preview

The Rise of the Creative Class Essay

Best Essays

In the information economy, creative content is a nation’s most important natural resource. “The wealth creation in an economy of ideas is dependent on the capacity of a nation to continually create content or new forms of widely distributed expression, for which they will need to invest in creative human capital throughout the economy and not merely gadgets and hardware.” (Venturelli 14). We may assume then that in the 21st century, artists will finally be able to earn a living.

Industrial Age à Information Age

As in all philosophical shifts much of the 20th century was spent applying the ideas of the industrial age onto the increasingly visible information age. At the dawning of the 21st century we are still relying on the …show more content…

Successful societies will draw on as many citizens as possible to participate, demystifying the notion of artist as a creative genius who works independently in an art laboratory, and then gives his gift to the world. This will cause growing pains and ego-smashing at first, but once the creative class has digested this idea, they will begin to see themselves working in an interdependent environmental infosphere that has the same requirements as the natural environment of balance, diversity, and interaction. Of course every sector of society can contribute to the growth of the creative sector.

Some Important Terms: The Marketplace of Ideas v. The Mental Environment

In order to understand the Information Economy more clearly we need a new set of terms. Instead of referring to “The Marketplace of Ideas” with its foundation in Adam Smith’s economic philosophy we should instead be moving towards the concept of the “Mental Environment”. The former is a remnant of the industrial revolution, where streamlining and automation are benefits. Even more anachronistically, this model is based on laws of supply and demand which don’t appropriately describe the cultural industries.

Cultural products work differently than industrial products such as hammers. “Information products are not consumed one unit at a time. Rather, each product unit is designed to be

Get Access