A Thought Experiment

This will ramble a little, and then I will get to the thought experiment.

I was reading an "art-thotz" piece on The White Pube, well, ok, I was skimming it and then after a little bit skipping great chunks of drivel in a desperate race to reach the end before my soul died. So, I didn't really get all of it. Anyways.

The gist seemed to be that some organization, let's call it the People's Front of Judea, has funding, and some other organization. the Judean People's Front, doesn't. Both seem to be social-justice-focused Art Organizations, I guess. I assume that both produce, essentially, macaroni glued to construction paper with an incoherent essay on the back that says roughly "Colonialism was v. bad why won't anyone talk about that."

The fact that the PFJ was well funded and the JPF not seemed to bother the author. I assume that the PFJ is doing social justice all wrong, and the JPF is doing it right or something. I don't know, and the extent to which I do not care cannot be measured with current technology.

This is, essentially, an oft-repeated refrain: There should be more funding for the arts, but it should go only to good art which is, in a bizarre coincidence, made mainly by me, my friends, and a few other people who agree with us about some things we happen to think are very important.

Here comes the thought experiment: Maybe there shouldn't be any funding at all for arts organizations. This neatly solves the problem of allocating funding to good art, but not to bad art. Indeed, I thought to myself, perhaps there should be a limit on the financial size of privately funded arts organizations, because when you get enough private funding in a pile it turns into a grotesque grift anyways.

How awful! What a barbarian! I hear you thinking.

Here's my clever scheme, though. Rather than funding the PFJ and the JPF and the Tate and the MOMA, why not fund people? Everyone gets a check. Not a huge check. Just some money. Do whatever you want with it. If you want to make some art, go for it. If ten of you want to pool your checks and bootstrap a little gallery, go for it. Start an art school. But keep it pretty small, there's a cap.

I'm not sure how amused I am by the idea of the MOMA and the Tate closing, but I rather like the idea of a rotating cast of little schools and little galleries popping up and failing constantly in every town, almost no matter how small.

Sure, there are technical issues (is a graphic design house an Arts organization?) but it's just a thought experiment. Throw out government funding of Arts Institutions entirely, and give that money equitably and across the board to everyone. See what happens.

Yes, it's Universal Basic Income, wearing a prettier hat.