
The creative class is a lie - jamesbritt
http://entertainment.salon.com/2011/10/01/creative_class_is_a_lie/singleton/
======
mapgrep
This essay sets up a straw man. The "creative class" was originally defined,
in the book "Rise of the Creative Class," as people working in industries
"from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end
manufacturing to the arts."[1] The essay focuses on the worst performing of
these industries to imply the whole "creative class" failed.

Here's the actual core argument: "For those who deal with ideas, culture and
creativity at street level — the working- or middle-classes within the
creative class — things are less cheery." By which he apparently means "book
editors, journalists, video store clerks, musicians, novelists without tenure"
-- but especially journalists, since that's what the author is.

But it's all an exercise in tautology. _Of course_ "the working class" of the
creative class is worse off. If they weren't, we wouldn't call them the
working class of the creative class.

Put another way: Professions are cyclic, and this guy is saying the creative
class is a fraud because some of its included professions are on the down
cycle. But that's what a cycle is - up and down.

In 2001, after the dot-com bust, there were articles about how no one was
majoring in computer science any more, and Bill Gates actually went around to
colleges encouraging people to do so. [2] Of course now programmers are very
much in demand again and well paid despite overall high unemployment.

Likewise, finance workers were far better off in 2007 than in 2001, and are
much better off today than they were in late 2008.

And, just to throw in a random creative class stat to show how unpredictable
things get, there is for some reason a run on stand up comedians right now!
[3]

So it's harder to be a journalist now than it was 10 years ago. So what? It
was harder in 1994 than it was in 2000.

And also: "Video store clerk?" Was that _ever_ a great job? I must have missed
the big video store clerk hiring bonanza. Ditto musicians and novelists.
Hemingway lived in France because, back then, it was actually really cheap.

If you're going to knock "Rise of the Creative Class" for anything, don't
knock it as a lie. It's not. Any time you take professions as disparate as
bond trading, lawyering, "high end" factory work and playing rock guitar and
bundle them together, you can prove whatever you want. No, the creative class
is crappy theory not because it's wrong but because it's so broad as to be
meaningless. This journalist feels betrayed because he read the original book
and thought it was about _him_. He conveniently skipped the bits about how it
was also about people on Wall Street and corporate law offices. Whoops.

[1]
[http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0205.florida....](http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0205.florida.html)

[2]
[http://www.pcworld.com/article/118029/two_words_from_bill_ga...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/118029/two_words_from_bill_gates_computer_science.html)
[http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-10-12-gates-
computer-...](http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2005-10-12-gates-computer-
science_x.htm)

[3] [http://splitsider.com/2011/10/due-west-a-roundtable-
discussi...](http://splitsider.com/2011/10/due-west-a-roundtable-discussion-
on-new-yorks-ongoing-comedy-exodus)

~~~
jamesbritt
There's a counterpoint at [http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-
economy/2011/10/cr...](http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-
economy/2011/10/creative-class-alive/252/)

