Against Creativity
Authors: Oli Mould Tags: neoliberalism, technology, urbanism, social justice, capitalism Publication Year: 2018
Overview
In this book, I take a stand against ‘creativity’ as it is commonly understood today. The word has been captured. What was once a powerful force for change has been hollowed out and repurposed as the engine of twenty-first-century capitalism. Under the banner of neoliberalism, we are all now commanded to be creative: the flexible gig-worker, the innovative teacher, the entrepreneurial public servant, the disruptive tech founder. This version of creativity is not about creating new worlds; it’s about finding more efficient ways to produce the same world, one that serves the interests of capital. It champions the individual over the collective, competition over collaboration, and profit over people. My work is a direct challenge to this dogma. I trace how this co-opted creativity infects every aspect of our lives—our work, our identities, our politics, our technology, and our cities. I expose it as a force that fuels [[precariousness]], deepens inequality, marginalizes difference, and papers over social injustice with the glossy veneer of innovation. This book is for anyone who feels uneasy about the relentless pressure to perform, innovate, and self-brand. It is for the artist, the tech worker, the urbanist, and the activist who suspects that the ‘creative economy’ is a trap. But this is not simply a critique. My ultimate aim is to reclaim creativity. I argue for a radical, collective, and political creativity that exists in the margins, one that resists appropriation. This is a creativity that destabilizes, that builds solidarity, and that dares to imagine and build impossible, more just futures.
Book Distillation
0. Introduction: What Is Creativity?
Creativity is not merely an ‘ability’ but a fundamental ‘power’ to create something from nothing. Historically, this power has shifted from the divine to collective human endeavor, then to the romanticized individual ‘genius’. In our contemporary era, turbocharged by neoliberalism, creativity has been redefined and institutionalized as a key economic value. It is no longer a force for genuine change but a tool for capitalist growth, one that co-opts and neutralizes any authentic opposition by absorbing it into the market.
Key Quote/Concept:
[[Capitalism’s Creativity]]: This is the concept that capitalism’s creative power does not truly create new things but appropriates existing ones. It targets dissenting, counter-cultural movements and ideas, offers them stability and financial reward, and in doing so, commercializes them and strips them of their power to destabilize the status quo.
1. Work: Relentless Creativity
The modern ideology of work, heavily influenced by Richard Florida’s ‘creative class’ thesis, demands that all labor be ‘creatified’. This mandate extends beyond artists and designers to nurses, builders, and baristas. This results in the individualization of labor, rewarding personal endeavor over collective good, and the erosion of work-life boundaries, leading to widespread [[precariousness]]. This antisocial creativity is also used to dismantle and privatize public services like the NHS, replacing an ethos of communal care with the logic of market efficiency.
Key Quote/Concept:
[[Communal Labour]]: In contrast to individualized creative work, communal labour (as seen in public healthcare) produces value that is inherently social and not dependent on market exchange. True creative work fosters such communal models, like worker co-operatives and self-managed collectives, which resist capitalist exploitation.
2. People: Marginal Creativity
The figure of the ‘creative’ person in the capitalist narrative is overwhelmingly white, male, middle-class, and able-bodied. This narrow ideal marginalizes all other identities and exploits their innovations. Genuinely radical creativity, however, emerges from these margins. People with different abilities, or ‘diffabled’ people, experience the world in ways that are incomprehensible to the normalized capitalist subject, offering perspectives that can destabilize dominant structures and forge truly new ways of being.
Key Quote/Concept:
[[Diffability]]: This term reframes ‘disability’ not as a lack but as a ‘difference’. Conditions like deafness, synaesthesia, or Tourette’s syndrome are not deficiencies to be ‘cured’ but alternative sensorial and neurological capacities. These differences are a source of radical creativity that challenges the normalized ‘perfect body’ required for efficient capitalist production.
3. Politics: Austere Creativity
Politics has become a spectacle that mimics the format of reality TV, where performance and celebrity persona have replaced substantive debate. This hyper-mediated political drama obscures the violent reality of policies like [[austerity]]. Austerity itself is presented as a ‘creative’ necessity, forcing public institutions and citizens to ‘do more with less’. This is an ideological project that uses the language of creativity to justify the privatization of public goods, the intensification of inequality, and the crushing of dissent.
Key Quote/Concept:
[[Apolitical Creativity]]: The dominant narrative of creativity, particularly as articulated by figures like Richard Florida, insists that it is an apolitical force for universal economic progress. This is a fallacy. Creativity is always political; the choice is whether it serves to reproduce the injustices of capitalism or to build radical, more equitable alternatives through solidarity and direct action.
4. Technology: Algorithmic Creativity
The tech industry’s ethos of decentralized autonomy and relentless disruption is the purest expression of neoliberal ideology. This has given rise to [[algorithmic creativity]], where machine learning systems curate our reality, from news feeds to romantic partners. These technologies are not neutral; they are designed to atomize social life, create profitable filter bubbles, and reinforce systemic biases. The so-called ‘sharing economy’ exemplifies this, transforming acts of communal sharing into precarious, monetized transactions.
Key Quote/Concept:
[[Algocracy]]: A form of governance where opaque algorithms increasingly make decisions for us, shaping our behavior for commercial and political ends. This system, which operates under a guise of computational objectivity, absorbs and amplifies human biases, erodes collective sociality, and demands an agonistic, human-centered resistance.
5. The City: Concrete Creativity
The ‘creative city’ is the dominant script for urban development, a formulaic strategy for driving gentrification. By deploying flagship cultural projects, ‘placemaking’ initiatives, and co-opting ‘edgy’ aesthetics like street art, cities are rebranded to attract an affluent, mobile creative class. This process inevitably leads to the displacement of long-standing, often marginalized, communities. Art and culture are instrumentalized as tools to make this displacement more palatable and profitable.
Key Quote/Concept:
[[Artwashing]]: The use of art and cultural projects by developers and city authorities to conceal or legitimize the negative consequences of gentrification. By partnering with artists, often precariously employed themselves, developers create a veneer of cultural vibrancy and community engagement that masks the reality of social cleansing and real estate speculation.
6. Conclusion: Impossible Creativity
Capitalism’s greatest trick is convincing us that its version of creativity is the only one possible, foreclosing our ability to imagine alternatives. To be truly creative is to resist this foreclosure and practice believing in the impossible. A radical, revolutionary creativity is already being built in the cracks of the system: in worker co-operatives, in the experiences of diffabled people, in new forms of political action, in democratized technology, and in resistant cities. This is the creativity we must fight for.
Key Quote/Concept:
[[Impossible Creativity]]: The central thesis that true creativity is the power to envision and realize worlds that capitalism deems impossible. It is not about individual genius or market innovation, but about a collective, political, and destabilizing practice of building more just and equitable social formations against the logic of the status quo.
Generated using Google GenAI
Essential Questions
1. How has neoliberal capitalism co-opted and redefined ‘creativity’?
In my work, I argue that ‘creativity’ has been captured. Historically, it was a ‘power’ to create something from nothing, shifting from the divine to the collective, and then to the romanticized individual genius. However, under contemporary neoliberalism, it has been hollowed out and repurposed. It is no longer a force for genuine change but a tool for capitalist growth. We are all commanded to be creative, but this creativity is about finding more efficient ways to reproduce the status quo, not to imagine new worlds. This is what I call [[Capitalism’s Creativity]]: a predatory force that doesn’t truly create but appropriates. It targets dissenting, counter-cultural movements, offers them financial reward, and in doing so, commercializes and neutralizes their power to destabilize. This redefinition turns a fundamental human power into an individualized economic trait, demanding we all become entrepreneurs of the self, constantly optimizing our lives for the market. It’s a creativity that serves profit over people, competition over collaboration, and the individual over the collective.
2. What are the social consequences of this dominant form of creativity in our work, technology, and cities?
The consequences are pervasive and damaging. In the realm of work, the ideology of the ‘creative class’ has been used to justify the erosion of stable employment, fueling widespread [[precariousness]]. The demand to be creative blurs the lines between work and life, individualizes labor, and is used as a pretext to dismantle collective social goods like public healthcare. In technology, this ethos finds its purest expression in [[algorithmic creativity]]. Systems are designed not for social good, but to atomize our lives into profitable filter bubbles, reinforce systemic biases, and govern us through an opaque [[algocracy]]. The so-called ‘sharing economy’ is a prime example, turning communal acts into monetized, precarious transactions. In our cities, the ‘creative city’ script is a blueprint for gentrification. Culture becomes a tool for real estate speculation, and practices like [[artwashing]] use a veneer of artistic vibrancy to displace long-standing, often marginalized, communities. In every sphere, this co-opted creativity deepens inequality and forecloses possibilities for collective life.
3. What is the alternative, ‘impossible creativity’ that the book champions, and where can it be found?
The alternative I champion is what I call [[Impossible Creativity]]. This is the central argument of my book: that true creativity is the power to envision and realize worlds that capitalism deems impossible. It is not about individual genius or market innovation, but about a collective, political, and destabilizing practice. It is a creativity that resists appropriation. We can already see this force at work in the margins and cracks of the dominant system. It exists in worker co-operatives that practice [[communal labour]] and self-management, rejecting the exploitative logic of the market. It is found in the unique perspectives of [[diffabled]] people, whose different ways of experiencing the world can destabilize normalized capitalist structures. It is present in new forms of political solidarity, like the urban solidarity spaces in Athens, and in artistic and activist movements that directly confront the injustices of austerity and gentrification. This is the creativity we must fight for—one that builds solidarity and dares to build more just futures.
Key Takeaways
1. The Ideology of ‘Creative Work’ Is a Neoliberal Tool That Breeds Precariousness
My book argues that the relentless mandate for all labor to be ‘creatified’—from designers to nurses to baristas—is not an empowering call for innovation, but a mechanism for capitalist control. This rhetoric, popularized by figures like Richard Florida, is used to justify dismantling stable, secure employment in favor of ‘flexible’, ‘agile’, and individualized work structures. This results in the erosion of work-life boundaries, the offloading of risk onto the individual worker, and the rise of widespread [[precariousness]]. The ‘creative’ worker is expected to be constantly ‘on’, performing their entrepreneurial self, which ultimately serves to increase profit margins at the expense of worker well-being and collective bargaining power. It is, at its core, an antisocial form of creativity that attacks collectivized models of labor.
Practical Application: An AI product engineer designing tools for the future of work (e.g., project management software, gig economy platforms) should critically question if their product’s features reinforce this precarity. Instead of solely optimizing for ‘efficiency’ or ‘flexibility’, they could build in features that promote worker power, such as tools for transparent pay calculation, mechanisms for collective feedback to management, or integrations that support portable benefits, thereby using technology to counter rather than accelerate the trend of [[precariousness]].
2. Algorithmic Creativity Is Not Neutral; It Reinforces Systemic Biases and Atomizes Social Life
I expose how the tech industry’s ethos of disruption is the purest expression of neoliberal ideology. This has given rise to [[algorithmic creativity]], where machine learning systems curate our reality. These technologies are not objective. They are designed to create profitable filter bubbles, atomize social connection into monetized interactions, and absorb and amplify the biases present in their training data. This leads to an [[algocracy]], a form of governance where opaque algorithms make decisions that reinforce systemic racism, sexism, and inequality under a guise of computational neutrality. The ‘sharing economy’ is a key example, transforming communal acts into precarious transactions that benefit the platform owners, not the community.
Practical Application: An AI product engineer must treat [[AI safety]] and ethics as a core part of the product development lifecycle, not an afterthought. This means proactively auditing datasets for bias, implementing fairness-aware ML techniques, and designing systems with transparency and human oversight. For example, when building a recommendation engine, they should consider how to intentionally introduce diverse or opposing viewpoints to counter the formation of echo chambers, thereby designing for agonistic, democratic engagement rather than frictionless consumption.
3. Radical, Destabilizing Creativity Emerges from Marginalized Perspectives
Capitalism promotes a narrow, exclusionary ideal of the ‘creative’ person: typically white, male, middle-class, and able-bodied. My work argues that this marginalizes other identities while often exploiting their innovations. I contend that genuinely radical creativity emerges from these very margins. For instance, by reframing ‘disability’ as [[diffability]], we see not a lack, but a different way of experiencing the world. The perspectives of people with different sensorial and neurological capacities can destabilize the dominant structures that rely on a normalized ‘perfect body’ for efficient production. This is where truly new ways of being are forged, offering alternatives to the homogenous world reproduced by capitalist creativity.
Practical Application: When conducting user research for a new AI product, an engineer should reject the idea of a ‘typical’ user and instead practice inclusive design by actively co-creating with marginalized communities. For example, instead of just adding accessibility features to a product designed for the ‘norm’, they could partner with blind or deaf communities from the outset to build a product whose core functionality is shaped by a non-visual or non-auditory experience of the world, potentially leading to a breakthrough innovation that benefits everyone.
Suggested Deep Dive
Chapter: Chapter 4: Technology: Algorithmic Creativity
Reason: For an AI product engineer, this chapter is the most direct and critical engagement with your field. It deconstructs the Silicon Valley ethos of ‘disruption’ as a neoliberal force and provides a crucial framework for understanding how [[algorithmic creativity]], machine learning, and the ‘sharing economy’ are not neutral tools but are deeply implicated in the social and political project of capitalism. It will challenge you to think beyond technical implementation and consider the ethical implications of building systems that curate reality, atomize social life, and potentially amplify injustice.
Key Vignette
The Homeless Singer of Broadway
In the introduction, I recount an encounter with a homeless man in New York City. Instead of simply begging, he broke into an exquisite song about his plight, a creative and talented performance to earn money for a Broadway course. My initial elation at this display of ‘creativity’ quickly soured into a realization: this was not creativity, but survival. He was forced to monetize his talent, to perform within a rags-to-riches narrative, simply to scrape by in a system that had made him homeless in the first place. This vignette encapsulates my central argument: capitalism forces us to be ‘creative’ in ways that merely reproduce the status quo, rather than challenging the injustices that define it.
Memorable Quotes
Hence, capitalism’s ‘creative’ power does not create, it appropriates.
— Page 16, Introduction: What Is Creativity?
This ‘overall schema’ is capitalism’s narrative of creativity, and its raw materials can be found anywhere in daily life. You have as much chance of coming up with a new idea while you’re praying, playing with your child or dreaming as you do while you’re ‘at work’.
— Page 26, Chapter 1: Work: Relentless Creativity
So when the human body breaks down, when its daily functions are not aligned with the ‘perfect’ vision of corporeality (that is, white, male, adult, middle-class and fully abled) it is marginalized, oppressed and/or co-opted.
— Page 47, Chapter 2: People: Marginal Creativity
The manipulation of our political, economic, consumptive, ethical and moral behaviour for capital gain is a form of ‘algocracy’, a governance structure that is based on these machine learning algorithms, and crucially, these are used to replace human-based decision-making.
— Page 90, Chapter 4: Technology: Algorithmic Creativity
Don’t believe this lie. Believe that creativity is about searching for, giving space to, and trying to realize the impossible. And that, Your Majesty, is the sixth.
— Page 136, Conclusion: Impossible Creativity
Comparative Analysis
My book stands as a direct polemical response to the body of work epitomized by Richard Florida’s ‘The Rise of the Creative Class’. Where Florida and his acolytes see creativity as an apolitical, universally positive force for urban regeneration and economic growth, I expose this as a neoliberal ideology that actively produces [[precariousness]], gentrification, and deep social inequality. My work argues that Florida’s ‘creative class’ is a vehicle for social cleansing, not progress. While a work like Shoshana Zuboff’s ‘The Age of Surveillance Capitalism’ provides a masterful diagnosis of the new economic logic of data extraction, my contribution is to situate this phenomenon within the longer history of capitalism’s ability to co-opt human potential. I argue that [[algorithmic creativity]] is simply the latest and most efficient form of this co-option. Unlike these other critiques, my book’s unique contribution is not just to diagnose the problem but to reclaim the term itself, championing a radical, collective, and political [[impossible creativity]] as a necessary and tangible form of resistance against the injustices of the contemporary world.
Reflection
In writing ‘Against Creativity’, my goal was to issue a polemical challenge to a concept that has become so hollowed out as to be meaningless, or worse, actively harmful. The book’s strength, I believe, lies in its ability to connect seemingly disparate phenomena—the gig economy, the design of our cities, the algorithms that curate our social feeds—under a single, coherent critique of neoliberal capitalism. It is a call to stop and ask, when we are told to be ‘creative’, what purpose that creativity is truly serving. A skeptical reader might argue that I paint ‘capitalism’ as a monolithic, all-seeing entity, perhaps understating the complex and often contradictory motivations of the individuals and institutions within it. They might also suggest that my championing of a resistant, marginal creativity risks romanticizing the immense difficulty and exhaustion of fighting against such a powerful system. This is a fair critique. My perspective is undeniably opinionated. However, the book’s ultimate significance is not in providing a dispassionate, objective account, but in sounding an alarm. It is an urgent plea to reclaim one of our most fundamental human powers from the logic of the market and to start practicing the belief in impossible, more just futures.
Flashcards
Card 1
Front: What is [[Capitalism’s Creativity]] as defined in ‘Against Creativity’?
Back: A power that does not genuinely create new things but appropriates and commercializes existing counter-cultural or dissenting ideas, stripping them of their destabilizing potential to serve capital growth.
Card 2
Front: What is [[Precariousness]] in the context of ‘creative work’?
Back: The condition of unstable, insecure, and flexible labor (e.g., gig work, zero-hour contracts) that is justified by the rhetoric of creativity, leading to the erosion of work-life boundaries and worker protections.
Card 3
Front: What is [[Diffability]]?
Back: A reframing of ‘disability’ not as a lack or deficiency, but as a ‘difference’ in sensorial or neurological capacity. These differences are a source of radical creativity that challenges the normalized ‘perfect body’ of capitalism.
Card 4
Front: What is [[Algocracy]]?
Back: A form of governance where opaque machine learning algorithms increasingly make decisions and shape human behavior for commercial or political ends, often amplifying human biases under a guise of computational objectivity.
Card 5
Front: What is [[Artwashing]]?
Back: The use of art and cultural projects by developers and city authorities to create a veneer of cultural vibrancy that masks or legitimizes the negative consequences of gentrification, such as displacement and social cleansing.
Card 6
Front: What is [[Impossible Creativity]]?
Back: The book’s central thesis: true creativity is a collective, political power to envision and build more just and equitable worlds that capitalism deems impossible, resisting the status quo rather than optimizing it.
Card 7
Front: What is [[Communal Labour]]?
Back: Work that produces value which is inherently social and not dependent on market exchange, such as in public healthcare or worker co-operatives. It stands in contrast to the individualized, profit-driven labor championed by neoliberal creativity.
Generated using Google GenAI