Culture Crash

“The Creative Class”

The arts flourished in the middle years of the 20th century. The burgeoning middle class provided a huge audience, and most artists came from it. Culture relied on a secure infrastructure. Museums, universities, bookshops, record stores, and newspaper and magazine critics supported the growth of the arts. Cities were more affordable, so aspiring artists could congregate and collaborate in cultural centers like Boston or New York. This stimulated the growth of a large creative class, including musicians, poets, painters and dancers, supported by publicists, galleries, roadies, bookshop and record store clerks, disc jockeys, editors, and many others.

In the early 21st century, the middle class, worried about its own economic security, has little energy for jazz, dance or poetry. Internet retailers upended much of culture by taking over the business of selling books, music and movies. Superstars grow vastly richer, while the average artist finds it harder to scrape together a middle-class income. A thriving creative class with its array of diverse offerings improves a society, but its diversity evaporates when only the wealthy can afford to practice...