Context & Continuity (page 2)

Art & the Economy 

Cultural tension between Philistines and Pharisees concerning the proper relationship between Art and the State also afflicts English economies. Real salaries and wages in the United States, allowing for inflation, have not increased since the early 1970s.  Trade deficits have stabilized at high levels not seen in a century.  This in spite of a 40% devaluation of the American dollar since 1985 and rapid de-unionization of the work force.  The dollar remains low; interest rates remain high.  But employment is relatively stable because consumers buy increasing quantities of better made and better-designed foreign products in preference to goods Made in America.

Whether one accepts the conspiracy or blunder theory of history, as Bob Dylan, bard of the '60s cultural revolution sang: Something is going on here, and you don't know what it is, do you Mr Jones!  What is going on is partially the result of traditional segregation of Art from industry and education in English culture.  Art is forgotten as a factor in national defence and competitiveness. English economies have once more slipped behind in international competition, this time with Japan and Europe.

Cultural Economics of Art  

Effective policy - private or public depends on correct definition.  There are in fact four distinct parts of contemporary Art.  Each functions with differing motivations, but all are intimately interrelated. Unfortunately, English cultural policy accounts for one or two forms and then treats even these as separate, unrelated sectors.

The amateur arts are motivated by self-actualization and self-realization, including one's own cultural heritage.  Fine art is motivated by "art-for-art's-sake" like pure scientific research is motivated by "knowledge-for-knowledge's-sake".  The commercial arts or entertainment industry are motivated by profit and live or die at the cash register.

The applied arts including advertising, architecture, the crafts, jewelry and fashion are motivated by the challenge to marry aesthetic value to utilitarian function.  From buildings to urban planning; from product design to effective advertising; from corporate `imaging' to designer fashion: the applied arts have the most pervasive, important and underestimated economic implications of all forms of Art.

All four forms are intimately interrelated.  The amateur arts provide initial training for future creators and audiences: Art is an acquired taste.  Similarly, the fine arts provide R&D. If there is applause, the product enters the commercial arts which provide mass distribution for the best amateur and fine arts.  Finally, the applied arts draw inspiration from other forms and directly affect the aesthetic quality of daily life of the citizen consumer.

In most cultures, Art or cultural policy deals with the aesthetic quality of day-to-day life as well as fine and commercial art.  In English societies, however, arts policy is generally restricted to the fine arts while a separate and distinct industrial policy applies to the commercial arts.  Yet other set of uncoordinated policies govern museums and heritage.  Multicultural fissioning of English societies is, however, disrupting this comfortable policy profile as aboriginal and heritage language and culture of recent immigrant communities grow in electoral importance.

Capital 

Artistic capital, particularly repertoire such as scripts and scores, is unlike capital in any other sector of the economy.  In Science, knowledge depreciates through time, e.g. Newton knew less than Einstein.  In Art, however, knowledge can appreciate. King Tut, Shakespeare and Bach still speak, still sell. Film libraries have become billion dollar assets in giant media takeovers like the recent acquisition of Columbia Pictures by the Sony Corporation.  Thus maintenance of classical repertoire, art forms and works of art provides inspiration and standards against which contemporary Art can be judged.

Associated with artistic capital is copyright.  After defence, entertainment programming is the largest export of the United States.  Such exports, however, are possible only through enforcement of intellectual property rights.

Intellectual property rights are the legal foundation for the industrial organization of Art and Science. But legal systems are also the product of specific cultures.  For example, in French-speaking and Western European countries, droits d'auteur or author's rights are the core of what in English-speaking countries is called copyright.  Such rights are rooted in the Republican Revolution of the late 18th century, and the Rights of Man Movement.  In the Communist Bloc, the situation is similar yet different.  While moral rights of the creator are recognized through one-time awards, all subsequent rights revert to the State.

Moral rights are not, however, the root of copyright in English society.  Rather, in the 15th century with introduction of the printing press, Tudor monarchs began to grant to approved printers the right to copy approved works, i.e. copyright.  Thus, the root of copyright is censorship and feudal grant of commercial privilege.  These residuals of feudal law did not vanish with the advent of democracy. On the contrary, they survived in attenuated form to plague democratic law and government. Obsolete in practice, they still influence the spirit of the law.

An extreme example will illustrate the role of copyright.  Consider a literary work which becomes a play through the licence or sale of copyright. In turn, the play becomes a film which, in turn, is spun-off into posters, toys and a soundtrack.  Both the film and soundtrack are broadcast on radio and television.  Eventually a book is made concerning the making of the movie, and a sequel of the movie is then produced.  Even museums and archives are related to copyright in that most artifacts and documents, contained are within the public domain, i.e. copyright has lapsed through time.  However, Heritage Design Rights (HDRs) for the reproduction of moldings and vernaculars of heritage buildings and sites may in future provide a new revenue source for historical preservation and conservation.

Nonetheless, it is through exploitation of revenue streams implicit in copyright that commercialization of Art has become possible.  It is upon this income that Hollywood has grown into a global force while Stanislas and His Tractor do not sell anywhere in the world, even in the Soviet Union.

Labour 

There are two distinct arts-related employment populations.  Together they make up 4 to 5% of the Canadian labour force, as large as primary agriculture.

The first is the arts labour force including workers who use arts-related skills in day-to-day jobs such as artists and their artificers including curators, librarians and camerapersons.  Between 1981 and 1986, the arts labour force increased 14% compared to 6% for the total Canadian labour force.

The second group is the arts industry labour force made up of workers employed in industries like advertising, publishing, motion pictures, live staged events, fine arts schools, libraries, etc.  Between 1971 and 1981, the arts industry labour force increased 58% compared to 39% for the total economy.  The arts industry was also a larger employer than any manufacturing industry.

Only 35% of the arts labour force is employed in the arts industry.  The rest work in other parts of the economy, e.g. product designers in manufacturing, illustrating artists in financial services and copywriters in retail trade.  Thus applied arts occupations are similar to scientific and technical professions, i.e. arts-related skills are used throughout the economy.

In addition, Art is the most unionized sector after public service. It is not unusual for a performing artist to hold four or five union cards.  Unlike other sectors, artists sign contracts with employers based on minimum payment permitting individual bargaining for those with Star status.  Art is also the only sector of the English economy to maintain continuity in craftsmanship because of guild-like apprenticeship and master class training.

Technology

Historically, Art has always been at the leading edge of technological change, e.g. from calligraphy and printing to sound and video recording.  Unions and guilds have always played a significant role in mitigating artistic job displacement due to technological change.

Even in terms of physical technology, Art is a major consumer durable asset.  After buying a house and car; after paying for the children's education (assuming one has children), the most expensive purchase made by a consumer is the Home Entertainment Centre (HEC) - TV, VCR, CD, DAT (almost all made in Japan or Europe) and the increasingly ubiquitous PC and associated software.

But there is another side to technology and Art.  Just as the physical sciences are the source of physical technology and the social and management sciences are the source of organizational technology, Art is the source of what can be called design technology, or in French, la technologie conceptuelle.

The contribution of design is Elegance, a term also used in mathematics, the physical sciences and economics.  It expresses Occam's Razor, a guiding principle of the scientific method: fewest assumptions for the maximum explanation.  Elegance also means "ingeniously simple and effective" or "more for less."

Aesthetic design is different from technical or functional design such as a more efficient automobile engine.  Its impact on consumer behaviour involves what has been called "the best looking thing that works".  If a consumer does not like the way a product looks, he or she may not even try it.  Unfortunately, in English-language cultures, the term Design has been co-opted by the engineers

Art research does not, however, take, place in the university. It takes place in the professional nonprofit arts.  This dislocation from the university has contributed to a failure to appreciate the R&D role of the nonprofit fine arts.  Further, research in Science generates technology of the head while Art research generates technology of the heart.  The word technology itself is derived from the Greek tekhne meaning Art and logos meaning reason, i.e. reasoned art.

Beyond product design, Art also plays a crucial role in contemporary advertising.  It is generally forgotten that within the ecology of capitalist realism, advertising is the lubricant of the market economy.  And advertising, to a great extent, is application of the literary, media, performing and visual arts to sell goods and services.  Actors, dancers, singers, musicians, graphic artists, copywriters, and editors are employed to sell everything from fruit to nuts; from cars to computers, from beer to toilet paper.   In fact, more artists are employed through corporate advertising than corporate giving to nonprofit Art.

When the design advantage of Europe and Japan is combined with the wage advantage of the Third World, then English language producers are left with a narrowing mid-range market.  This combination of design and wage disadvantages partially explain de-industrialization of English-language societies.  Improved productivity through robotics and new technology may lower costs of production, but only improved design will secure for English-language economies a share of the growing up-scale `Yuppie' marketplace.

Time to See Again  

English moral bias against Art combined with artistic alienation has led business and political leaders in English societies to lose sight of Art as a factor in national defence and key ingredient in competitiveness.  They do not see nonprofit Art as the `research & development' sector for the commercial and applied arts.  They do not see nonprofit Art as R&D because performing companies, visual and media art galleries and literati publishing houses are not generally associated with the traditional centre for research in English culture - the university.  They do not see that the entertainment industry is, in fact, the only major American industry that spends nothing on R&D.  It relies 100% on the nonprofit sector, supported by government, to provide new product, talent and technique.  They forget that after defence products, Art as entertainment programming is the largest manufactured export of the United States.

In the motion picture biography of Edison starring Spencer Tracy, the electric lights of New York City are to be switched on for the first time.  But the 2 dynamos powering the system go out-of-synch. The building nearly falls down and the great attempt almost fails.  But then, with a governor, Edison links the two together and balances their output.  The problem is similar with the contemporary English-language economy.  The emerging information-rich, postmodern global economy is driven by twin turbines: Art and Science.  But in English cultures, these engines of prosperity are wildly out-of-synch and balanced economic growth has proven unattainable for a generation.

If English economies are to revive, then this cloud of unknowing must be lifted. Unproductive debate must be tempered by true realism.   But too often sympathetic openings by Philistines go unnoticed, unappreciated and unexploited by the Pharisees.   Such was the case with a recommendation of the Royal Commission on the Economic Development and Prospects of Canada:

There is, then, another aspect to culture, namely good taste, good design and creative innovation, that should enable smaller industrial economies to compete effectively in the world economy...  In this endeavour, higher quality implies an organic relationship between business and engineering, on the one hand, and design and craftsmanship on the other...  High quality products, technologies, plants, homes, cities and locales require the long-run presence of creative artists of all kinds. To increase the long-run supply of artists... governments must support... the arts.  The long-term return from investment... is real and substantial.  In the absence of strong public support of this sector, Canada will not reap these benefits. Governments at all levels should increase their contribution to their respective arts councils (Royal Commission 1985, Vol. 11, pp. 115-116).

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