Capitalism, creativity and the crisis in the music industry

As online networks and file sharing alter the parameters of the music industry, the tension between commerce and capitalism finds a renewed emphasis. But who is losing out and what are the implications for artistic creativity?

This text was originally given as a talk at the Berlin Music Week Denkfabrik event in 2012.

But it appears HERE courtesy of open Democracy

Moving on from the Market Society: culture (and cultural studies) in a post-democratic age

The politics of the market has given us individual freedoms, but inhibited any potent form of collectivity. We cannot return to the regulated social life that enabled a ‘Fordist’ democracy to function. So what now? Neoliberals are terrified of the emerging potential for a dynamic pluralist and democratic society. In this lecture, for the biennial ‘Crossroads in Cultural Studies‘ conference, this potential and its history is explored, along with the possible contribution of cultural studies to such a development.

This was posted on openDemocracy after I gave the talk as a plenary lecture at the Crossroads in Cultural Studies 2012 conference in Paris.

Here is the article