What is the creative economy - really?

This chapter challenges the view that we know what a creative economy is. Positioning its argument against the broad sweep of the philosophical discourse of modernity, attention is drawn to neoliberalism's fetishization of creativity, creatives, creative industries and the creative economy. Drawing on aesthetic critical realism, the chapter introduces an alternative 're-imagining' that counters the false belief that creativity is a thing that can be commodified. Instead of defining the creative economy in terms of the economic activity of the cultural and creative industries, it is argued that creative economies are, or should be, where we produce, use and manage the resources and infrastructures needed for enabling cultural capability - freedoms for people to experience, discover, connect with, give sharable form to, and participate in recognizing what they have reason to value. As such creative economies are both the means to, and in some respects, the ends of, recognizing what matters.