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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

Tracked back at: Blue Crab Boulevard; North Buffalo Journal And Review; Carry On America; OpnTalk; RabidCapitalist; information pollination; Dust Bunnies; Mike’s Noise; The Beth Zone; The Anchoress; Anti-Strib; The Bullwinkle Blog; Argghhh; Old War Dogs; bRight & Early

John McCain is apparently cool:

I’m a Fred Thompson supporter, and for the worst of reasons: I like his style.

There’s also the fact that the rest of the Republican field makes Paris Hilton look substantive and electable. Come on, you know it’s true; this is 1996 all over again. Without Fred Thompson in the pack the Republican National Convention is going to be the race to elect the next loser. Who else are you going to back? Mitt Romney? John McCain (If McCain’s your man I suggest you skip politics entirely and simply trot on down to Miami Ink and ask for the antichrist special)? Giuliani? Ron Paul?

As much as you might agree with the policies of those listed above they lack the one thing needed to implement said policies: electability.

None of them are electable.

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Editorial Note: I like profanity and find it very useful (as I often demonstrate on this blog). There are times when no other word will do. I also hate governmental intrusion, artistic insincerity, and the criminalization of thought. All of those feelings, and not any specific animosity toward the author of the comments, lead me to write this response.

JACK ARMY

In discussing the recent case of the high school student prosecuted for his free association writing assignment, Jack has decided to highlight the following comment and ask for discussion. It happens to be a subject I am passionate about.

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H/T: Blackfive

Kharmah Awakens

I’ve never been to Iraq, and barring some miracle cure for emphysema I won’t be going. My ignorance of conditions on the ground does not make me hesitant to state the following: we are losing the war on terrorism in every theater in which we are currently engaged.

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I see the Beth at My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is considering Ubuntu, so I thought I’d post some thoughts. I’ve been using Linux since about 1999 but up until this year I have never found a Linux distro that I felt had any chance of gaining any appreciable share of the desktop market. They were simply too technical for even advanced users. Lots of command line, lots of restrictions on what worked out of the box due to the Open Source philosophy that kept Linux ideologically pure but impractical. 3D accelerated video was a pain to get working correctly; mp3 and DVD support was not enabled out of the box; streaming web media couldn’t be played without additional configuration.

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FOXNews.com - U.S. Military: Leaders Can’t Lead - FOX Fan

Now, I’m no retired colonel, I was never anything more than a piss ant squad leader, so I feel obligated to defer to Col. Hunt’s rank –but that’s where my deference ends. It’s hard for me to fathom how a man can be so mistaken, especially one who achieved the rank of colonel. If nothing else his grasp of history is appalling.

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Be Careful What You Wish For, God Has A Sense Of Humor“>

A bit of black paratrooper humor. This is the 82nd Airborne Division Chorus performing “Blood Upon The Risers.”

Blood Upon The Risers

Mah boyz earnin’ dher pay (and then some).

Some more cover tunes.

Cash’s “Fulsom Prison Blues” Done sort of rockabilly style.

Dave Van Ronk’s arrangement of “House of the Rising Sun” as an homage to the prison gang work songs.

Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”. Anyone who has ever been an addict has a connection to this song.

Bruce Springsteen’s “I’m On Fire” - One of the Boss’ best, and possibly the most poignant song about animal lust ever written. A favorite from my youth.

Another favorite from my youth, Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight”. This recording is frankly horrible and unusable for anything but posting to the Internet. I got too carried away and pegged the meters during recording so be prepared for clipping.

Yet one more old favorite. I always loved Jim Croce. The guitar is in Open D tuning to better emulate some of the dual guitar stuff on the original.

At my core I’m a paratrooper. The only thing I am more proud of and would defend with more zeal are my children. I feel a sense of deep kinship with other paratroopers and it is for that reason that I post the following list of the fallen. Their sacrifice was not greater than that of other servicemen and women, but these were my brothers.

Airborne. All The Way.

Let’s Go.

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H/T: Blackfive

If Only War Reporting Were More Like Sports Reporting - Early Warning

I didn’t comment on the William Arkin comments earlier this year. The guy is just so obviously a Class A Tool™ that I wouldn’t have known where to begin.

I’ve also been trying to tone down the rhetoric and profanity level here in an effort to provide more thoughtful and intelligent discussion and analysis. That said, sometimes profanity is exactly the right thing.

Fuck you Arkin. Fuck you with a dead dog’s dick.

Now, on to the thoughtful analysis.

Mr. Arkin says (in wishing that war reporting was more like sports coverage):

For the super-fans who can actually afford to go to the games, or who commit their lives to the Sox, the professional reporters are hardly the enemy. These are people who can’t get enough news and analysis. They depend on the news media for commentary and amplification and insight; they study and memorize the statistics.

These are the critical thinking skills that can get one hired as a journalist at a national news outlet, eh?

Well, to continue the poorly constructed sports metaphor, see if you can get a glove on this curve-ball there Bill. The Milbloggers are not analogous to the fans, the Milbloggers are analogous to the players, you fucking moron. Care to walk down into any Major League dugout and ask how the players feel about sports journalists? Are the players really turning to sports writers for analysis, insight and amplification? Of course not, you imbecilic fucking dolt, they are playing the game that the media is only writing about. In your little metaphor the fans are analogous to the political hacks, bureaucrats, media watchers, and special interest groups, since they are truly the only people that look to MSM war reporting for insight, amplification, and enlightenment about the war.

The rest of us look to people that actually fucking know something.

Did I mention how you should go fuck yourself? I did? Oh, well, go fuck yourself twice.

Tool.

Tracked Back at : This Ain’t Hell

Technorati Tag:William Arkin

Click Here to View Video

This is just a fantastically poignant song. I’d love it even if it weren’t for the video. I understand that this is old news to those in the UK (and that some are even burnt on the song over there) but most over here haven’t heard or seen this.

The video was created by Laith Bahrani of monkeehub and it is a fantastic work of animation and art that precisely expresses the emotion of the song.

Check it out.

» This is so predictable » MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy

Despite my distaste for modern science, I couldn’t help but wonder if Beth’s assertion had any merit. In the interest of the empirical process I thought I’d give it a go.

So, anyway, Ron Paul is an isolationist hack that doesn’t seem to realize that you can’t be an isolationist when people are lining up to travel to your house just so they can kick you in the jimmy.

Ron Paul is a delusional tool:

At the same time, we must not isolate ourselves. The generosity of the American people has been felt around the globe. Many have thanked God for it, in many languages. Let us have a strong America, conducting open trade, travel, communication, and diplomacy with other nations.

So, we shouldn’t entangle ourselves in foreign affairs…except of course to trade with them. And travel to them. And have diplomatic relations with them. Which of course would lead to things like trade treaties. Which lead to real treaties. Which lead to military obligations and charges of American Imperialism and makes a target of our trade partners. Which would put us right back where we are. If, that is, the terrorists didn’t just decide to start knocking us off back here in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Which of course they would. Good idea Ron. It’d be much better to fight ‘em right here.

“Did somebody step on a duck or is it my half-baked platform that stinks?”

Technorati Tag: ron paul

KWTX - HomePage - Shark Attack

I’ve talked about sharks before on this blog. To me they are the embodiment of everything that is both wonderful and terrible about nature. But they are also used as pawns in the neo-environmentalist fight and any attempt to characterize them as what they truly are –dispassionate eating machine and the garbage disposals of the oceans– will be met with hostility from marine biologists who have been fighting the Jaws perception for thirty years. These shark experts are doing what they feel is their duty to counterbalance the “man-eater” image many people have of sharks.

Unfortunately, in their zeal they have gone too far.

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Some of my cover tunes for your listening enjoyment –or not. I’ll freely admit that some are better than others, and that a couple were done while under the influence of copious amounts of alcohol, so they can be a bit “pitchy” in places. The recording quality varies depending on whether I was in the studio or not.

My name is Pasquinel and I come to you unafraid.

Cover of Ryan Adams’ “In My Time Of Need”

Cover of “Moonshiner” as performed by Uncle Tupelo

Cover of Elliott Smith’s “The Biggest Lie”

Cover of Josh Ritter’s “Thin Blue Flame”

Cover of Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy”

BLACKFIVE: The fight in Afghanistan

Matt has an excerpt from a buddy in Afghanistan up over at Blackfive today, and in that excerpt this NCO touches on what, I think, ought to be the number one talking point in this War on Terror. Sad to say that it is the single least touched on point by the Administration and one that has never been adequately explained to the public. It is the point that needs to be continuously hammered home: the War on Terror is where you find it.

To quote the post directly,

Evidently, it also eludes the likes of Nancy Pelosi and John Murtha, who seem to think the “real” war on terror is only here in Afghanistan. I’ve got a news flash for those two morons; the War on Terror is wherever Al-Qaeda is or the Taliban hang out. When they try to move against American interests, we are going to be there waiting for them…

How this is not painfully apparent I’ll never know, but it is clear from four years of “Iraq wasn’t responsible for September 11th and Al-Qaeda wasn’t there until we got there!”, that many people are still foggy on this point.

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The War on Guns: Guest Editorial: Rock Em

I’m gonna sum up the above linked post for you and then descend into caustic commentary.

Summation: The American Way of Life is being threatened by illegal immigration and the proper response to inattentive politicians is pointless vandalism. The reason this would be a proper and possibly effective response is because chunking rocks through windows worked for the Sons of Liberty two and a half centuries ago.

Commentary:

OK, let’s delve into this, shall we? Leaving aside the assertion that illegal immigration is a threat to our very lives and would somehow trigger ethnic cleansing on a scale that would dwarf the events in the former Yugoslavia, what –precisely– would tossing bricks through windows accomplish? Mike Vanderboegh, author of the guest editorial, seems to believe that because it worked for Samuel Adams it would have some practical impact today –even while claiming that the only reason it did work for the Sons of Liberty was due to the expense of glass in Colonial America.

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