The social significance of art has endured in disparate cultures and through hundreds of years of economic transition, and has managed to recover its footing in

The social significance of art has endured in disparate cultures and through hundreds of years of economic transition, and has managed to recover its footing in the cases that it has slipped; it's not at risk. I could not give less of a damn about the social stature of artists, in and of itself; like most people, artists tend to abuse this status within their little fiefdoms, encouraged by the social and economic spoils of such abuse under Capitalism. Those with the most success are those most in need of humility. What you're talking about is akin to the "professionalization" (or the maintenance of status) of a trade, artificially limiting the breadth of practice in order to direct energy to the quality. This is almost always portrayed as a good thing, when we've lived through an example of it (IT) being disastrous for workers. Professionalization puts up onerous barriers to entry; encourages cronyism; and strips a field of its base of novice workers, as well as a clear and germane path for advancement, replacing it with glad-handing and credentialism. Collective action - unionization, foremost - would be a better solution in securing the livelihood of artists and conditions under which art is made, both for those who participate and even for those who don't. But we haven't seen it, or even the serious talk of it, and I imagine that it's for the reasons I've given: a central ethos rooted ego and not principle. And faced with a choice between shoring up the barriers for people who are only out for themselves, and opening the floodgates for expression, I choose the latter.