Don Satz:

>This brings me to one of my pet peeves - public involvement in the arts.
>You always know what a private business wants - money and profit.  What
>do these public and subsidized entities want: money? control? influence?
>reputation? high quality? exposure with celebrities?.  It could be just
>about anything, and it changes quickly as well.  There is also the "mind"
>and "behavior" control element that public bodies place high priority on
>because the power structure wants to retain its position.

Very well put.

>No, I'll take the private way every time when it comes to the arts.  Look
>at the basic functions that Government performs, functions which are not
>viable for private enterprise.  They are performed very poorly, and those
>are the functions Government performs best.

No, those are the functions the U.S.  government performs best.
Governments in some other countries do much better.  I should also say
that there are plenty of things our government does very well indeed, but
the current conservative bent of popular myth-making chooses to ignore
them.  For example, be damn thankful that you're not eating contaminated
meat and that you have a viable system of interstate roads in this country.

>My opinion is that Government needs to stay far away from as many activites
>as possible, because it is inherently inefficient and arbitrary.  Since
>there is no compelling need for public involvement in the arts, this is an
>area for Government to vacate.

There's no compelling need, simply because we don't value art all that
much and, furthermore, as a country we don't know that much about it.
There are bad consequences to lack of government support, but since we
don't seem to care about such consequences - although we bitch about them
plenty; but that's just sport - we can afford the attitude.

On the other hand, it's almost worth it to me for the government to get
out of the arts, just so I don't have to hear Jesse Helms on the subject
ever again.

Steve Schwartz