Jon Johanning wrote:

>Assume that the government collects less taxes, or no taxes at all.  This
>would certainly leave the citizens more money to spend, but the amount
>spent on music would mostly be spent on the most popular forms of music,
>not classical music.

Oh, if only were it so -- at least the first part.  In fact, if
governments collected no --or next to no-- taxes, citizens would have
to devote much of their resources (money would not mean much in those
circumstances) on hiring thugs (called guards) to save them from other
thugs, or, if they could, on escaping from such a society.  Not only
classical music but all the arts would be wiped out.  In our times we
have seen, and are now seeing, examples of such events (though, of course,
not merely due to elimination of taxes) in Cambodia, in several African
countries, and elsewhere.

A sad truth is that culture needs an organized society for its existence,
and, even more sadly, bad government is better than no government:  We have
to pay to keep some semblance of social order, which in fact means we have
to pay to protect ourselves --our lives and values-- from other humans.  No
one has found a way having such protection other than by paying for police,
armed forces, etc.  Depressing truth about human nature, I fear.  We make
the beauty, but we make the ugliness, too.

Peter Harzem