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Capitalism, by it’s very nature, abhors art and its appreciation as something unproductive. It will not survive much longer under this system.

• mathnmusic 8y ago
  Capitalism cares about value, not productivity. If people value something, capitalism will deliver it for you. People do value the arts, but the pricing is broken because a present-day artist has to compete not just with peers but also the ancient greats.
  • purple-again 8y ago
    Also the entertainment budget is usually the last budget after everything else. And a lot of things compete for the entertainment budget. Of course weee taking about the masses here not the .01% or art collectors. Those same people are very conscious about wasting their limited funds so faces wirh the product of 10,000 artists they tend to only spend money on the ‘best’ (could be Twilight) which is usually driven by what’s popular. Things become popular almost entirely though control over marketing and distribution. These days we have a better chance of going viral but the old gatekeepers are still picking most winners and losers.
• bunderbunder 8y ago
  I'm inclined to say it's just the opposite. In capitalist societies, art tends to be much more diverse, and all sorts of artists make lots of money at it. Not as many as want to, sure, and one could argue endlessly over which artists are under- or overrated, but, regardless, no artist gets as rich as Jeff Koons (or Steven Spielberg) outside of capitalism. Moreover, art is pretty tightly constrained in non-capitalist societies. In communist ones, it tends to be limited to traditional forms and propaganda. In mercantilist ones, it was traditional forms or, if you could find a patron, whatever would keep your patron happy.
• dd36 8y ago
  Art isn’t a necessity and higher inequality squeezes artists and would be buyers. Growing the middle class would help art. Its shrinking has hurt art. At least that would be my hypothesis.
  • fvdessen 8y ago
    There's also much more competition in entertainment; Video-Games, TV Series, Manga & Anime, Youtube, etc. The market for Bande-Dessinée has shrunk immensely.
  • adamsea 8y ago
    Mmm I would say art is a necessity but it’s economics are weird - winner-take-all, etc. I say it is a me necessity because it is impossible (and perhaps a contradiction in terms) to imagine a human culture or society which had absolutely no art at all. No music, no visual art, no literature, no fashion, no film or theater, no sculpture, no “craft arts” (which are really just plain art) like architecture, pottery, interior design, graphic design, product design, etc ... Even propaganda and the fashion of military uniforms ultimately depend on art. It’s just not possible. And somehow if it was, who would want to live in it? Therefore art is a necessity :)