I’ve just returned from an overseas trip, and once again I was reminded of how pervasive American entertainment media is around the world.
Wherever you go in the world, you find American television shows and movies on TV, American movies in the theaters, and American music on the radio. Looking beyond entertainment, you’ll see American-made software on their laptops and on the computers in the hotel business center.
And the medicines they’re taking are mostly made by American companies as well.
You don’t find American plumbing fixtures in the hotel bathroom, and you don’t see people wearing American-made clothes. They’re not driving American cars, and they’re not using American-made electrical appliances. But they’re consuming American creative goods almost to the exclusion of anything else. It’s striking, actually.
All of us—informed citizens as well as elected officials—need to be reminded that the creative economy is one of the U.S.’s most important economic resources, and the creative economy creates not just jobs but high-paying jobs. The creative economy is one of the few areas where the U.S. runs an enormous trade surplus with the rest of the world, and any thought of economic recovery and continued U.S. economic expansion must factor in continued U.S. global dominance in the creative economy.
That’s why many of the policy debates we’re having today are of concern not only to the creative economy, but to all U.S. citizens and especially to U.S. policymakers.
- For instance, will the cost containment and rationing measures implicit in proposed health care “reforms” mean lower profits and thus less money for R&D spending in the pharmaceutical industry? It certainly has everywhere else in the world, which is why European pharmaceutical companies largely migrated to the U.S. when European countries adopted universal government healthcare systems.
- Will “network neutrality regulations” make it even more difficult for content companies to work with Internet providers to try to curb rampant piracy of digital music, movies, TV shows and software?
- Will tax increases and new regulations on the financial industry make it harder to amass investment capital and thus harder for innovators to raise the capital necessary to create and innovate?
- Will U.S. trade and subsidy policies result in retaliation by other countries aimed specifically at the U.S. creative economy?
In the modern global economy, America’s competitive advantage is found in our ideas, our creativity, and our innovation. In light of this, a primary criteria for judging any new policy initiative should be its implications for creativity and innovation.
Today's TechByte was written by IPI President Tom Giovanetti.