On the Genesis of the Creative Class

Introduction

As we know, Karl Marx in the mid-19th century proposed an original perspective on the state and historical prospects of humanity's development, consisting of viewing social development through the prism of class struggle. Ontologically, class differentiation derives from the system of social division of labor and begins with the period of primitive community disintegration: "The division of society into classes [...] ruling and oppressed, was an inevitable consequence of the previous insufficient development of production"¹. Today we are witnessing a revolutionary, qualitative leap in the system of productive forces. There is also a transformation in the content of labor, accompanied by an increasing role of knowledge in performed work operations.

Alongside transformations in the quality of productive forces, changes in social structure are occurring. In the social dimension, various homogeneous groups are emerging and actively developing as an objective result of resolving social contradictions (for example, class-based ones). One such group is the creative class, whose main element is the creative worker.

Conceptual Definition of the Creative Class

In research practice, it is considered good form to begin the constructive part of a work with a scientific definition of each introduced concept. In the presented text, the "creative class" is understood as an objective social entity, distinguished on the basis of the content of labor.

Political economy has proven that social class derives from the system of social division of labor, which inevitably preserves the class division of society, manifesting as the foundation of social inequality. The concept of the creative class helps us understand the content of the process—its evolutionary dynamics as a specific social community (Figure 1).