Is Cultural Sponsoring at the Mercy of the Business Sector?

Thomas Rothschild

Among the central questions given us for consideration in preparation for the discussion this evening, there was one that puzzled me considerably. The question was: “Where and how can economic ‘ideas’ be reconciled with societal values?”

At first one is tempted to stop short and ask: what needs to be reconciled here, for what purpose, and what does this have to do with culture and education? But then one notices the implication that economic ideas – even though relativised in the question by quotation marks – and societal values are two different things, and perhaps even irreconcilable. If we follow this thought further, we quickly arrive at the realisation that utility is a societal value that also underlies most economic ideas. However, this value – utility or, as one might also call it, profitability – is not reconcilable with the nature of the arts. The arts are characterised by their lack of utility. If they are subjected to considerations of utility, as is the case in totalitarian political systems, they cease to be art.
This, however, is difficult to explain to representatives of the economic sector, which is one reason why they should not be put in charge of the arts. In the past, secular and church dignitaries did not hesitate to take advantage of the arts in order to increase their own glory. There is no reason to suppose that today’s business kingpins would behave differently.
Another central question relates to current developments and trends. One of these is that government sponsoring is not being provided in areas where private companies, for which sponsoring is a (low-cost) form of advertising, decline to do so, but, on the contrary, public funding tends to go where private funding is already available. In other words: the state is allowing the industrial sector, the banks and the insurance companies to decide which cultural enterprises should be supported. The political sector no longer sees itself as being complementary to the self-serving interests of individual industrialists, but instead is acting, where culture is concerned, as their vicarious agent.