ABSTRACT
Intellectual creation runs parallel to social systems. It encompasses the arts and the sciences and extends beyond them. In the long run, maintaining high levels of prosperity requires ingenuity, invention, and creation. The most notable point of comparison of named creation is with religion. Religion is a mass phenomenon. One of the things that is most remarkable about human creation is how few works have a lasting impact. Most human creation is ephemeral. Human intellectual creation has been infinitesimally small by comparison. The point is not about religion per se but rather the role that heterodox minorities including religious minorities — and also heterodox nations – play in high-level named creation. Named (self-)conscious creation and collective anonymous creation interact with each other. The era 1500–1800 saw the creation of many of the institutions of modern capitalism, among them the insurance industry and the stock exchange.
