Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Exploding myths

I go on and on about false metaphors, management myths, and bundled assumptions in this weblog, so I thought I'd give some space to someone else doing the same (better than me, I'll admit). I stumbled on this great speech by James Allen Smith of the Getty Trust (look to the right column of the page), that provides one of the clearest and most concise economic overviews of arts and culture that I've read.

A favorite part is his overt challenge to the persistent myths that cloud our thinking about arts and culture funding, economics, and policy, quoted below:

The starving artist is a myth. Underfunded, underemployed, less well paid than others of similar education but not impoverished.

The lack of a government commitment to culture is also a myth. NEA and NEH appropriations are a fraction of what they were at their peak, but we do ourselves a disservice by ignoring the many other commitments to culture that the federal government has made and kept and that states and localities have expanded over the past two decades, even in the face of federal contraction. In our multilayered federal system the public sector commitment is fragmented and hard to appraise completely, but there is indeed a commitment, and it is substantial. Some argue that it remains stronger and more secure because it is fragmented, because there is not a single target for budget cutters to strike. We should also understand that some of our approaches are envied in other parts of the world, particularly the strong role played by private philanthropy. Sustaining and encouraging private philanthropy through the tax code has been a consistent policy choice since the 1910s. Whether we are weakening that one substantial pillar of support by gradually reducing the estate tax remains to be seen.

That we have no cultural policy in the United States is also a myth. Our policies are plural and decentralized, sometimes rooted in policy decisions that enhance the private sector and the private individual's role, such as the tax code, sometimes embedded in approaches to other policy objectives when cultural means are used to pursue economic development ends or community building goals. It is a characteristically American mix. Policies are formulated at every level of government, and they are profoundly intertwined with decisions made in the private sector by individuals, philanthropic foundations, nonprofit cultural institutions, and commercial enterprises. The ''nation's'' cultural policy -- as distinguished from a ''national'' cultural policy -- is complex and multi-faceted. Our cultural policies are grounded in the charitable deduction; copyright law, which seeks both to guarantee financial rewards to those who are creative whatever the field and to enhance the progress of the arts and sciences...; trade policies, which have helped make cultural industries the source of over $60 billion in foreign earnings; and the First Amendment, which gives constitutional protection to freedom of expression and will continue to mark the front lines of our culture wars. Moreover, cultural concerns intersect with policy decisions that are being made in many areas: elementary and secondary education, juvenile justice, local and regional development, conservation and tourism, among others, all of them policy domains with major cultural policy consequences.

Great stuff.

posted on Wednesday, May 26, 2004 | permalink