What kind of social policy would you prefer?

[Machjo]

One thing that has often turned me away from more government intervention in the economy is the lack of grassroots direction. Recently for example the NDP proposed increasing funding for the Canada Council for the arts. As to how much this Council should get would not be decided by the population itself but rather by high-level politicians.

Now I could see three ways for any level of government to fund the arts:

1. Reduce overall government spending and let the market decide, something many economic liberals would agree with.
2. At the provincial level, increase funding for education, introduce a school voucher system, and let the parents and students decide. If the government feels that arts spending should be mandatory for example, then it could always make arts educaion mandatory for soe many years, let's say ages 5-15 or something of the sort, but still letting the parents decide what school will benefit from that voucher.
3. Have Parliament decide how much money this group or that group gets.

These solutions are clearly placed in order of most free-market oriented to most top-down. I would lean towards the first or the second option myself. What I don't get is, even if we decide that there is a need for more government intervention in the economy, why the government is not capable of using its imagination to find ways of being more involved in such a way as to still allow grassroots involvment in determining where that government funding should go. At least under a school voucher system each parent or student could decide how much money this group or that group gets, unlike top-down funding for an elite Council.

 

[Said1]

I would prefer one that caters to my every whim. You never know, i may ask for reduced government spending.....in your area.....

 

[taxslave]

For some reason those on the far left seem to feel that they have a right to be paid for bad art because they made it and that is what they want to do. Of course very little art is sold for millions or even sold just as very few writers sell millions of books and thousands of wanna be actors serve food until they are discovered, again something that rarely happens. And since leftys like to take money from those that work hard and contribute to society to give it to those that do not feel like having a real job to buy their votes. All of this wouldn't be so bad or expensive if not for all the parasites in the middle that "administrate" the money. As far as I am concerned if you can't make a living off your art it is probably bad and you should consider it a hobby and get a real job and pay taxes instead of living off them.

 

[damngrumpy]

First of all the arts community must make a commitment of some kind to bring the
next generation of artists along. Secondly we do need art and we need it to pay off
domestically. Art should also be a tax reduced or almost tax free. No I am not part
of the art world, if I drew a picture you would pay me to destroy it, if I sing little birds
die, and if I dance women are afraid I am terrible.
Art is part of the advancement of mankind but when we advance the profile of art
the artists must reach out to the next generation of up and coming artists

 

[Machjo]

First of all the arts community must make a commitment of some kind to bring the
next generation of artists along. Secondly we do need art and we need it to pay off
domestically. Art should also be a tax reduced or almost tax free. No I am not part
of the art world, if I drew a picture you would pay me to destroy it, if I sing little birds
die, and if I dance women are afraid I am terrible.
Art is part of the advancement of mankind but when we advance the profile of art
the artists must reach out to the next generation of up and coming artists

Wouldn't simply making art education compulsory in school and going to a school voucher system achieve just that? Artists would ahve an intereste to go to art school or teachers' college to get the qualitfications to teach art in school. This woudl serve multiple goals at the same time. It would promote art by having it taught in school, create jobs for arts teachers, many of whom would likely be artists in their free time, and make these same arts teachers responsive to parents and students to attract vouchers in their school's direction. This would seem far more efficient than just throwing money to an Arts Council with no clear objective.

But beyond art alone, we could apply a similar principle to sports too. Rather than give money to the Olympic Committee, why not just make PE compulsory in schools and increase the value of school voucehrs and then let the market decide.

In many of these cases I'd rather leave it to the private sector alone. But if we insist on government intervention, then integrating such policies into school voucher programmes wold ensure that all benefit equally and that all ahve a say in the direction it takes to some degree. I've given arts and sports as examples here, but we could apply a similar principle to probably many otehr areas too.

 

[petros]

A "stay the **** out of my wallet" policy.

 

[weaselwords]

Rather than social policy what we are looking at here is more along the lines of cultural policy. My view of the arts is laissez faire. Those "patrons" of a specific art form or cultural form should be more than willing to cover the cost of it. Government should not be in the business of subsidising art or culture it is a black hole that is never filled & there are always new hands grasping for funds. Government involvment should only to allow a charitable tax deduction of 1 to 1.

 

[Omicron]

One thing that has often turned me away from more government intervention in the economy is the lack of grassroots direction.

Two things:

1) You've got it backwards.

It's because people don't get educated in order to intelligently direct their own democracy that governments get totalitarian.

2) From day one (meaning some time around 9000 BC) government came into being specifically to regulate things because as soon as humans get into population groups larger than about 600 their social instincts are no longer capable of regulating things.

What happened was that humans shifted to agriculture, causing settlements larger than 600 to develop, such that it was no longer possible to tell if a person walking down the street was a known commodity, dangerous or otherwise.

Human psychology can handle social organization of 600 people, after which it becomes theoretical and legalistic.

That's why no tribe nor Hutterite Colony ever gets bigger than that. When they get that big they split.

As soon as you go over 600 people you will need government, and the quality of government you get will be determined by how well educated the citizens are.

 

[PoliticalNick]

Rather than social policy what we are looking at here is more along the lines of cultural policy. My view of the arts is laissez faire. Those "patrons" of a specific art form or cultural form should be more than willing to cover the cost of it. Government should not be in the business of subsidising art or culture it is a black hole that is never filled & there are always new hands grasping for funds. Government involvment should only to allow a charitable tax deduction of 1 to 1.

I agree right up to the tax deduction. If you allow a 1to 1 deduction then the govt is still paying the bill.

I usally fall on the left of social politics but art is one issue where I don't. I don't mind having it in school to grade 8 even 9 and art should be available to grade 12 as an elective. My kid's school offers many art electives including dance. I don't even mind art schools being part of free post-secondary education if we were to move towards that policy. I do draw the line with tax dollars going to support starving artists and fringe festivals and the like. There are certain places government doesn't belong and a patron of the arts is one of them. You can even call it culture to give it a better face but I would counter with Timmys and Mcdonalds are bigger parts of our culture and we don't hand them millions.

 

[weaselwords]

By 1 to 1 iIdidn't mean a government contribution equal to the donation, I just meant the deduction from gross income be equal to the donation.

 

[Machjo]

Rather than social policy what we are looking at here is more along the lines of cultural policy. My view of the arts is laissez faire. Those "patrons" of a specific art form or cultural form should be more than willing to cover the cost of it. Government should not be in the business of subsidising art or culture it is a black hole that is never filled & there are always new hands grasping for funds. Government involvment should only to allow a charitable tax deduction of 1 to 1.

I like that and never thought of it. Silly me. Of course. If government absolutel insists on fculture funding, then simply make income tax charity deductible on a 1:1 ratio. Seeing that I'd proposed that kind of policy before, I can only kick myself for not having thought of that in this thread.

Two things:

1) You've got it backwards.

It's because people don't get educated in order to intelligently direct their own democracy that governments get totalitarian.

2) From day one (meaning some time around 9000 BC) government came into being specifically to regulate things because as soon as humans get into population groups larger than about 600 their social instincts are no longer capable of regulating things.

What happened was that humans shifted to agriculture, causing settlements larger than 600 to develop, such that it was no longer possible to tell if a person walking down the street was a known commodity, dangerous or otherwise.

Human psychology can handle social organization of 600 people, after which it becomes theoretical and legalistic.

That's why no tribe nor Hutterite Colony ever gets bigger than that. When they get that big they split.

As soon as you go over 600 people you will need government, and the quality of government you get will be determined by how well educated the citizens are.

So then you'd agree that any public arts funding ought to be via the education system so as to ensure people are educate in the arts, rather than just have government dictate to the ignorant masses what good art is, right?

I agree right up to the tax deduction. If you allow a 1to 1 deduction then the govt is still paying the bill.

I usally fall on the left of social politics but art is one issue where I don't. I don't mind having it in school to grade 8 even 9 and art should be available to grade 12 as an elective. My kid's school offers many art electives including dance. I don't even mind art schools being part of free post-secondary education if we were to move towards that policy. I do draw the line with tax dollars going to support starving artists and fringe festivals and the like. There are certain places government doesn't belong and a patron of the arts is one of them. You can even call it culture to give it a better face but I would counter with Timmys and Mcdonalds are bigger parts of our culture and we don't hand them millions.

I can agree to that. Again, while we can debate whether government ought to fund culture, once we decide it ought to , then we ought to ensure that it at least benefit all equally at the grass roots, and not just some elite bureaucracy in Ottawa.