I think you may be conflating creation with publishing/marketing. It's possible that many things have been created that do not appear in history books because they were not preserved or advertised by wealth. We live in a world now where self publishing/endorsement is extremely accessible so it's possible that many modern day creations might make their way to the future without explicit dependence on wealth. One thing is certain, our current state of affairs is radically unlike that of both the 16th and the 20th centuries. Solutions to these problems will likely be novel.
No, I am not "conflating creation with publishing/marketing." I am making the point that creating work of any consequence is a time and cash intensive prospect, and that absent the IP protections that gave artists access to financial support outside the patronage system, the elites of pretty much every civilization since ancient Sumer have used their economic power to sharply control who does and doesn't work, and what does and doesn't get produced.
The absence of work from the historical record cannot be explained solely by the dearth of preservation or advertisement on the part of elites. It's also a product of active suppression by the elites of anything that may challenge - or even lead to a challenge - of their power and authority.
The best way to ensure that stuff like this never saw the light of day was to take full control of the means of production. This meant limiting access to both the tools of production and the training needed to use them well.
As far as our recent liberation goes, IP laws that allow creatives to finance their own production are only part of the picture. Other important innovations include the concept of human rights, the idea that freedom of expression is one of them, and legal systems that respect and protect those who engage in free expression.
None of this suggests that the desire to create freely and independently isn't a deeply felt part of the human condition. The point I'm making is that, until very recently, most people suffered under overbearing systems of governance that went out of their way to ensure that this creative desire was carefully controlled in the few cases where it wasn't brutally suppressed.
Saying the patronage system "worked" is a bit like justifying slavery on the grounds that mansions in the Antebellum South were remarkably beautiful, or that imposing the miserable conditions endured by peasants in pre-Revolution France was "redeemed" by the glories of Versailles.
It's possible to appreciate the artistic genius in work commissioned by monsters. But it's foolish to think that the mere existence of these transcendent efforts means we needn't worry about the conditions that produced them, or those who would allow these conditions to return.
If you're maintaining that all creative works made between the stone age and the advent of blues were the sole result of nefarious intervention by the wealthy then I'm afraid I have to disagree. I don't entirely disagree with your other points but since you seem more interested in reasserting your original conjecture and I am responding via tiny touch keyboard, I don't think I'll delve into the nuances of your argument right now.
No, of course that's not what I'm saying, and I'm not sure why you'd think otherwise.
After all, the development of powerful and severely punitive systems of censorship is a fairly clear indication that not everything produced was done at the behest of elites. Nor is there any reason to think that these systems operated with perfect efficiency. Benedict Spinoza, for instance, used a false name to avoid the wrath of the Spanish Inquisition. Nicholas Copernicus waited until he was on his death bed before risking the publication of his life's work. Michelangelo made surreptitious use of cadavers to sharpen his anatomical skills. So yes, deeply influential work did happen on occasion, in spite of efforts to suppress it. But these instances remained the exception, not the rule. In the overwhelming majority of cases, the mere existence of finished creative work testified to its passage through elaborate systems of review and control, and its successful receipt of official sanction.
Given the considerable power over people's minds that art has always carried, the ubiquity of these systems shouldn't be surprising - especially when you remember that from the time sharply stratified societies first appeared in ancient Mesopotamia until the emergence of pluralistic forms of government in and around the 18th century, absolutist autocracies defined virtually all governing systems. Those that didn't seize control of cultural production not only lost the benefit of its power, they ran the risk of having that power used against them.
Even in cases where producers managed to secure a measure of independence (e.g. Kabuki theater under the Tokugawa Shogunate), much of their creativity focused on the evasion of the controls that remained in place. In this regard, the censorious influence of the ruling class remained profoundly influential, even if their rules were acknowledged mainly in the breach, or in obedience that was flamboyantly limited to the letter of the law, and not its spirit.
The development that changed all this was the emergence of pluralistic government, which was characterized by competing groups that each recognized their own inability to dominate government well enough to realize that they were better off in working together to limit government power in general than they were in trying to secure it for themselves exclusively. Sharply curtailing the power of official censors proved to be among the most effective ways of promoting and preserving pluralism. In the wake of these policy developments, humanist strands of culture exploded in volume and popularity.
My point is all this is that anyone thinking that the current level of intellectual and creative freedom - or even anything approaching it remotely - is deeply uninformed about the realities of artistic and cultural work throughout the bulk of post-Neolithic history. Yes, the desire to do this work has always existed. But for the most part, the satisfaction of that desire has only been permitted in very narrow and tightly controlled circumstances, and almost invariably in ways that enhance the strength and stature of hereditary rulers. To the extent that history of art reads like the autobiography of power, the democratization of its creation doesn't appear until a very recent period.
