At one level, creativity’s move from the margin to the centre of capitalist ideology is linked to the financialization of the system. Financialization is driven, ultimately, by a speculative ethos with a voracious appetite for the production of newness (see Marazzi 2008, 64–68). To demonstrate their quality to investors, firms need to prove not merely profitability but also innovation, a capacity to stay ahead of the curve, to constantly revolutionize their means of production (and distribution, and sales). Financialization, then, drives and is driven by an economy pathologically addicted to the performance of creativity. Creativity’s particular woolliness as a concept is here an asset: it is precisely because it is not fully quantifiable (in part because it is a nebulous term, in part because it is always relative to someone else’s lack) that it can operate as a disciplinary idiom, one that polices economic actors who could always be just a little more creative, and may not be creative enough. In a world where capital insists on measuring and quantifying almost every social process (de Angelis 2007) there is a particular economic and cultural utility to be found in ideas and ideals like creativity precisely to the extent they refuse or elude such conscription: they hold open a horizon or a promise in whose name all manner of otherwise dubious, short-sighted or irrational actions might be justified. Creativity, unburdened from any requirement to prove its purpose or measure its success, becomes a cruel aspiration whose absence can be cited as the justification for the restructuring of an enterprise, a government program or an individual’s career or economic outlook.