Art Subsidies

Passage

What public interest is served by an earmarked tax for the arts? This is a most important question, for unless the public interest is somehow served, proponents of arts subsidies will be hard pressed to justify the transfer of money from taxpayers in general to those who happen to enjoy attending cultural the question of why the arts should not be funded exclusively through the private sector.

But public support of the arts is, in fact, eminently justifiable. Left to the private sector alone, opportunities to share in a region's cultural life will not be distributed equitably. Individuals who simply do not have the money, or those who live in on an important part of a full life.

Arts events and institutions in a community also build social capital: the invisible, informal ties that bind our society together. By enhancing opportunities for citizens to get together, especially in amateur cultural organizations where they are participants rather than spectators, we build the social capital that is an essential determinant of a to engage in other civic activities, such as voting and volunteer work.

Passage

Tax-funded arts subsidies admittedly provide some incidental benefits, such as increasing tourism. Yet a justification for such subsidies must show the direct benefit of spending taxpayers' money on things the taxpayers themselves would not have chosen. It must show that subsidies will enable many are decidedly better than art that is privately funded.

Yet even if we could guarantee better art, it is doubtful that we could guarantee more widespread aesthetic enjoyment. Art that is subsidized generally will not be the art that most taxpayers would have chosen for themselves. Subsidized art generally reflects the tastes, not of popular audiences, Most people will therefore get what they don't like.

Moreover, culture is not like national defense: a public good that must be available to everyone if it is available to anyone. I can't buy my own defense policy, but I can buy my own aesthetic experiences. Nor can income level justify cultural subsidies. It may be that, if I had more of making their own choices. For these reasons, there can be no justification for arts subsidies.