I appreciate you reading! And both of these are very good questions, and I try to expand on them in the additions. I make a distinction between “realized creativity” and “unrealized creativity,” and note that it is not simply “being creative” that generates the artifex, but it’s realization. This can most certainly be limited by one’s socioeconomic status, and that’s what I meant to suggest by “system of resource distribution”—forgive me for making that unclear. I do think it should also be noted that we cannot say that a given person who is “middle class” or “poor” is necessarily someone who can or cannot exercise creativity. There have been starving artists, and there have been many creators who become complacent because of wealth. The relationship between wealth and creativity is not a hard one, but I don’t think there is any doubt that it’s hard to be creative if you have to unload trucks every morning, so your point stands.

To clarify, I’m not arguing in this paper that everyone can become an artifexian or anything like that (though I think it’s an interesting question to explore if humans are innately creative or only some people); instead, I’m mostly focused on figuring out why Capitalism has not followed a deterministic collapse like Marx thought it would. I think the reason for that is because he did not realize that Capitalism could “vent out” alienation through creativity and the artifex. In a way, I’m trying to explore topics like the Frankfurt School explored (Adorno, Marcuse, etc) from a different angle.

Forgive me if I suggested the artifex is not a class: it is, though different in that it can “absorb” or “combine” the bourgeoisie and proletariat, and in so doing for a given individual (and creating the possibility for others to do the same), it alleviates the alienation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, making revolution not inevitable like Marx thought. The artifex can transcend the material dialectic, but not classism. I admittedly am too slim on examples of the artifex in the paper. I will work to change it—you are correct that this needs to be fixed.

Thanks again for your time and thoughts!