And re: creative people versus “creative class” – you guys make good points. My main concern is in co-opting the word “creative.” I want us to use it to describe true creativity – in the creative people sense. Having something called a “creative class” just strengthens the false notion that creativity is only accessible to a select few.

Did rock and roll change the world? or is art merely an expression of the undercurrents?

I think art gives form to what is already happening but has been given voice yet.

Very much agreed… I’m always interested in seeing how aspects of that creativity can assert themselves in our essentially corporate lifestyle. (That probably sounded more Marxist than I meant it to.)
One of the more interesting examples of what I would consider the “new creative class” is Jonathan Ive, one of the main aesthetic guys at Apple, and the father of the iPod design.
http://www.designmuseum.org/design/jonathan-ive
You could argue whether or not the iPod changed society, but it’s certainly an instance where creativity coexisting with commerce lead to a success where others failed.
I don’t think we’re in a world anymore where art, music or theater – in isolation – can change the world. (Gee, that’s not an inflammmatory statement, is it? :)
But combined with commerce, it’s power is magnified beyond what it can reach on its own.
Or; If I play a chord in the forest and no one hears it, what’s the impact?
(And yes, obviously it fills a valid and important space, but this is a thread about the economics of creativity. :)

There have always been creative people in every society, but there isn’t a creative class everywhere.

I think thats the difference. Its how the existence of a creative class changes society, not the existnece of creative people.

One of the big problems with anything along these lines is you’re taking shortcuts in order to measure something that’s tough to measure… or in this case, taking liberties with your assumptions and definitions that lead to flawed results. (Garbage in, Garbage out.)

I understand where the guy is coming from… from an economic perspective, “creativity” is an excellent luxury that indicates how well an economy is doing. I wrote an interesting (well, I thought) paper in an Economics of Developing Nations class focusing on the measure of creative jobs as a good indicator of an upward-bound economy. Put simply, if you’re society can support someone who is a full time poet or musician, you’ve acheived enough economic momentum to show you’re past subsistance living and probably doing ok.

But classifying jobs that are oriented primarily towards commerce, like accountants, lawyers, mathematicians and computer programmers, tells a different story. That may have more value analyzing the baseline economy of sub-Saharan Africa, but the US has reached a different standard for measurement. It’s like basing the consumer price index on a 15″ Black and White TV, and then talking about how cheap televisions are these days.

Anyway, go creative economics.