Shop or not?

Oh, please. Un-nail yourself from the cross for a second and recognize my point. At the end of the day, consumption still drives the economy. You're just splitting hairs by pretending that the CONSUMPTION of art and culture somehow stand aside of basic economics. I'm by no means anti-art/culture, but I recognize that their continued existance is based solely on their economic viability. Ballet doesn't exist if folks don't invest in it.

 

When I think of culture I think of how I roll my cigarette. Culture is a big word. The verb is : to cultivate. Learning is the key to cultivation

 

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I like

 

No, fertilizer is the key to cultivation. Beyond that, I see no other point to your comment.

You've missed the point. Art and culture are no more or less tied to basic economics than any other part of society. When we talk about pure science, it's an economic decision. It's the same as labor, education, healthcare and just about every single other human endevour. At the end of the day, someone has to figure out how to pay for it.

It's been tried before without any great success or failure. Sure some interesting art came from it, but at the price that the government decided which artists were paid and even what kind of art was produced (murals over literature, for instance).

 

My point is HOW I roll my cigarette. To learn is to cultivate. Is culture.

What state of mind am I in when I roll? What do I think of? How often do I smoke? Does the mill cut my tobaco ok? Does the mill need to be fixed? Shall I ask my neighbour if he can help me? There can be a lot of culture in smoking.

 

This thread would be epic if I had a blunt.

 

Even the Marxists recognize a need for economic compensation. What you seem to be suggesting is that you and your neighbor go fix the mill, who's owned by someone else. That's anarchy, and it's simply not a viable solution for the current (or any) economic crisis, either in real world terms or as a fantasy.

 

Que? The mill is mine. And I need it. I live and I consume. But I don't speculate in how much my neighbour shall be compensated for assisting me. If he helps me that's his choise and if I help him that's my choise. We are sincere. We don't speculate. And, again, I admit I'm a consumer, and I pay for my tobaco.

 

Thank you all. This has been a good discussion to me. Now sleeping.

 

Then I've entirely missed the point of this conversation. People are going to continue to buy things. People are going to continue to help each other when they see fit. You can't stop or even really alter either - they are inevitable. Americans (followed by the Canadians) are the largest charitable givers in the world to each other.

B_G, that's so self-evident that I feel sorry for your fingers for having the stupidity to listen to your brain in typing it out. Regardless of how you parse it, the consumption of Good/Service A is always different than Good/Service B, provided that A is not B. Insert any dissimilar potential purchases - food, electronics, housing, autos, office supplies, etc. - and they'll never be consumed the same way.

The obvious now pointed out and pounded into the ground, that simply means that art and culture are under their own special economic pressures and circumstances. And they have their own influence on the whole "Joneses" phenomenon, depending the local society.

I was specifically referring to the NEA of the Depression. I recently had a conversation with a friend about a rediscovered set of murals at a school on the South Side of Chicago that had been whitewashed over years ago. The current staff had no idea they were there until a local historian asked about them and provided pictures. The muralist was paid by the US government to paint those walls. The Roosevelt government was a big fan of murals, as well as some playwrights. But they didn't fund portraitists or novelists nearly to the same extent.

[obligatory derissive comment about the non-existence of Canadian culture except as a reflection of American culture]

But your point is well taken - especially when you start looking at industrial goods and their distribution. Airbus and Boeing, for instance, both receive varying degrees of government subsidies in order to bring their goods to market. I don't think that there are many people that would argue that those specific products aren't very important in the modern world economy, but they're essentially propped up by the European and American governments, respectively. As stand-alone entities, neither is especially economically viable, but those companies need to continue to producing goods in order to help the greater good.[/quote]

 

I guess it depends on what kind of scale we're discussing. I agree with you on a local scale, definitely. Government money in the arts can definitely make a difference in local economics. But when you get much more than that - especially with the understanding that it's simply not possible to spread the effect, equally or not, across all small-scale economies - it simply becomes impossible to do much more than prop up a few carefully chosen institutions. Canandians have decided what's important to them, and it's not painters or sculptors. That's fine, but it's not like all arts are equally funded or that the ones that are funded have equal impacts on local economies. Movies and TV shows filmed in Vancouver, for instance, don't do much to help the good folks of Nova Scotia.

 

For what it's worth.. a ton of production companies that used to be here have shifted to Canada due to fewer regulations and lower land fees etc. I know quite a few damn good editors that lost position because of it.

anyway, that has nothing to do with this convo in particular, just adding to the film and art in canada bit.

 

That just proves what I've been saying for years - Canada is the new Mexico. It's been 200 years since the last time we invaded - maybe once the boys get back from Afganistan, we'll set 'em to work up north. After all, we tinkered around in Mexico as recently as 1914.

 

If I understand this statement correctly, you are saying that companies who don't put profit first will survive a crisis? I don't understand how that would work in a company's interest. If a company can't remain profitable they generally go out of business. How is that helpful to the company, the employees,or to the company's investors?

 

Considering your best defense will be a sternly worded letter, I think I know where I'd put my money.