This book provides a detailed account, and critique, of diverse approaches to the arts funding question, with a focus on the arm’s length arts councils that are the norm in the Anglo-American world. It builds on economic methods, the liberal-egalitarian framework of John Rawls, the communitarian opposition to the liberal framework, the capabilities approach to equality, and the cultural conservatism of Roger Scruton and others. In each case, the book considers the very practical aspect of public funding of the arts, namely, what are the implications for what ought to receive priority, and what parts of the cultural world are best left to their own, private sector, devices. It is not a work of “arts advocacy”. Rather, the book challenges assumptions, and sparks critical debate in the field.
Author(s): Michael Rushton
Series: New Directions in Cultural Policy Research
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 191
City: London
Acknowledgments
Praise for The Moral Foundations of Public Funding for the Arts
Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction
Why Public Funding for the Arts?
References
Chapter 2: The Economic Method
The Power of Markets
The Arts and Market Failure: Public Goods
The Arts and Market Failure: Externalities
Contingent Valuation
Merit Goods
Implications for Public Funding of the Arts
References
Chapter 3: Liberalism, Neutrality, and the Arts
The Rawlsian Framework
Perfectionism
Dworkin, the Liberal State, and the Arts
Arts Funding in the Liberal State
References
Chapter 4: Egalitarianism and Public Funding for the Arts
Should Income be the Sole Metric and Concern of Inequality?
Equality of What?
Resources
Capabilities
Welfare, and the Problem of Expensive Tastes
References
Chapter 5: Communitarianism
Methodological Individualism
The Communitarian Critique
Communitarianism in the World
References
Chapter 6: Conservatism
The Conservative Disposition
Politics
Cultural Conservatism: Three Poets
A Conservative Arts Policy
References
Chapter 7: Multiculturalism
The Economics of Cultural Diversity
Is Culture a Primary Social Good?
Culture and Recognition
Immigration
Cosmopolitanism
References
Chapter 8: Keynes’s Grandchildren
Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren
My Early Beliefs
Why Public Funding for the Arts?
References
Index
