Yet creativity remained largely associated with the work of artists and authors, as the European “high arts” gained their creative esteem largely by contrasting themselves with more pedestrian forms of culture. Whether working in factories, on plantations or in various administrative positions, the vast majority of humanity who were enrolled in European-led capitalism were systematically denied any real opportunity for creative expression, and what little was afforded them was belittled and mocked by elites as uncreative: peasant dances, indigenous musics and workers’ popular culture were all seen as hopelessly derivative (see Haiven 2014, 190–216).

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 437