Rethinking Social and Economic Class
I have stumbled across a few books and websites that are pointing to a new understanding of social and economic class. Its a refreshing and what I believe, accurate, understanding of social change in modern nations.
In contrast to the Leftist/Communist understanding of Class Conflict, the Creative Class is a term given to what is considered to be an expanding and powerful socioeconomic class which cuts across nations. Its a concept that is heavily promoted by Richard Florida with books and websites.
While his use of ‘class’ is problematic for me, because class implies group-consciousness, I do think that he is identifying a clear socioeconomic transformation of our societies. Whether this leads to a creative class consciousness or not, there is no doubt that we are seeing a large amount of wealth generation coming from intellectual property, new business models, and the arts. Here are some interesting links about the rise of a new creative/entertainment class.
Check them out:
Time Magazine’s article on America’s New Class System
New Stateman’s article on Replacing One Social Class System with Another
Popularity: 100% [?]
