Neoliberalism and the Musical Entrepreneur

Critical Analysis

There are examples of entrepreneurial subjectification in creative industries other than art and design, and in this text, the author argues that a new industry of music has emerged, one that shifts financial burden and risk to an individual musician and away from an organization or state. This neoliberal footprint encourages musicians to be entrepreneurial, and the author argues that this is a process of becoming habitualized into an unsustainable, insecure state of existence.

The author evidences this claim with a proliferation of high-profile awards, such as the MacArthur award, championing entrepreneurial activity in music. These programs reward musicians that are innovative and flexible. This, the author explains, “codifies and normalizes the radical growth of temporary or unstable labor conditions… and valorizes the particular precariousness of musical labor” (35). It is an extension of a neoliberal footprint, one that celebrates a view of markets in everything, and where “flexibility is especially prized” (36) in contexts that move beyond commerce. Fundamental to this extension is an expectation placed on individual musicians, and the author explains that “In the Schumpeterian discourse that informs musical entrepreneurship, newness is a value in itself” (38).

Academic programs in music have embraced this notion of an entrepreneurial musician, and teach students to view their creative pursuits in the context of a self-driving economic force. Similar to the gig economy, musicians are encouraged (and in academic institutions, taught) to maintain a portfolio of creative activities, none of which include a formal job—such as with a symphony—with any formalized job security. Self-sufficiency becomes a creative moral imperative, as the ability to make music within a pieced-together career becomes part of how to judge the creative character of a musician. This, the author claims, serves to “merely shift that existing financial precariousness from institution to individual” (41) which is consistent with the forces active in developing an entrepreneurial subject.

The author’s conclusion is that musical training that focuses on flexibility and project-based work promotes these values, and does so to the determinant of fostering of musical and creative skills. It shifts a traditional perspective of creative and musical identity, and is self-reinforcing, as the traditional supportive institutions are dismantled and are unlikely to return.