Benefits and drawbacks of public funding for the arts

For several decades, the key problem in the economy of culture remains the justification of the necessity of
the state support of culture. It is not a secret that under the conditions of the market economy it is quite
difficult for culture to find financial resources for its existence. However, the issue of state support for culture
and the arts is not as straightforward as it might seem at first glance.

Why the state should finance culture?

If culture didn’t matter in the life of society, it would not exist as a phenomenon. You can't put Picasso on
bread. Only on canvas. And Bach moves only through organ pipes, not oil pipelines. Nevertheless, humanity
directs on so-called cultural development probably the most part of industrial efforts.

To produce anything without capital investment is utopia. Nobody expects that the harvest will grow by itself
(if it does, it will be a crop of weeds), that the machines and machines will assemble themselves, that clothes
will sew themselves, and so on.

Advocates of financing the arts by the state think that in a free-market order a part of society wouldn’t have
access to full-fledged culture. Financially disadvantaged people would not be able to afford to pay market
prices for tickets to theaters, philharmonics, cinemas, galleries, museums, etc. People would spend less
money on culture than in a state system, and as a result many areas of culture would be underinvested.

This underinvestment would lead to another, even more serious problem: in a free market, only those forms
of culture for which there is a strong social demand would be preserved, not those that are most valuable.
Without the institution of state patronage, much of the visionary, avant-garde, and non-mass-oriented culture
would be doomed to extinction. In a capitalist system, instead of revolutionizing art, outstanding artists will
work in restaurants, stores, corporations, etc., while the preeminence will be held by the creators of tacky,
thoughtless, flattering entertainment culture. As a result, it is not only the most sophisticated recipients of
culture (of which, naturally, there is a minority) who would suffer, but also the entire community -
underfunding of the most ambitious areas of culture would lead to a lowering of the level of all culture, and
thus to a far-reaching weakening of social bonds. The production of culture is associated with strong
externalities - although we all benefit from its development, not everyone wants to finance it (either not
realizing the role it plays in our lives, or intending to free ride on the contributions of others), which may
threaten the slow decay of culture, entailing the breakdown of social relations.

The state should support culture, like any other industry that can become an identifier of the country in the
world. From this point of view the state needs national culture much more than culture needs help from the
state.
This was understood not only in totalitarian regimes (for better or worse, the Soviet ballet was number one in
the world and some films won the Oscar and the Palme d'Or), but also in those that position themselves as
citadels of democracy. In the United States, for example, there is no ministry of culture, but there is state
support of culture, which is carried out, in particular, through a system of state grants.

Another example is France, where the Ministry of Culture is considered one of the key ones and about 4
billion euro is allocated for cultural support. The money is not large, but there is also support at the level of
departments and municipalities, which is several times larger.

Certainly, at the same time there is a question to whom, for what and how much money to allocate from the
state budget in order to get a really qualitative product and not pseudocultural garbage. But that is another
story.

Why the state shouldn’t fund culture?

The money with which the state supports culture doesn’t come from the voluntary donations of the people,
but is taken from them with violence. An individual who refuses to fund culture (refuses to pay taxes) will be
forced to do it, and if he would try to defend himself he will be imprisoned.

The argument indicating that subsidizing culture is necessary because in a free market system a large group
of people will be excluded from participating in cultural life is presented in bad faith.

Subsidizing culture doesn’t help poor people, because the money spent on it goes not to those in need, but to
the producers of culture. Even if these producers sell the culture at discount prices or give it away for free, it
is not the kind of help that the poorest need.

Furthermore, only individuals, referring to their subjective convictions, can determine what amount of culture
is appropriate according to them and for them. Thus, all cultural policy projects are based on the idiosyncratic
beliefs of the creators of culture, bureaucrats or politicians, who believe that taking some money away from
the citizens and giving it (after the state takes some) to arbitrarily chosen artists will increase the amount of
culture and improve the quality of social life. In support of this thesis, however, they have nothing but faith
that they are doing the right thing.

Each of us has the right to choose such forms of culture as we deem appropriate. No one has the right to use
violence to impose their aesthetic values on others. An artist, critic, art historian, or literary scholar who,
instead of trying to convince us by persuasion of the beauty of a work, wants to force us to finance it, not
only does not support culture, but becomes a force that is to the greatest extent anti-cultural.

I stand for the complete removal of the state from financing culture. All State-owned cultural institutions
should be enfranchised, all subsidies to support artists should be withdrawn. Artists should make a living by
selling their art on the free market or with the help of foundations supporting culture that rely on voluntary
contributions. If there are not enough people willing to support an artist to make a living from creating art, the
artist would have to give up creating, or treat art as a non-commercial activity done after working hours. We
would decide for ourselves how much money we want to spend on culture and which artists we want to
support. As a result, the image of culture would be much more suited to the preferences of individuals, much
less dependent on the decisions of officials. What's more, cultural institutions (theaters, operas, museums) -
subjected to the mechanism of profits and losses - would have to start taking care of their effectiveness,
which would solve the problem of waste that is inevitably connected with the existence of state institutions.
Those that would manage to restructure would finally begin to earn for themselves, while those for which
there would be no public demand would cease to exist and waste our money. That's what life is all about on
this planet, that in the face of the fact that resources are limited, funding some form of culture means that
other forms of culture will have to die (because no one will have the resources to support them). We cannot
have it all, we can only have as much as we earn. Therefore, the question we must ask in the context of
cultural funding is not "to support culture or not?" the question is "who is to decide what forms of culture we
will support - the individuals disposing of their own money or the officials disposing of the money looted by
the state?"

Only we by ourselves should decide how to spend the money we earn.