Stimulating Demand for the Arts

Someone once told me that youth rebellion comes from not being understood. I think that it can come from any number of places. Sometimes the rebellion is done for principled reasons. If your society tells you to throw sulfuric acid into the face of a child for going to school, then you should rebel against it.

My youth rebellion came from seeing people in America have no value for such things as poetry and philosophy. Some people in America had value for such things, and they were under a lot of attack. So when I was 15 I started going around telling people at my school that they did not exist. I did not actually believe this. I wanted to introduce philosophy in such ways as for it to be unescapable. People thought that I was doing it for attention. No, I was doing it because I was angry at the way things were.

In my adult life I gravitated toward artistic and philosophy-minded people, and for the most part I liked what I saw. A lot of these people get seen as narcissists, but I found them to be more compassionate than the average persona and more interested in causes from which they themselves had little to gain. They were more likely to seek better treatment of workers, or women, or black people, or the environment. And they were willing to go out of their way to help people from whom they had nothing to gain in return.

Can the business world and the art world get along? I think that they can. They did in 1920s, when there was both a technologically driven economic boom and a cultural blossoming. That was the time when America rose to world leadership. It is the time to which people look back fondly now. Arts are not luxuries of Europeans or “elites.” They were practiced to a high standard at the time of America’s greatest accomplishment. As for the artists now, as many come from disadvantage as from privilege; and I have maintained close friendships with both.

In 1960s there was a cultural blossoming, but it was anti-business. I am not anti-business. I have an education in economics from University of Virginia. I believe that business and culture should work together. The first is fulfilment of man’s productive potential, and the second is fulfilment of man’s creative potential. The two worlds have this in common: fulfilment of man’s potential. As such, they should be able to get along.

Both business and art also constitute accomplishment, just in different ways. Business accomplishment consists of building prosperity. Artistic accomplishment consists of producing things of beauty and wisdom. Both Michelangelo and Steven Jobs accomplished great things in their respective endeavors. Both are form of achievement, and achievement-based ethic should support both.

Ayn Rand’s greatest accomplishment was creating a bridge between business and intellectuality. She was an intellectual who had value for business, and she was able to explain capitalism in a way that made sense to intellectually-minded people. At the same time she was able to advocate to business world for intellectual perspective, which they otherwise would have ignored. She was dead wrong to condemn environmentalism and see environment as only resources; she was dead wrong to equate altruism with tyranny and mysticism with irrationality; but she was right to advocate for business to intellectuals and for intellectuals to business.

Economic demand is driven not by “rational self-interest” but by people’s values and beliefs. If people have value for the arts, they will apply their consumption choices to procuring artwork. There is nothing irrational or unrealistic about this. It is a matter of values. The more people have demand for artwork, the more artists will be able to make ends meet. The solution to this is not arguing, beating or medicating artists out of being artists, but cultivating demand for their work.

Once again, there’s nothing un-American about this. This has existed in American history – the time that America achieved its greatness. There is no reason why America in 2020s should be less artistically accomplished than America in 1920s. The American people are as talented now as they were then, and there are more of them. We should have any number of Louis Armstrong’s and T.S. Eliot’s. We should have buildings as beautiful as the Chrysler Building and machinery as beautiful as the Packard. In no way do such things militate against “reality”; they extend it to reaches that it otherwise would not be able to reach by itself.

Why do many people who are involved in the arts drawn to socialism? Probably because they see abuses of capitalism and think that it is the problem with capitalism itself. In fact I’ve known successful businessmen who were highly educated in arts and philosophy. That some in business world see the art world as unrealistic, irrational or narcissistic is not a problem of business. It is a problem of people in business who believe such things. And it is corrected not by pushing for Communist revolution, but by correcting these people’s beliefs.

So yes, it is possible to be an artist without being a Commie. What is needed is stimulating demand for the arts. And this is done as much by convincing people of the arts’ usefulness as it is by producing art that people want to buy.

There is no reason why 2020s should be less roaring than 1920s. Support both business and art. And see the two worlds work together to achieve ever-greater accomplishment in America and everywhere else.