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The article examines the nature of the cultural impacts of economic thinking. Economics is based in the study of human behavior because its origins came from the certitudes of Enlightenment thinking. Furthermore, economics is associated with the fundamental processes of cultural definition and reproduction. Economics enforces its own definition of culture's main determinants and establishes them as foundations for everyday reality. The author believes it is not valid to source individual and communitarian behaviors respectively to economic and cultural causes.

The article describes the process of cultural policy change that has occurred within Europe, particularly in Great Britain, since 1995. According to the author, these changes have involved a shift from an established arts-based policy model to what has been termed a creative industries model. The analysis will also reference cultural policy prescriptions being developed by the Council of Europe and in other European nations, notably Germany. The article will present comparisons of the development of new policy frameworks in Canada and New Zealand, and the territorial nature of policy will be discussed.