Enabling as the anchor for regenerative cultural policy

Approaches known as wealth accounting share the assumption that our prosperity – and survival – depend on our ability to take a systemic approach to value creation across the interconnected dimensions collectively supporting social wellbeing. The key argument of this article is that the arts and culture, when considered in terms of wealth accounting, can improve the system in which they operate though enabling. Enabling means contributing to the production of goods and services in other domains and informing the dynamics of the system without being a directly measurable outcome. A different way to put this is that cultural assets, qua enabling, sustain and orient: they support production in other domains, and regulate relationships across the entire system. Moreover, the arts and culture are effective in enabling by pursuing goals inherent to culture, rather than intentionally seeking externally imposed impacts. Enabling should thus be the anchor for regenerative cultural policy.