The Jump Blog

This is the first of a three part series that advocates socialism in three specific sectors: the arts, health care, and education. This first installment deals with the arts. These are pretty in-depth discussions and more than a little lengthy.

I’m a reluctant capitalist. Not because I have any particular idealogical objections to capitalism, (I have no bone to pick with the rich, and wouldn’t mind having a lot of money –as long as I don’t specifically have to work for the purpose of making money) but only because I am not at all motivated by financial gain. I’m a horrible businessman. How horrible? In my computer consulting business I often work for free, not out of any altruistic desire to donate services, but because I simply can’t be bothered to send out the invoices when the work is done.

In my head the job and the compensation are not connected. I do the job to fix the problem, if I am uninterested in the problem then I am unlikely to do the job regardless of financial incentives; if I am interested in the problem then I am similarly unlikely to think about sending out the invoice once I have solved the problem.

It’s not a conscious thing, it’s just that once the job is finished and I have gained the satisfaction of solving it, I am unlikely to think of it again in any capacity –including writing up and mailing the invoice.

What’s more, money can act as a disincentive for me. I find few things more annoying than having a conversation with someone who continually brings up how much money I can make at something. Telling me how much money I can make at something will actually make me want to do it less.

This personal bias admitted to, I have some pretty radical ideas about the role of government in the new economy (radical for a conservative libertarian anyway). These ideas are largely concerned with three areas: the arts, medical care, and education.

Allow me some assertions. Absent artificial manipulation, free market capitalism is a fantastic way to ensure many things, not the least of which are relatively low cost, high quality goods for the consumer, a relatively high standard of pay for the workers, and the opportunity for business owners to amass personal wealth. All of which, I would argue, are good things.

But there are some things that, based solely on it’s design, free market capitalism is pretty poor at ensuring; some things that simply don’t work well in a profit driven environment.

Let’s take the arts for example. Assuming that one believes that the production of art is valuable for the society at large, that art serves a higher purpose, and that art elevates the human spirit (as I do), then one must look at how well the free market meets those goals. The free market today has created a structure where the quality of music, literature, film, and even painting is irrelevant. I would even argue that the market place is hostile to actual art. The market, by it’s nature, isn’t concerned with quality or content; the market is only concerned with marketability. Not ‘how good is it?’, but ‘can we sell it?’ Kevin Federline may have no talent, but he has marketability. Thomas Kinkade’s paintings may look as though the entire cast of The Teletubbies threw up on a canvas, but no one cares because enough grandmothers will buy them to make the enterprise profitable. The Wayans Brothers continue to crank out some of the worst films ever made, yet they are able to continue making them because they cost little to make and even a modest showing at the theatres can turn a profit. The market fails to offer quality content because it is a purely profit driven system.

In this case one of the basic tenets of free market capitalism –that competition results in the best product for the consumer– fails. It fails because the competition isn’t concerned with producing a quality product, it’s only concerned with producing a profitable one. This is somewhat peculiar to the entertainment industry since, unlike most other industries, companies will get repeat business regardless of quality. The consumer isn’t going to stop seeing Dreamworks films just because Norbit sucked. Readers aren’t going to stop buying Random House books just because Tom Clancy ran out of ideas around 1990. Once they have your money, your reaction the product is really pretty irrelevant. The pool of available writers, singers, actors, and artists outweighs the demand by far.

If consumer reaction to James Patterson becomes so negative that he simply doesn’t sell, it is really no problem for the publisher to find and promote a new James Patterson.

I hear you out there, “But if those products weren’t popular they wouldn’t sell. They are supplying a demand. If there was a demand for a higher quality product they would supply it.”

Overlooking the fact that the demand for specific entertainment products is often manipulated and manufactured, yes there is a segment of the population that genuinely enjoys The George Lopez Show, Toby Keith, Scary Movie 237, and the latest Jack-Ryan-Saves-The-Galaxy installment. Taste is a subjective thing, and it is also a big factor in why the free-market is so ill-suited for the entertainment industry.

In this particular case, using what is popular as a benchmark for what to produce in the future actually violates another basic tenet of the effect of free market capitalism: it stifles innovation and creates an unhealthy cycle that eventually drives consumers out of the market.

An example: A movie studio decides to back and distribute “Adolescent Targeted Sex Romp” (ATSR). It costs very little to make, is promoted on Internet social networking sites such as YouTube and MySpace, and makes money based largely on the 12-18 year olds that go to see it on the opening weekend. The studio green-lights ATSR:II, and it comes out two years later. The upper age range of the former audience has now grown beyond the phase where they find the film entertaining, but it doesn’t really matter, because more 12-18 year olds are there to take their place. Fast forward to six years down the road and we are on ATSR: V The Revenge. The original audience is now in its middle twenties and the franchise dies a quiet death as a money-loser. That same audience is also starting to feel alienated by the industry because no one is making movies for people in their late twenties and early thirties, so they turn to DVD’s and stay home. Because market research shows that people aged 25-45 are not a large part of the movie-going audience studios continue to make and market films to 12-18 year olds, and the overall quality of the output of the studios diminishes and stays perpetually stuck at an adolescent level. Quality films become a niche market that limit innovation due to their limited funding.

So what is my solution?

Public patronage in the form of tax credits.

There is already a provision in the tax code that supplies tax breaks to performance artists provided that 50% of their income was derived from such performances. I would advocate a tax credit along the lines of the child tax credit for artists. If more than 50% of one’s income was derived from artistic endeavours, and that income was below the poverty level, then one would qualify for a tax credit of an amount double of one’s expenditures for the artistic endeavours in that tax year.

What effect would this have?

It would have the practical effect of encouraging innovation from artists who are, by definition, outside of the commercial machinery. It would also create a truly competitive environment by allowing said artists to create and market products that could compete with mainstream offerings. This could, in turn, be the proverbial tide that raises all ships as the large studios, labels, publishing houses, etc… would be forced to compete with successful products with more artistic merit. It could even have the overall effect of bringing consumers back to entertainment industry who have felt ignored for many years. It would also allow many creatives a possible way to make a living without having to try to break into an industry that is largely closed to all newcomers.

Well, just who the hell would pay for this utopian fantasy? That money has to come from somewhere. Sure it does. The frank answer is from the society at large via the taxpayer. Sure, there are possible creative funding options such as stiff fines for market manipulation (such as various incarnations of payola-type activities), levying surcharges on the porn industry (think of it as an artistic version of carbon offsetting), or a charge for Internet distribution of the supported work (tack on a buck per Internet download/sale of any government funded work), but in the end that’s really just gilding the lilly. I’m proposing pretty much a purely socialist structure in which the society redistributes some of its wealth to support the creation of artistic works.

Of course this already happens on a limited scale through National Endowments programs, but these programs often have very limited scopes and are not even remotely capable of funding all of the worthwhile projects.

You say you don’t want to fund some loser gluing together toothpicks and cat crap in his basement and calling it art? The 50% income requirement would take care of that. If someone derives 50% of their income from creating art, then it is assumed that they have some talent for it.

Next Time: Education

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