Creativity’s ability to elicit universal good feeling is relatively recent. In the Middle Ages, the term hardly existed in the English lexicon. Words stemming from its Latin root – creatus – typically were employed to refer to God the creator or to his “creations” (Williams 1985, 82–84). It was not until the “birth of the author” in the 18th century that the term was widely applied to a particular human quality or skill. As the bourgeoisie rose to prominence in Europe and demanded cultural artefacts through which they could reckon and display their “distinction” from the proto-proletariat, the work of art gained its stamp of authenticity and transcendental value from the figure of what would, in the 19th century, come to be known as the “creative genius,” the unique and refined imagination of the singular individual (Nelson 2010; Rose 1993; Woodmansee and Jaszi 1994). The mythological figure of the artist was held up as the mirror image of the economic entrepreneur: both individuals imposed their masculine will on the world and begat productive order out of meaningless or wasteful nature (see Wolff 1984).

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 436