Cultural entrepreneurship
Joel Mokyr, economic historian and 2025 Nobel Prize Laureate, has coined the concept of cultural entrepreneurship (Mokyr, 2016). His main point is that the Industrial Revolution with its sustained economic growth should be understood on ideational rather than on material grounds. The philosophy of Enlightenment brought about a new set of ideas, values and intellectual practices favoring critical thinking, empirical evidence and individual autonomy. Thus, innovation is not just economically or technologically driven. It is also culturally motivated. Cultural entrepreneurs put new knowledge to use and are thereby the mediating force between intellectual endeavor, technological innovation and societal change.
One of the most powerful tools used by cultural entrepreneurship are narratives. They help legitimize new ideas, challenge entrenched norms, and sketch persuasive new vistas thereby creating support for innovation and social change. Mokyr’s research deals with the origins of modern societies, which were based on the growth-paradigm. How can this concept be made relevant in an era where limitless expansion and endless extraction of resources have become problematic? Let’s look at garments.
The clothing problem
Modern textile production is infamous for its labor exploitation and its depletion of natural resources. Moreover, it is one of the world’s most polluting and wasteful industries. Synthetic garments release non-degradable plastic fibers during washing and are therefore responsible for 35% of microplastics in the world’s oceans. According to an ETC CE report “the textile industry generates more greenhouse gases per unit of material than almost any other industry” (Günther et al., 2022: 19). It takes 2.700 liters of water to produce 1 t-shirt, which is equivalent to 2½ years of water consumption for an average European citizen.
To put this in perspective, in 2009 the average Swedish citizen bought 9 t-shirts annually (Gwozdz et al., 2017). The average British citizen owns 100 pieces of garment, and each of these pieces is used 7 times on average before being disposed of (Trentmann, 2016). 25% of all clothing that shoppers buy is never used (ibid.). It is not unthinkable that smarter technology one day might reduce the negative footprint that the production, consumption and destruction of textiles leave on the planet. But does this eliminate the root cause of overproduction and underuse?
It is not difficult to single out a villain. Fast and ultra-fast fashion companies like H&M and Zara or Temu and Shein produce staggering amounts of cheap, trendy clothing with rapid turnover (and just as hasty wear out). But are such enterprises really to blame for efficiently meeting consumer demands? From the perspective of cultural entrepreneurship, the root of the problem is with these consumer demands and above all, with the ideas underpinning them. The fashion industry would not exist in its current form without a shared consumer imagination based on “fables of abundance” (Lears, 1995) and the appeal of “the new” as a token of social distinction and desirability (Simmel, 1957). This social imagination has been elaborated since the beginning of the 19th century and serves as a moral foundation guiding consumers in how to find meaning and pleasure in dreaming of, acquiring, and showing off garments.
Alternative stories
This consumerist imagination is so attractive that adverse “fables of paucity” or a morality of restraint and renunciation are unlikely to succeed. Instead, cultural entrepreneurs must devise and disseminate new, more sustainable narratives based on pleasure and care. They must promote “alternative hedonism” (Soper, 2023).
We will briefly point out two of the building blocks for such alternative narratives. First, cultural entrepreneurs must critically probe the semantics of “the new”. “The new” is considered “good” foremost by being not old. It is therefore inherently interesting and exciting. The tragedy of “the new”, though, is that it is also “not-yet-old”. It is destined to become old, outdated and obsolete. Fast fashion is precisely the frenzied practice of turning “the yesterday-new” into the “already-old”. Hence, alternative narratives could move beyond the dichotomy of old versus new by promoting “the classical”. Other key concepts of the idea of fashion – e.g., the young and the cheap – should be examined by similar semantic operations.
Next, a core contradiction in the concept of fashion should be addressed: namely the cultivation of “styles”. In the language of fashion, “styles” are mass-appeals to consumers urging them to express their individuality and originality by dressing up according to standardized and thus impersonal proposals originating from designers, trendsetters, and influencers. A “style” has become something to be bought and soon after discarded, not something to be cultivated through own practice. Cultural entrepreneurs should hence promote the pleasures of developing a “personal style” because this implies caring for the objects that make up this style and caring for the resources that went into crafting these objects. In this way, caring might become part of pleasurable practices.
Conclusion
In fashion, cultural entrepreneurship should promote sustainable practices by offering alternative stories of pleasurable consumption. The economic, social, ethical, psychological and political consequences of these practices must be mapped out to win the hearts and minds of citizens. Generally speaking, this is the business of the Social Sciences, the Arts and the Humanities, with narratology and symbolism as core competences of the Humanities. In a challenged world, the Social Sciences, the Arts and the Humanitie should therefore have their rightful place at the table when innovation and societal transformation are being discussed. A human-centric approach is essential for the popular support of necessary transitions.
The purpose of the Human Values and Grand Challenges Conference is to bring forward such human-centric recommendations for the design of the new Horizon Europe and other EU programs.
References
Günther, J. et al. (2022). Circular Economy and Biodiversity. European Topic Centre on Circular economy and resource use. https://www.ecologic.eu/sites/default/files/publication/2023/34009-ETC-report-CE-biodiversity.pdf
Gwozdz, W., Steensen Nielsen, K., & Müller, T. (2017). An environmental perspective on clothing consumption: Consumer segments and their behavioral patterns. Sustainability, 9(5), 762-789.
Lears, T. J. Jackson (1994). Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America. Basic Books.
Mokyr, J. (2016). A Culture of Growth: The Origins of the Modern Economy. Princeton University Press.
Simmel, G. (1957). Fashion. American journal of sociology, 62(6), 541-558.
Soper, K. (2023). Post-Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism. Verso Books.
Trentmann, F. (2016). The Empire of Things: How we became a world of consumers. Penguin.
About the authors
Rasmus Antoft is Dean of the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities, Aalborg University.
Henrik Halkier is professor of Tourism and Regional Development at Aalborg University. He is a former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities.
Christian Jantzen is professor in Communication and Cultural Analysis at Aalborg University. He is a former Head of the Department Communication & Psychology.