{"id":1951,"date":"2016-01-05T13:25:56","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T21:25:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=1951"},"modified":"2016-01-05T13:25:56","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T21:25:56","slug":"when-you-can-afford-the-very-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2016\/01\/when-you-can-afford-the-very-best\/","title":{"rendered":"When you can afford the very best"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"can<\/a>A thought experiment: suppose you are in a middle-class household, around the median income. What goods and services do you purchase and enjoy that are the very finest available, such that people in the top 1% of earners would consume the same item? A billionaire with a taste for Coca-Cola will drink the same coke that you do, though he\/she will likely have a fancier car, house, means of air travel, etc. Tyler Cowen gives his list here<\/a>, and it includes iPhones and Kindles, books and movies, writing paper and rutabagas. Let’s restrict ourselves to arts and entertainment, and assume what an ordinary household would reasonably buy without breaking the bank. Note I am not talking about the poor here, but rather households in the $55,000 annual income range<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Tyler’s list is a good start – small electronic devices for (among other things) music and text. The rich and I read much the same books, watch the same movies, television, and Netflix serials, and listen to the same radio. Through a cheap Spotify account, we have access to the same vast (though finite<\/a>) selection of music. Variation in price\/quality in home computers is not that large – i.e. you don’t need Gatsby-like wealth to own the top-of-the-line MacBook, though it is a questionable expenditure given good, lower-price substitutes. There is variation in home audio-visual quality – we don’t all have home theatres – but even there the increase in quality at affordable price has been substantial over the past decades.<\/p>\n

So far, so good! But what if we want to go out and about? I don’t want to focus on geographic barriers: obviously if you live in Churchill, Manitoba, going to hear a world-class symphony is going to cost a lot in terms of travel expense. So to keep things concrete let’s imagine someone living in suburban Chicago. What cultural goods can they enjoy, at reasonable expense, that would also be chosen by Chicago’s 15 (as of 2013<\/a>) billionaires, who might also have a taste for the fine arts?<\/p>\n

You, another adult, and all your under-eighteen children can have unlimited access to the Art Institute of Chicago for a year for $95<\/a>, which I would certainly include in the affordable range for a middle-income household (that amount would get two adults and two children into just two big-screen movies). There are not better Chicago art museums for the very rich – you will stand beside them as you view one of the world’s greatest collections of art. The argument can be made<\/a> (though I would not make it) that museums ought to be free, fair enough, but we cannot say this fee is beyond the budget of a median-income household. Of course, a major difference is that billionaires can own<\/em> very different art than the middle class can.<\/p>\n

When it comes to live performances, rich and poor can see a show at the Goodman for $30<\/a>. We will probably sit in different sections to hear the Chicago Symphony:\u00a0though the balcony is well within median income budget<\/a>, we won’t be seated next to each other. Locally, I don’t think the cultural experiences of the richest and the middle class are hugely different (compared to differences in residence, restaurants, clothes, and, likely, health care). The very rich can travel more for cultural experiences, the middle class is more (though not entirely) home bound.<\/p>\n

Income inequality is important, and manifests itself in many ways – I would say the influence of the very rich on politics is most problematic. But I don’t see access to the arts as being grossly different.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A thought experiment: suppose you are in a middle-class household, around the median income. What goods and services do you purchase and enjoy that are the very finest available, such that people in the top 1% of earners would consume the same item? A billionaire with a taste for Coca-Cola will drink the same coke […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1951","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/gatsby.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-vt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":840,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2013\/06\/efficiency-and-innovation\/","url_meta":{"origin":1951,"position":0},"title":"Efficiency and Innovation","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"June 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Yesterday I posted on recent economic research regarding women's and men's wages, and the impacts, perceived or real, on marriage and family. I would be writing up another post on pricing, the ostensible topic of this blog, were it not for a new post by economist Emily Oster at Slate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"innovative?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/06\/assembly-line-300x187.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1025,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/02\/nea-funding-and-the-ecological-fallacy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1951,"position":1},"title":"NEA funding and the ecological fallacy","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"February 4, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The SMU study has a serious problem","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"rich town poor town doesn't matter","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/openingnight.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":827,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2013\/06\/breadwinners\/","url_meta":{"origin":1951,"position":2},"title":"Breadwinners","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"June 2, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"My day job is teaching applied economics to students in the Masters program in Arts Administration at Indiana University (including the topics I cover in this blog). 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While I love the idea of spending all my summer afternoons and evenings hanging out in the backyard with my children, there are times where I simply need to get to the office to get some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"all collegial","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/farmers-market-300x231.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1418,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/07\/summer-books-brad-stones-the-everything-store\/","url_meta":{"origin":1951,"position":4},"title":"Summer books: Brad Stone’s ‘The Everything Store’","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"In the past few months there are few businesses that have come in for such vilification as Amazon.com - including in many of the stories and blogs here at artsjournal.com - and so Brad Stone's book, subtitled 'Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon', is timely, to say the least.\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/07\/summer-books-brad-stones-the-everything-store\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"a difficult case","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/everything-store-193x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1749,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/12\/dynamic-pricing-and-fairness-uber-in-sydney\/","url_meta":{"origin":1951,"position":5},"title":"Dynamic pricing and fairness – Uber in Sydney","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"December 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The car-sharing service Uber uses dynamic pricing (also called surge pricing): prices rise in response to local excess demand (where the demand for rides at the current price exceeds the supply of cars), and fall in response to local excess supply (where there are more cars available at the current\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "issues"","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"but prices are so low!","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/excess-demand.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/excess-demand.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/excess-demand.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/excess-demand.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1951"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1956,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1951\/revisions\/1956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}