Political Compass #24: Taxpayers should not prop up theatres or museums.

Great Debates
61

Well, yes, that’s what I said, isn’t it? Must you quibble over my use of an abstract term representing the sum of people’s economic choices?

To be really precise, what I meant was that there are certain things that people might value, but not value sufficiently to purchase at a market-determined price because left to its own devices, the market (or, if you insist, the sum of people’s economic choices) fails in predictable ways to overcome certain sorts of collective action problems, account for externalities, etc.

But really, I thought Dex’s way of saying it wasn’t as boringly technical. :slight_smile:

62

Provided by taxpayer dollars? If not, why not? If art must be subsidized to rescue rural folk from their cultural poverty, why is food considered a luxury?

63

Actually, us backwoods folks have figured out this whole “food” thing. Is that what y’all call it in the city? We call it “the stuff the pops up out of the ground and gets shipped off to town, where they can’t seem to grow their own”…kinda like all of the water.

Now if we could just figure out how to put together one of them there Peeka-so
thingies…

But you’re right…why should we have reasonable access to Norman Rockwell or a live performance of Mozart? Obviously we’ve chosen to live a life bereft of such things that only cities can afford to keep around.

:rolleyes:

64

Economic Left/Right: -2.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.95
I disagree: the arts play an important part in broadening what our, and any, culture knows of their surroundings.

BTW, Liberal, food is provided for those who can not afford it, and has been for years. It may not be steaks and lobster tails, but food stamps provide the opportunity for those unfortunates to eat. IMO, of course.

65

So perhaps there should be opera-stamps – for those who truly cannot afford the ticket. Then the rest can be expected to pay for their own art diversions. Incidentally I’d wager that, on average, the income of the population frequenting the opera/museums are a good deal above median. If that is true, what we have is in fact the poor paying for the past time hobbies of the rich.

66

Actually no. Rolleyes or not, that’s not the discussion at all, you can enjoy (or not) all the Mozart in the world, provided you pay for it yourself. The question is why would you think it reasonable that some poor dude in the city should be forced to pay for your privilege to enjoy Mozart, when he might very well have thought those same money were better spend on a nice dinner with his family (or a blowjob by the local friendly street hore). Or perhaps he thinks a bottle of Jack Daniels and a ticket to Metallica gives him more and better art for the buck – yet you seem to think it only fair and reasonable that you should take this decision away from him, that he, in fact, is not capable of making that decision himself.

67

My argument is that there are people who are so far away from the city-centers of this country, where all of the theaters and museums would end up if it was 100% private, that they are prevented from being able to shell out any their own money for the “priveledge” of experiencing this culture.

68

So says you. (not such a high regard for your fellow backwooders eh? and again I must ask: wouldn’t you yourself never pay for a ticket unless it has been state financed?) But if true, then invariable it’s because those same people don’t really want hear Mozart so much afterall. And further there is a gazillion other art forms you’d never be able to experience either (state financed or not) – apparently you favour live Mozart performances others might favour underwater Bach concerts. Even with state sponsorship someone has to choose and reject - what makes those someones superiour to the combined will of the people (ie. the market). And you didn’t answer the underlying question: why is it fair and reasonable that others should be forced to spend their hard earned money to finance whatever art preferences you might happen to have?

(Listing to god inspired Mozart is indeed always a privilege)

69

:confused: I hold my fellow backwooders in quite high regard. It is with the proposed “Cultural Merchants” that my regard is in doubt.

Since I currently live in Atlanta, the rural issues that I bring up don’t directly apply to me right now, but they have applied to me in the past. I currently live in close enough proximity to easily experience a wide variety of culture, and I do so regularly. I don’t know if every museum or theater I choose to frequent receives monies from the NEA or not, but I have to say that this is one government organization with which who’s modo I wholeheartedly agree: “A Great Nation Deserves Great Art”… not “A Great Nation’s Cities Deserve Great Art”.

To elaborate: I doubt that those who would profit from and control the location of these proposed 100% privately funded theaters or museums will bother trying to tap into the rural “market”. The profit margin just isn’t there if culture is treated as a straight-up commodity, and I feel quite strongly that it should not be treated as such for the same life-improving reasons that others have pointed out in this thread.

I do not believe that citizens of this country should have to choose between living in a rural area or having access to the arts. And I’m not proposing a state funded Lourve in every small isolated town. There is a middle ground, but I do not trust that middle ground to be reached by capitalism alone, hence the need for government assistance.

A well-informed and aware person may indeed decide that they don’t dig Mozart. That is an idividual’s perogative. I argue that isolating culture away from the rural populace will result in the rural populace being not-so-well-informed and aware.

Also, all of the specific creative minds I’ve referenced in my posts have been examples of a broader cultural concept. I’m not advocating that only specific arts be subsidized.

I think it is fair and reasonable that a portion of tax-payer monies should be applied to providing accessable cultural experiences to all taxpayers, not those those who reside in our cities.

70

I agree wholeheartedly.

The museum in which I work gets some grants based on the understanding that all of the schoolchildren in our county will get free admission when they come on field trips.

On those tour days, we have to have additional staff in the museum, not only to lead the tours, but to keep the kids from wandering off and touching the artifacts. We also open the museum early on those days to spare the public from having to wade through noisy children to see the exhibits during regular hours.

We simply couldn’t do this if we didn’t get the extra monetary help. It’s very expensive to keep our museum open: the revenue we get from admission fees doesn’t even cover the salaries of the staff, let alone maintenance and utility costs.

I ask each of my tour groups, “How many of you have ever been to a museum?” Few have. I’m sure that it’s by choice for most, but some children honestly couldn’t afford to go to a museum if we didn’t have this program. The nearest city to where I live which has a museum nearing the caliber of my own is sixty miles away, and costs more than ten dollars to enter. (Some of the kids have told me they have never even been outside of the county, so that museum may as well be on Mars for all the chance they have of seeing it.)

I see children come through my museum who had never set foot in one leave with a curiosity about history. I’ve gotten letters from a few who told me they started reading more about history based on what they saw at the museum which piqued their interest. That means something.

Thanks to the grants we got, we were able to open a new building last year. We have programs and concerts in our new conference room that are free for the public. The response has been overwhelming. If asked two years ago, I would have said someone predicting the success we’ve had was dreaming. But, again, without government funding, we couldn’t have done any of this. And I think the citizens of my town would be the worse off for it.

Music and the arts do not give a tangible benefit, which is why some people don’t see their importance. But I see children whose curiosity is aroused, who may follow a different path because they became a bit more interested in learning. I see people leave the dull drudgery of daily life for just a few minutes of beauty. I see young and old exploring our history through speakers and reenactors, seeing things from a different point of view, ideas to which perhaps they’re being exposed for the first time. I see families having fun together, spending that much-vaunted “quality time” wandering through the exhibit area, talking about what they see, learning together. In short, I see what my tax dollars are buying, and I think it’s a hell of a good purchase.

71

Cross posted from the Art in School’s thread a link to Tessa Jowlles essay on art and cultre in society

And two responces in the Guardian

From David Edgar

And James Fenton

I’m still forming my own responce, to this and the OP. It’s something that matters a great deal to me.

72

I don’t understand this need to impose one’s artistic tastes on the nation. Quite a few people here would subsidize an opera or symphony, but how many would subsidize a fancy restaurant? Can someone tell me how they are different? All the arguments used so far could just as easily be used to support government financing of Chez Tres Fancy Meal.

I’ll say exactly what I said in the “Libertarianism” thread about the min wage: If poor people need money to survive, we as a society can surely provide that safety net for them. They can then choose how they spend that money. Subsidizing a symphony basically just makes the tickets cheaper for the rich folks who would go anyway.

73

Projects of national presige aside, I think that the government has no place in subsidising art because it creates a culture of dependency and of propaganda - you may think you’re more likely to get funding if you’re a fellow traveller. Not to mention a beaurocratic gravy-train (qv Arts Council, BBC, Lottery Commission).

However, I strongly believe that the government should encourage people to subsidise art. Significant tax breaks are an obvious way.

74

Which were in place until a couple of months ago for investing in films, but the IR closed that loop hole, which pulled a lot of funding from independant films.

cite

75

Comparing an opera to a symphony to a restaurant is not a fair analogy. First of all, operas and symphonies are not-for-profit industries and exist to provide a performance, not to make money. Restaurants, however, exist to make a profit for their owners. Second, some municipalities give tax breaks to certain businesses - so we do subsidize some commercial enterprises. Finally, in Chicago, both the opera and the symphony give a lot back to the public. Both give free performances to tens of thousands of school children, both give free concerts in Grant park, and both offer free educational services to local schools. Chez Tres Fancy Meal does no such thing.

Subsidizing a symphony doesn’t make it cheaper for rich folk to see Mozart, it allows the symphony to offer opportunities to people who would otherwise not have them.

76

Heck, I’ve performed more than five classical pieces written in the last decade. Which probably gives you a pretty good idea where I stand on both the subject and the political spectrum.

Yes, well, back then the television and radio networks picked up a lot of the slack – let’s not forget Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Orchestra, CBS Playhouse (which admittedly was post-1960) or the various other classical music programs, radio and television plays, and other forms of arts that now seem to have all been exiled to publically-funded PBS to make way for Everybody Loves Raymond! or what-have-you.

It’s funny how people seem to assume that government subsidy is going to result in government control over what is produced, when in fact corporate subsidy has had a far greater effect towards encouraging arts organizations to censor themselves (usually indirectly, but on rare occasion directly) than government money ever has (in the US, at least). All the governments usually want is greater access and accountability, which most arts organizations are also in favor of.

Which is not to say there isn’t the usual agenda-du-jour. Following the initial Lottery-funding boom in the UK (which went largely towards capital projects) the government went on a serious education kick – “no funding for you unless you’ve got education projects attached to whatever it is that you do”. Which wasn’t a bad idea in principle until you realize that it was intended as a substitute for actual arts education in the schools. But I digress.

If the question is whether or not we should subsidize things we don’t or can’t personally take advantage of, there’s a long laundry list of pork-barrel projects and direct corporate subsidies that I’d cut long before the arts (and that’s even ignoring the quagmire that is the military budget).

77

Huh? Who decided they were “not for profit industries”? You just created a tautology out of thin air: they don’t need to make a profit because they don’t make a profit.

78

Um, they are nonprofit entities because they qualify for 503©(3) tax exempt status - no tautologies here. Look at the following and you will see that most, if not all, of these companies are nonprofit organizations.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.cause&cgid=2&Submit.x=28&Submit.y=6

The site lists 154 museums and 124 performing arts centers in their directory. The site also notes that in 2002 there were 1,146 nonprofit theatres in the US.

79

E -1.75, S -4.72.

I had a lot of trouble with this one, because I prefer classical, jazz, and some of the more interesting things I’ve heard lately on public radio stations like Celtic fusions with African or Indian music, but I don’t think support of the arts is any business of the federal government. I think artists will produce art whether the government supports them as artists or not, but they may need a little help surviving in the meantime. That brings us to a different question, of how that help should be provided, that may be out side the scope of this particular debate.

The problem is one of communication and distribution, it seems to me, I’ve known a few bands that were really very good, and those who heard them would come up and tell them after performances how great they were, but it didn’t bring them enough money to quit their day jobs, particularly considering how much they spent on their instruments and equipment. They just couldn’t get to a large enough audience to support them. The current structure of the music business, where the power is all in the hands of a few large corporations who don’t care about music and find it more profitable to manufacture boy bands and teen idols, is not helping that situation. It should be allowed to disintegrate instead of being propped up by draconian copyright enforcement measures currently being pushed through here in the U.S. and in Europe. I have a lot more trouble with that than with people voting locally to tax themselves to increase their exposure to cultural influences from outside their communities, though perhaps the money would be better spent on broadband internet access through which the people could find their own cultural influences to draw from in the production of their own art.

80

around -2/-2 here. I think I answered “disagree” at first but am inclined to switch toward “agree” now: I don’t want to pay for something I find uninspiring, such as endless variations on the same tired classical masters (of any genre), or conversely, uber-modern obscurist wankers.

On the other hand, I disagree with this:

I think private art imposes more culture on a population than public art. After all, public art is non-profit, meaning, the profit motive is ostensibly removed. Therefore there is less impetus to advertise. Commercial art, on the other hand, bombards the universe with its message, even if I find that message socially unacceptable. The only way I could avoid advertisements for commercial art would be to stay inside my house and not expose myself to any media.

I mean, sure, public art could impose a culture on people if they were forced to attend or watch it, but they aren’t, right?