is the role of cities, something, after working in a city museum for over a decade, is close to my heart. We often hear about the decline of cities. Many people wondered whether Covid and the concurrent rise of remote working enabled through technology would lead to an exodus of skilled workers from built-up urban environments. This doesn’t seem to have come to be and cities remain "engines of creativity because we create in community." They are hubs of innovation, opportunity and wealth creation. The book posits that proximity fosters innovation, and therefore, cities thrive. Yet, it highlights a severe affordability crisis in US cities, driving people away from job centers and leading to significant social challenges like homelessness. This is true of many cities in the UK and other developed economies alike.
This raises a critical question for the UK arts landscape: if sky-high costs of living mean artists, cultural workers and audiences cannot afford to live in cities, then what does this mean for arts and culture organisations that are concentrated in UK cities like London, Edinburgh or Manchester? Are we inadvertently creating visitor attractions primarily serving tourists and a wealthy elite, with transport costs, lack of affordable housing and general cost-of-living pressures acting as significant barriers for local audiences and emerging artists.
Process vs. Progress: Reforming Cultural Governance and Funding
The authors are critical of a "process-obsessed rather than outcome-orientated" approach to governance. Anybody working in the subsidised arts sector in the UK will find this painfully familiar.
Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson argue that "laws ensuring the government considers the consequences of its actions have made it too difficult for governments to act consequently." While this point is specifically directed towards local and national governments, it feels equally applicable to the government agencies and arms length bodies who administer funding as well as arguably, other funders seeking to act responsibly. The debate continues about the burdens of audit and reporting requirements for public funding. Reporting is often perceived as disproportionate to the scale of grants or the capacity of smaller organisations.
It’s interesting that major funders, including Arts Council England (ACE), the National Lottery Heritage Fund (NLHF) and even local authorities, are currently reviewing monitoring requirements for organisations and initiatives that they fund. Could a reduction in bureaucratic oversight, without compromising accountability, free up valuable resources and time for artistic creation and audience engagement?
The book’s concept of "everything bagel liberalism" certainly gave me pause for thought. This is the idea that too many well-meaning goals, like environmental and societal impact goals are added to every project, making it hard to achieve anything at all. This brought to mind Arts Council England’s investment principles of Ambition & Quality, Dynamism, Environmental Responsibility and Inclusivity & Relevance that are funding requirements above and beyond simply delivering the funded project. Abundance might inspire us to question whether the investment principles inadvertently risk a loss of focus?
While the notion of stripping away some process might seem appealingly simple, in reality, this requires deep expertise to ensure sound decision-making in the absence of extensive checks and balances, alongside robust mechanisms to minimise corruption and other risks in cultural funding. The challenge lies in finding a balance: how can we maintain robust accountability frameworks while fostering agility, dynamism, and a clear focus on core artistic and cultural outcomes? Can we empower public servants within cultural bodies to exercise more discretion, trusting their expertise to deliver results rather than merely ensuring compliance?
Fostering Innovation and Risk in UK Arts Funding
Abundance champions invention and risk-taking. It critiques scientific funding models that prioritise "grantsmanship" over actual research, leading to "more paperwork, less research" and a "bias against novelty, risk and edgy thinking." The authors argue that this risk aversion stifles true innovation. Can we apply the same criticism of grantsmanship equally to major UK cultural funders too? Does the current grant funding process inadvertently encourage a safety-first approach, where organisations propose projects that are familiar, proven and likely to secure funding, rather than truly experimental or groundbreaking work? Does the emphasis on demonstrable outcomes and measurable impact, while important for accountability, inadvertently create a system that actively disincentivises genuine artistic risk?
The book points to models like DARPA, a US government agency in which programme managers are empowered to take risks. DARPA’s successes have led to significant breakthroughs like the internet and GPS.
There’s an obvious question of how can arts and culture funders learn from the DARPA example? Are there existing mechanisms, or new ones we could explore, that allow for "high risk, high reward" cultural funding?
Perhaps experimenting with pilots into what happens when the funding process is significantly reduced, or a select group of grantees who do not have to complete annual progress reports, could yield valuable insights for arts innovation. Could this foster a culture where failure is seen not as a setback, but as a necessary step in the iterative process of artistic and organisational development?
From Invention to Implementation: The Role of the State in Culture
Finally, the book stresses that progress is more about implementation than invention. "Innovation can make impossible problems possible to solve and policy can make technologies possible to create," but political movements often miss this crucial link. The state, it argues, "should do things that no one else is doing. " This principle naturally brought to mind the BBC and state-subsidised theatres in the UK, where public funding enables cultural output that might not be commercially viable.
While the book discusses "pull funding" (paying for success rather than effort), it’s hard to see exactly how this model could be directly applied for arts and culture in the same way, given the unique, often subjective and long-term nature of cultural output.
However, the core lesson about enabling rather than commanding the private sector holds immense relevance for cultural strategy. How can government and arm's length bodies best facilitate the conditions for cultural production and dissemination, removing bottlenecks and overcoming obstacles, rather than imposing overly prescriptive demands?
This might involve strategic subsidies, infrastructure investment or policy frameworks that encourage collaboration and experimentation. Abundance reminds us that "the nation that can invent and build will be the next superpower." For the UK, if cultural and creative industries are indeed important to our economy and national identity, how can the government optimise investment and policies to ensure we are managing and scaling arts and culture for artistic and public benefit?
Charting a Course Towards Cultural Abundance
The conclusion of Abundance presents a choice between scarcity and abundance, arguing that new political orders need a narrative about how the future will be better. How could arts and culture help create a politics and society of abundance in the UK? This isn't about pursuing growth for its own sake, but rather being open to removing constraints when it is the right thing to do to achieve the desired outcomes.
Looking at arts and culture through the lens of Abundance, might make us challenge the default assumption of limited resources and explore how we might unlock greater creative capacity, wider participation and more impactful cultural experiences. The book features some us with powerful questions for politicians to consider. Here they are reframed for arts and culture in the UK:
What is scarce in our cultural landscape that should be abundant?
What is difficult to build in the arts that should be easy?
What inventions do we need in culture that we do not yet have?
To pursue abundance in the arts is to pursue institutional renewal, to be honest about where our systems are not functioning optimally, and to actively work to make them better. This calls for bold leadership, a willingness to challenge established norms and a collective commitment to reimagine the future of arts and culture in the UK transforming scarcity into a springboard for expansive possibility.
