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Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts    Volume 7, Issue 1 
http://artivate.org        pp. 63-65 
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Copyright © 2018, the author   
 

BOOK REVIEW 
Creative Justice: Cultural Industries, Work and Inequality, by Mark Banks 
Reviewed by Johanna K. Taylor, Arizona State University  
 

Our contemporary society is increasingly aware of the structural inequalities based on race, 
class, and gender that reinforce systemic exclusion across all fields and institutions. The cultural 
industries are no exception, leading many artists and arts workers to organize around calls for 
justice in labor practices and access to presenting opportunities among other concerns. This is 
shaping how longstanding cultural leaders approach their work and how entrepreneurs develop 
new arts enterprises, making developing a framework for justice in the cultural industries critical.  

In Creative Justice: Cultural Industries, Work and Inequality Mark Banks seeks to meet 
this need with a critical discourse of justice within the cultural industries that calls attention to 
pervasive injustices that need to be addressed. Throughout this tightly framed and argued book, 
Banks unpacks the depth of how systemic inequalities impact and are entangled in the cultural 
industries. His aim is to do justice to culture itself, by looking not only at its economic value but 
also at its social and aesthetic value, influenced by various political sensibilities. To Banks, the 
primary goal is “the need to raise consciousness of injustice and to help connect the creative 
economy – and the cultural work it contains – to some normative principles that might make work 
more progressive and equalitarian, as well as fairer and more just” (p. 9). To accomplish this, a 
foundational canon of sociologists of culture (chiefly Pierre Bourdieu) are discussed, mixed with 
the concepts of critical theorists (including Angela McRobbie, Andrew Ross, Janet Wolff) and 
augmented by references to empirical studies, as Banks builds three core concepts of creative 
justice.  

First, Banks addresses justice for cultural objects themselves, toward an “objective respect” 
that sees cultural value as being both subjective and socially shaped as well as objective, an 
aesthetic commodity. As cultural objects have become increasingly commodified and their value 
legitimized in cultural economy arguments, Banks demands space for recognizing their aesthetic 
qualities and how they matter for people who produce them and consume them towards 
recognizing their comprehensive value. He proposes a “more nuanced, qualified and holistic 
approach that considers historical context, subjective appreciation and objective quality” in order 
to “better know what the culture is and what it can do politically – and so do it justice” (p. 33). 
Recognizing that aesthetics is a crucial part of this process, he states that to ignore the full range 
of meaning is to “inflict an injustice” on cultural objects that hold value for people (p. 36). While 
art objects themselves disappear in Bourdieu’s theories, Banks does them justice by foregrounding 
aesthetics to view cultural objects both as social facts and commodities. 

Cultural work is also included in this call for “objective respect”, a “socially complex moral 
endeavor” that demands to be analyzed in its process and content, as well as its impact on people 
and society (p. 43). Banks focuses on artists, using jazz musicians as a case study to analyze the 
“moral economy” of these artists by identifying the love of self-education, practice, and respect 
for tradition these cultural workers experience. People participate not just for financial gain 
through fame or sales but also to contribute to the social good, therefore studies must analyze the 
social embeddedness and foundational ethical character of cultural work. Thus, the process of 
creation needs to be evaluated on its own terms to understand how it fits into the world as a socially 
embedded practice.  

The second framing concept is a call for “distributive justice”, i.e., an examination of who 
has access to education, participation, and recognition in the cultural industries. This political call 
is more relevant than ever, with cultural activist groups worldwide calling for equity and inclusion 



Taylor  Book Review: Creative Justice 
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in everything from exhibition and performance opportunities to curation and administration 
responsibilities. Banks proposes that exclusionary practices structure who participates in and is 
rewarded by the cultural industries and who is marginalized, making social favors more beneficial 
for entry over natural talent. This timely argument works to challenge the longstanding perception 
of the creative industries as meritocracies that reward individuals who strive in their craft and 
deserve to be rewarded based on some degree of natural talent. Banks also identifies the 
problematic practices in cultural work that are reliant on state funding and exploit interested 
participants through unpaid labor. Women and ethnic minorities are not only paid less but these 
groups work in more precarious positions and are less likely to achieve high status within a cultural 
organization or as practicing artists. To Banks, the cultural industries are “a fixed and unfair game; 
one marked by serial inequalities and minority disadvantage, and where the socially privileged are 
always better equipped to force the hand of chance” (p. 115). 

These structurally exclusionary practices exist in every aspect of the cultural industries, 
particularly in access to elite institutions of higher education whose initial certification 
consequently leads to future opportunities for their graduates. Reinforcing recent calls for more 
equitable practices in higher education more broadly, Banks demonstrates that it is the inequalities 
structuring society at large that are to blame for the disproportionate number of elite students in 
elite institutions and not the lack of diverse, qualified candidates. This system reinforces the 
narrow, limited selection of successful artists and cultural workers in high level positions. Banks 
is not surprised by these exclusionary practices but he is surprised by the general lack of action:  

What does remain shocking is the blind faith placed by governments, industry and 
employers in the cultural sector as a solution to problems of social and economic 
disadvantage amongst social minorities, since it’s becoming abundantly clear, at least for 
the most part, that the arts and cultural industries don’t just fail to alleviate inequalities, 
they actively exacerbate them. (pp. 115-116) 
 

 Lastly, Banks calls for a “reduction of harms” to be enacted to shift the deeply rooted 
systems of exclusion he has outlined. In recognizing the problematic role that cultural industries 
play, Banks proposes that we can move toward what Nancy Fraser has termed a “parity of 
participation” (2008; 2013) to redistribute opportunities and financial gain. The first step is to 
recognize that “the success of the creative economy – at least for its principal beneficiaries – has 
been very much founded on denying the existence of any kind of economic injustice, rather than 
drawing our attention to it” (p. 121). Despite increased attention to these issues, the precarity of 
wages and the extent of inequalities are getting worse.  

As Banks, Ross (1998), and others have noted, it is difficult to have one definitive 
understanding of injustice because it is continually evolving. Yet, with this book Banks proposes 
an initial framework of a theory of creative justice upon which he anticipates others will build. 
There are multiple entry points within the framework he outlines and many subtopics that have 
already being taken on by others, hopefully cumulatively working toward future cultural industries 
that do acknowledge their structural exclusion and begin to challenge their practices in order to be 
more equitable and inclusive. Working toward justice in the creative industries is crucial as the 
field continues to expand and change, thus making this book a useful tool for students, educators, 
practitioners, and policymakers alike.  Those with an established foundation of the sociological 



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theorists he cites may find the framework more readily accessible, but he does provide sufficient 
context for all readers to understand and enact upon his ideas.  

In defining three core concepts of creative justice, Banks provides a platform for addressing 
the inequalities he observes. The book provides multiple entry points to foundational concepts in 
justice for cultural work that can be connected to specific subfields as practitioners in those fields 
strive to enact change.  This book is particularly vital for arts entrepreneurs who are working to 
shift and expand cultural industries. In building new institutions and cultural platforms, arts 
entrepreneurs are well positioned to be the leaders in challenging structural exclusion in entry into 
and operations of cultural work.  
 

References 
Banks, M. (2017). Creative justice: Cultural industries, work and inequality. London: Rowman 

and Littlefield. 
Fraser, N. (2008). Scales of justice: Reimagining political space in a globalizing world. 

Cambridge: Polity. 
Fraser, N. (2013). Fortunes of feminism: From state-managed capitalism to neoliberal crisis. 

London: Verso. 
Ross, A. (1998). Real love: In pursuit of cultural justice. London: Routledge. 
 
 


