The Common and its potential creativity: Post-crisis perspectives

The capitalist modes of production and accumulation require and make possible the expansion of the common. The dependency of capitalism on the common opens up possibilities of different paths seen from post-crisis perspectives: the potential of the common can be monopolized by the interest of capital in exploiting it but it can also contribute to shaping other scenarios. In the first case, creative capitalism moves towards a mode of production based on clustering, mostly in the cities, to produce untraded externalities or interdependencies. In the second case, the interconnected and potential creativity of the common allows for the production of other forms of life. This article explores an alternative model of creative capitalism, whereby the common is expropriated through its marketization and individualization. This model is based on three pillars: the city as the place of creation of new social bonds, the production of general intellect and the transformation of public spaces; the precarious multitude as a new class composition opposed to the entrepreneurial conception of creative class; and the cultural commons as an exit strategy from the dichotomy between private and public leading to the collective production of culture and the confluence of knowledge. All in all, the affirmation of the common, as a project opposed to its exploitation, is able to produce different forms of social relations and collaborations, which challenge the imposition of creative capitalism as a dominant model for the post-crisis scenario.