The Mobile Creative credo: trust the
network, not the corporation or the state.
In America’s
Nine Classes: The New Class Hierarchy, I described a “wild
card” new class of workers that doesn’t fit the conventional
paradigms: Mobile Creatives. I
use the word mobile here
not to suggest mobility between physical places (though that is one
factor in this class’s flexibility) but mobility
between sectors, tools and ways of earning income.
The key characteristic of the Mobile
Creative class is that they live by this credo: trust the network,
not the corporation or the state. The essence of
neofeudalism is debt penury and wage-slave loyalty to the New
Nobility that owns the debt.
The essence of state-cartel capitalism (the
dominant form of capitalism) is the state dismantles all
social connections and wealth between the state and the atomized
individual recipient of state welfare so the individual
depends entirely on the state for his/her identity and essentials of
life.
Where once existed a complex ecosystem of
public life, social capital and networks of reciprocity and economic
meaning, now lies a wasteland, stripmined by the state to leave
nothing but the state and its ever-growing armies of dependents.
The global corporation profits from this
same wasteland: the ideal arrangement to maximize debt-based
consumption is an atomized individual who has no identity or
self-worth other than consumerist worship of brands and
corporate-supplied convenience, in other words, a permanent
adolescent driven by insecurity, fear and impulse-driven
consumption.
The Mobile Creative class operates outside
these two states of dependency. It also operates outside the
conventional labor-management divide of Marxism and socialism. Since
global capital is mobile, and the state enforces central banking and
cartel pricing, the class of “owners” and the state are one
entity.
You either resist the entire state-cartel
system or your resistance is nothing but meaningless gestures aimed
at chimera.
Longtime
correspondent Kevin Mercadante (Out
of Your Rut) noted that being a Mobile Creative isn’t just a
different mode of livelihood–it’s a different way of living,
thinking and being.
“Mobile Creatives” describes me to the
letter – I felt as if I was reading a script of my own life (at
least since the financial meltdown). It also takes in a few of my
friends, so it’s a very real category.
This is beyond the scope of the article, but
one of the things I’ve found to be a revelation is that the mobile
creative lifestyle extends well beyond career and workstyle. Once you
adopt it, everything else in your life falls in behind it.
Because of the creativity and independence
that the lifestyle provides, there’s less need for high cost
entertainment. Vacations and weekends are less important – there’s
joy and adventure to be had every day. You’re less concerned with
retirement. You develop a sense that you’ll survive what ever
happens. You see more opportunities and fewer obstacles. At the same
time, you’re also painfully aware that things don’t always work
out. But you also learn that failure isn’t terminal. That’s huge.
Spending patterns change too. You find less
expensive ways to do everything – to buy food and clothing, to fix
your car, and even to entertain yourself. Free thought expands, and
you find yourself drawn to other mobile creatives. Conversations with
others are deeper and more meaningful – when you meet to discuss
work, you’re really paying attention, always on high alert for new
opportunities and potential joint ventures.
On the surface, being a mobile creative is
less secure than traditional careers, but I wouldn’t trade it. I’ve
been in so-called stable careers, only to discover that they’re
only secure until the big picture game changes. Being a mobile
creative enables you to adapt to change, rather than getting rolled
over by it.
By giving this emergent class a name,
you’re contributing to it’s survival and growth.Mobile
creatives could be the class that finally replaces the factory- and
service-workers classes as the new “backbone” of American
socio-economic life. That’s what’s been missing for at least 15
years. By giving the class a name you’re formally declaring its
existence, providing a framework for the lifestyle, and even
establishing it as a legitimate goal.
Thank you, Kevin, for describing the Mobile
Creative class better than I could. Who better to describe
this way of living better than one who is living it every day?
In
essence, my new book Get
a Job, Build a Real Career and Defy a Bewildering Economyis a
blueprint for becoming a Mobile Creative.
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