Popular Music and Social Democracy
Cato’s Ilya Shapiro says Michael Jackson makes the case for capitalism:
The King of Pop’s creativity allowed him and his family to make hundreds of millions of dollars, yes, but it also created thousands of jobs in the music and marketing industries and brought joy to fans around the world. Whatever his personal eccentricities — perhaps, in part, as a result of them — Jackson represents a capitalist success story.
No central planner could have invented him, and no government bureaucracy could have transformed pop music in the way he did.
It’s unquestionably true that central planning’s record in pop music is extremely poor, though they did okay in film, but this seems to have limited relevance to our current policy debates. Suppose that Jackson had paid somewhat higher taxes over the course of his career, and that the funds had gone to provide nutritious meals to poor children? I think the world of pop music would have been just about as strong under that scenario, but America as a whole would also be a stronger and more just society. After all, among non-Anglophone countries I think you’d have to say that it’s Sweden which has had the most pop music success. High tax rates don’t seem to discourage their music entrepreneurs.
What’s more, if you consider musicians operating outside of the “child star with horribly abusive father” paradigm, I think it’s clear that a more social democratic system is going to be advantageous. Consider that in the United States quitting your day job to focus on your promising band can have dire implications for your ability to obtain health insurance. This is particularly the case if you have the misfortune of a pre-existing medical condition. An up-and-coming Canadian or British guitarist is taking a financial risk by choosing to focus on the band, but an American can be really putting his life on the line.
77 Responses to “Popular Music and Social Democracy”
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June 26th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
So if Jackson had taken home a bit less, while the lower-paid members of the thousands of supporting people in the music industry had taken home a bit more, would Jackson’s music have never happened?
Indeed, if ever there was a personal demonstration of the diminishing marginal utility of money, isn’t it Jackson?
June 26th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Shapiro forgot other only-in-America geniuses the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
“Limited relevance to our current policy debates.” Hmmm. I don’t see Obama openly advocating Swedish-style top marginal tax rates. I do see him “not running” car companies, and “not running” banks. I also see exceptional confidence on the Left that central planning is desirable in the field of health care.
I also see a post just below this one in which you talk about how well central planning worked in building the nuclear bomb and the lunar landing, with the implicit suggestion that this is relevant to our current policy debates.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
That cato postis the most retarted thing i’ve read since that dumbass anti-soccer essay yesterday.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
After all, among non-Anglophone countries I think you’d have to say that it’s Sweden which has had the most pop music success. High tax rates don’t seem to discourage their music entrepreneurs…An up-and-coming Canadian or British guitarist is taking a financial risk by choosing to focus on the band, but an American can be really putting his life on the line.
Eeeeyeah. I’m not going to dispute your basic point, but in my experience, being able to easily earn a living wage is the overwhelming determining factor– much larger than tax rates or health insurance– for artistic entrepreneurship.
In 1973, Patti Smith could earn enough working part-time in a bookstore to rent a loft (at 18th and Park, apparently) large enough for her band to practice in. This is obviously no longer the case.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Consider that in the United States quitting your day job to focus on your promising band can have dire implications for your ability to obtain health insurance. This is particularly the case if you have the misfortune of a pre-existing medical condition. An up-and-coming Canadian or British guitarist is taking a financial risk by choosing to focus on the band, but an American can be really putting his life on the line.
I am not sure about the American musician, but a Canadian or British guitarist is less accountable to an audience as opposed to whatever muse he or she chooses to follow. This may end up being a triumph of the individual soul, but it may just end up with a lot of preening nonsense (verging on anti-social violence) when a promising musician would otherwise be persuaded by financial realities to work to an audience with good taste. The Archbishop of Salzburg for example as in the case of Mozart or the clubs of the 1920s and 1930s for Duke Ellington. I am pretty sure that the pain that can come with poverty is worse than any alleged benefits of “making you want to earn it,” and the benefits of progressive taxation are better than the alleged downsides of discouraging productivity, but MAYBE there is an important lesson about responsibility to society somewhere in there (which is different based on the circumstances of different societies). But how to balance these issues?
Oh right, a less big deal than poverty itself. And oh right, the answer may just be quality education.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
blahlblahblahignoreme
June 26th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Consider that in the United States quitting your day job to focus on your promising band can have dire implications for your ability to obtain health insurance. This is particularly the case if you have the misfortune of a pre-existing medical condition. An up-and-coming Canadian or British guitarist is taking a financial risk by choosing to focus on the band, but an American can be really putting his life on the line.
Ex-Wilco guitarist Jay Bennett, who was tormented by hip pain and was trying to get together money for a hip replacement, died a month ago from an accidental painkiller overdose. He did not have health insurance; his hip pain was a preexisting condition. Yay, free market.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Shapiro forgot other only-in-America geniuses the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.
Don’t forget the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana. And Yanni.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
I also see exceptional confidence on the Left that central planning is desirable in the field of health care.
Health care insurance, actually. The constituency for government running health care in general seem pretty low in the U.S., even among “the Left” (unless you are defining “the Left” in very narrow terms).
In other words, think Medicare, not VA.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
In a related story, Felix Salmon wrote a nice little piece about the benefits of state-supported art in last months’ Atlantic. He noted that the government helped to fund Jackson Pollack…so I guess some Jackson’s can succeed in an evil apparatus after all.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
among non-Anglophone countries I think you’d have to say that it’s Sweden which has had the most pop music success. High tax rates don’t seem to discourage their music entrepreneurs.
Which calls for Wyatt Cenak’s visit to Robyn’s crib.
Whatever his personal eccentricities — perhaps, in part, as a result of them — Jackson represents a capitalist success story.
Indeed. Only capitalism allows an individual to have $500m in debts. Cato is funny.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Honestly, that Cato link is some of the most hilarious self-parody I’ve ever witnessed.
I mean, here we have an extremely talented megastar who makes massively huge amounts of money, which he uses to surround himself with enabling yes-men and insulate himself from reality, alter his own appearance in bizarre ways, obtain large amounts of pharmaceuticals from quack doctors, acquire a pet chimp, purchase his own private amusement park which he used to surround himself with children whom he allegedly molested, pay a multi-million dollar out-of-court settlement to one of these children and spread millions more around to trial lawyers… and so on, and so forth. Yay, capitalism!
Michael Jackson, as a young man, was immensely talented. And I’m quite sure that he did more valuable and original work under his own creative control than he would have in a Soviet-style arts bureaucracy, but his personal life is a giant, flashing billboard for social democracy.
Can anyone say with a straight face that it served either the public good or Michael Jackson’s own best interest to insulate his vast personal fortune from confiscatory taxation? Or to let him make his own medical decisions without interference from nanny state bureaucrats? Please. That man needed a 90% pay cut and a whole hell of a lot less personal freedom.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
That cato postis the most retarted thing i’ve read since that dumbass anti-soccer essay yesterday.
Everything you read at Cato is the dumbest thing you’ve ever read since the last time you read something at Cato.
a Canadian or British guitarist is less accountable to an audience as opposed to whatever muse he or she chooses to follow.
That’s your argument? That the audience suffers because such hypothetical musicians can manage a subsistence-level lifestyle holding down a day job without having to worry about health insurance? That’s even dumber than the hypothetical Cato post I will read tomorrow after today’s Cato post.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
As an additional politically correct caveat to my first comment on this thread I should say that just because people have power or money does not mean they are more likely to have good taste. There are a lot of things relating obedience to those with more power than you and social (or aesthetic) responsibility, but they are definitely not the same thing.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
That’s your argument? That the audience suffers because such hypothetical musicians can manage a subsistence-level lifestyle holding down a day job without having to worry about health insurance? That’s even dumber than the hypothetical Cato post I will read tomorrow after today’s Cato post.
Tyro, if you read my comment in more detail you will notice I do not say government-supported health-insurance ro the welfare state in general is bad. Additionally, your mention of people “holding down a day job” is curious; the general context of this post is based on people quitting day jobsto become full-time musicians.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
I agree with those saying Michael Jackson was a poor example for CATO to pick. I always think of that scene in Three Kings where the Iraqi blames Mark Walberg’s America for messing up Michael’s head.
People will have to agree that no central planner could create “street” magicians/illusionists like David Blaine and Criss Angel? No?
June 26th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
From a clearer perspective, people are more likely to make better music when they are not living in deep poverty caused by having to pay for high health costs out of pocket. So, yes, I understand the many benefits of universal health-care in this specific context in addition to the clear humanitarian benefits for individual people.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Superstars like MJ may keep more of their millions here in America, but up-and-coming musicians do much better in Europe.
Not only is there a dole that they can subsist on for years, and universal health coverage, there is also generous arts funding. American musicians I know are amazed when they go to Europe on tour and find that not only will they get paid to perform, but their room and board are also paid for, and their hosts are likely take them out to a nice dinner on the government’s dime as well.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Interesting that conservatives don’t seem to be arguing the whole “tax on charity thing” here — probably because most kids are better off without his “charity”.
“After all, among non-Anglophone countries I think you’d have to say that it’s Sweden which has had the most pop music success.”
Not saying much for non-Anglophone music, is it? I mean ABBA, for f***’s sake?
June 26th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
@point: Britney Spears may for better or worse be US American but the musical brains of her early career were Swedes. Local musical schools and a dose of non-Conformist churches seem to be part of the explanation.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:15 pm
What is Motown? Given a talented, but otherwise normal 5-year-old, it produced…well, whatever the hell he was.
Artistic decentralization is a relatively new (and very, very old) phenomenon. It takes a machine like Hollywood or the recording industry to make someone not only a star, but the only game in town. And a machine like that can only survive when technology permits (and only permits) widespread, uni-directional communication.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
“Britney Spears may for better or worse be US American but the musical brains of her early career were Swedes.”
Don’t make my points for me Jacob…
June 26th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
Fred Astaire called Michael the greatest dancer ever. He might be right. It is hard to tell, because there really isn’t that much footage of Michael dancing. Some videos and some concert footage and not much else.
Thanks to central planning, we can watch Fred Astaire dance to our hearts delight. In fact, we can watch so much of Fred dancing we literally want to puke.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
If people do not need to be accountable to an employer for a subsistence livelihood (however that may be defined), then they do not need to be accountable to an employer (which in the case of an aspiring musician would include his or her audience, which would also include grant-makers from government-support endowments) for a subsistence livelihood. Now it is not at all clear why I would assume that this will (as opposed to nuanced speculation using the word “may”- which also included early modern patronage arrangements, which are different from a laissez faire situation) lead to better music. One needs a very high understanding of audiences with money or power and a very low understanding of musicians (their musicial taste and their response to economic incentives of appealing to an audience) to reach that conclusion (even in the case of TOTAL ECONOMIC EQUALITY, which is not at all being discussed, whereby there are no economic incentives to appealing to an audience). Good thing I did not actually support that position.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
@Point – In terms of Swedish pop music, you have to think indie rock – The Knife, Jose Gonzalez, I’m From Barcelona, Dungen, Robyn, Jens Lekman, Peter Bjorn & John, The Shout Out Louds…
June 26th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
The problem with central planners is not that they fail to create good art. The problem is that they tend to squelch good art that percolates up from the bottom or is cultivated by the wealthy patron class. The role of government, to the extent there is one, is to create the conditions that will expose young people to art, music and literature and to extend a generous enough social safety net so that budding geniuses do not decide to ditch their artistic pursuits for an office job.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Why do they have to make EVERYTHING about politics?? Not just politics but the left-right divide and why their side is correct. And these people wonder over their close proximity to the adjective soulless? Sheesh.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Here in Austin, the music capital of the world :-^, the Health Alliance for Austin Muscicians often hosts gigs to gather money for other musicians health care.
Randists might think this great but it creates a huge barrier to entry.
The point is: portable health insurance frees people to consider running an independent business — like being a Musician.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
I’m From Barcelona is Swedish????? I guess so–I must have had them confused with the Catalonian band, I’m From Goteborg.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
The most important thing for music is the ability of the musician to make music, and not necessarily (1) a need to appeal to an audience or (2) the positive impact of appealing to an audience.
For those reasons a misinterpreted version of my nuanced speculation as supporting the Cato Institute line is not necessarily convincing, but it is not clear that it would rank among the stupidest things written by Cato Institute people.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:30 pm
I dunno, Matt, I think there might be a good point for the libertarians here. A stronger state might have taken the Jackson kids away from their parents, preventing them from being beaten into making wonderful music.
Shapiro forgot other only-in-America geniuses the Beatles, Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.
I’m sure after Mick Jagger dies, someone from Cato will tell us all about how he was inspired to start the Rolling Stones after studying the works of Ludwig von Mises while at the London School of Economics.
I’d bet good money that if someone leaked naked pictures of Ilya Shapiro onto the internet, he would be embarrassed. And yet he seems to have voluntarily posted this for everyone to see. Ah, the mysteries of human nature.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
So, my lesson from the Cato article is that capitalism is good at what it does best – creating lots of choices for nonessential goods and services. How does that lesson apply to any of the pressing issues of the day for which capitalism is ill-suited?
(I’m embarrassed to have been a proud supporter of Cato in the past. In my weak defense, they were a pit stop on the journey from the GOP to progressive Democrat. It was a long journey!)
June 26th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
rea: Related to that, Of Montreal is an American band. And um I am not knowledgeable enough at music to think of any other examples.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
“Is not necessarily convincing” should read “is necessarily unconvincing.” Heavy-handed abandonment of phrases which attempt to be wry need to be abandoned because of the nature of blog comments sections.
In any event, the logic about the arts applies also to other areas of human endeavor….
“The most important thing for BLANK is the ability of one to BLANK OR NOT TO BLANK (which people can nurture in the context of freedom from want or oppression), and not necessarily (1) a need to appeal to an employer or (2) the positive impact of appealing to an employer.”
This seems like a basic principle of liberalism.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Can we also take this moment to reflect on the fact that Michael Jackson would have been just as prolific even if the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act had not lengthened the term of protection to such a ridiculous length.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
Sweden actually does a lot more to promote Swedish indie bands than merely to provide an excellent general social safety net:
“Anyone can get money for guitar strings, or form a studiocirkel – a group of individuals who apply for government funding for rehearsal rooms.”
It’s not just luck or talent that made you hear Peter, Bjorn and John, or The Cardigans. They got a lot of push from the Swedish bureaucrats. Thanks a lot bureaucrats!
June 26th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
John
Will get back to you on mentioned bands when I get working YouTube — few hours.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Related to the bands with lying names: Beirut is from the US, not Lebanon, Architecture in Helsinki is from Australia, not Finland, Calexico is from the US, not Mexico (although one band member lived directly across the border from Calexico, mex. IIRC) and Forward, Russia is from the UK, not Russia.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:55 pm
Except I forgot where Calexico is so forget that one.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Related to the bands with lying names: Beirut is from the US…
The Brazilian Girls are not only not from Brazil, they’re mostly not women.
June 26th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
Or girls.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
A central planner certainly did invent, market, and sell him. Some bureaucrat at CBS Records.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
You as well, uh, John…
Though I don’t know how thankful listeners really ought to be to Swedish bureaucrats for “Young Folks” (we get it, you’re “independent”, you don’t care what anybody else thinks, you’re a freaking “free spirit” — and you’re animated, so you’re original, yay…)
June 26th, 2009 at 5:04 pm
Shapiro is obviously ignoring the success of Commie and the Bureaucrats, and their smash hits Waiting in Line and Triplicate.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Any word from CATO re Michael Jackson leaving his creditors holding the bag for $300 MILLION?
Yep, that sounds like the Captains of Commerce we have today.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
He would’ve brought a lot more joy to the world if his copyrights expired with him. More people would hear his songs and we would all be spared the agony of his would-be heirs crawling out of the woodwork to sue one another over royalties.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
More seriously, as a performing musician, I’ve had to give up any ambitions for making a living as a musician, not because of a lack of desire, but because I have a preexisting condition that makes it essentially impossible to buy my own health insurance. I could probably make an OK living as a freelance music teacher & make some extra cash performing and touring, but as it stands, I have a job that pays the bills and I moonlight. Not such an unusual set of circumstances in the US.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
After all, among non-Anglophone countries I think you’d have to say that it’s Sweden which has had the most pop music success.
Relative to population size, a stronger case could perhaps be made for Iceland.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
I see that Cato’s Ilya Shapiro does not have comments at his blog. I suppose that’s helpful if you refer to someone who died while $300 Million in DEBT as ” a capitalist success story” .
After all, the Titans of Wall Street whose cocks CATO sucks stuck the taxpayers with a $10 TRILLION bailout. By that standard, Jackson was not that much of a success.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:45 pm
By the way, why aren’t Cato pundits like Shapiro starving. On a musical scale, they have done little more than play Chopsticks for the past 20 years.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
The existence of the sublimest art, let alone that of some rock musician, is never justified by any widespread suffering if there is a necessary connection between the art and the suffering. This Cato writer surely wouldn’t argue that Stalinism was a good thing because it produced Khatchaturian or Shostakovich or whoever. A market society really shouldn’t be viewed any differently: if you could only have universal health care, or Michael Jackson, you’d have to be a monster to choose the latter (to speak precisely, if the only bad consequence to an expanded welfare state were the loss of fairly engaging popular performers, you’d have to be a monster to opt for the vibrancy of the culture over the material well-being of the populace).
June 26th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Michael Jackson would have been just as prolific even if the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act had not lengthened the term of protection
Though it was Paul McCartney who advised him that the real money lay in publishing rights. Which is why he bought the ATV catalogue, including most Beatles songs, in 1984 at what now looks like a bargain price of $47m. (Sony paid $95m in 1995 to merge ATV with Sony Publishing in a 50-50 joint venture.)
June 26th, 2009 at 6:16 pm
How about a political system in which the ruling class is formed by sportsmen (hunting, jousting etc.), who employ artists (minstrels, painters, architects) and lord over serfs?
The quality of artistic achievements clearly colors our assessment of feudalism. Surely, oppressing peasant was not right … but someone had to do it, and why not in an aesthetic manner?
June 26th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
The UK and Canada have contributed rather a lot to rock and roll, even though they have a lot of socialist policies.
Now the truth is, rock music (like most folk musics) has traditionally come from the poor and working class, and there’s no doubt that the more prosperous the populace, the happier the children and families, the fewer breakout innovative rock musicians you’re likely to see. So mild oppression and huge differences between rich and poor, not to mention economic and racial segregation, probably inspire great rock music… but I don’t think that’s what this person is bragging about.
Ireland was for centuries oppressed and kept direly poor, and was disproportionally a fertile place for music, poetry, fiction, and drama. But that’s probably not a great reason to keep a country oppressed and poor.
Miserable families also lead to creative musicians. Even in the Beatles, Paul McCartney (whose parents gave him a poor but stable childhood) suffered the trauma (like Lennon) of losing his mother early. It’s a wonderful testament to the human spirit that some take the worst of life and make art of it.
However, I don’t think that’s a call to oppress countries, impoverish communities, or orphan children. And it’s also not a good reason to keep the risky “free market” (what a joke) economy.
June 26th, 2009 at 6:21 pm
I’m sure Cato would agree that state-controlled pornography is highly unerotic.
Behold the free market!
June 26th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Jackson was part of a phenomenon that goes back to Mozart: super-talented kids whose ambitious, overbearing parents seek to extract every penny (and ounce of fame) they can out of the child’s gifts. Modern technological, cultural, and media incentives make these kids’ lives more potentially lucrative and more potentially destructive to the kid’s brain. Obvious examples – Britney and Lindsay. Whatever these messed-up lives argue for, it isn’t capitalism.
No, i’m not blaming capitalism for these tragic live; the causality is much more complicated. And I am certain that the emotional lives of many talented kids were destroyed by the Soviet medal-winning establishment (no need to even mention the Gulag). All I’m saying is that MJ’s life was not a success story for capitalism
June 26th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
But, you’ve got to suffer if youre going to sing the blues . . .
June 26th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
@alkali I didn’t know that side of the story about Bennett. I wish that element had been more widely publicized.
“Ex-Wilco guitarist Jay Bennett, who was tormented by hip pain and was trying to get together money for a hip replacement, died a month ago from an accidental painkiller overdose. “
June 26th, 2009 at 7:50 pm
@ pseudonymous in nc
“among non-Anglophone countries I think you’d have to say that it’s Sweden which has had the most pop music success. High tax rates don’t seem to discourage their music entrepreneurs.
Which calls for Wyatt Cenak’s visit to Robyn’s crib.”
A better example of Logam I’ve not seen in American media.
As an American, I find that sort of conformity a bit stifling. (The conformity in Sweden in general is stifling to me as an American.) That said, America could be a hell of a lot closer to a Robyn society than to a 50 Cent society.
June 26th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
@John Voorheis
The only act out of your list that is a real talent is Jose Gonzalez. He competes with any of the contemporary singer-songwriters. But the others? OK, at best. I mean, if I want the Cure, I’ll listen to the Cure and avoid the Cure-Lite Shout Out Louds.
________
Just as the Germans dominated in music from 1700-1900-or-so, so now the Anglo-Americans dominate. Per capita, the English win hands down.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:40 pm
The existence of the sublimest art, let alone that of some rock musician, is never justified by any widespread suffering if there is a necessary connection between the art and the suffering.
This is very true, and the “if there is a necessary connection” is a very valuable statement too.
If the choice is between suffering and work, people will work (although that work may involve a violent downward redistribution of resources to alleviate that threat of suferring).
If the choice, in a welfare state, is between work and play, people will choose differently depending on their priorities. Some people will work for others. Other people will engage in harmless welfare-state fun like the British and Canadian guitar players cited in Yglesias’ post (some of whom will prosper and create prosperity, however defined, by being enabled by the welfare state to ignore the short-term interests of the audience [This is an obvious point. It is not dumber than the post on Cato you will read tomorrow after the one today {as opposed to the one you will read tomorrow before the one today |yes this is unnecessarily defensive|}] and some of whom will just use this freedom to self-indulge pointlessly {as I said in one of my comments it is unrealistic to have such a high opinion of audiences that artists must be completely dependent on them [the logic applies to other efforts too]}) or like somebody who would just prefer to watch television (there are not actually that many of these people although they blur in with self-indulgent artists in the previous category) Some people will engage in anti-social behavior, but because of the human soul and the quality education provided by societies (socialization so to speak), which includes but is not limited to education in school, this is not going to be increased much by those who opt for the alleged delights of indolence available in a welfare state as opposed to a capitalist state. The welfare state does not change human nature; it allows the individual to grow in the context of human nature.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
The welfare state does not change human nature; it allows the individual to grow in the context of human nature.
Assuming that influential people are not hostile to the glory of human nature and work to influence society in this way.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
It takes a born artist to endure the labor of becoming one.
~Gertrude Stein
It takes a trust fund to support it.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
One more thing, I do realize that universal health-care can in some cases be more of a short-term necessity in terms of individuals (as opposed to the economy) than a long-term livelihood that would appeal to many people, contributing to unemployment or self-employment, but that is a very subtle distinction and does not change the general preference of my arguments.
One more one more thing, Moral Panicker is a provacateur. He does not acutally share all of the beliefs of the person who types the Moral Panicker’s words.
One more one more one more thing, I too don’t get Gertrude Stein. But what do I know.
blahblahblahignoreme
June 26th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Harry Lime Conservatism strikes again!
June 26th, 2009 at 11:37 pm
Remember the presidential campaign? Both Obama and McCain had ABBA on their iPods.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:50 pm
My brother and I were looking at this impressive building the other day, a red brick VA hospital with all sorts of artistic flairs -a truly superb example of master bricklaying technique. We spent a half an hour canvassing the building, contemplating and discussing the staggering amount of work and artisanship that went into it.
My brother asked me when I thought it was built. I started laughing and poked him repeatedly in the chest with my forefinger -punishment for asking a rhetorical question. “When was all our cool stuff built?”
You could spend the rest of your life touring this country examining creations of government paid artists and artisans from the period 1933-1941.
Did central planners castrate these people’s artistic vision? Not often. For the most part they allocated money, space, and time, and said “go to it.”
June 27th, 2009 at 1:27 am
One more one more thing, Moral Panicker is a provacateur. He does not acutally share all of the beliefs of the person who types the Moral Panicker’s words.
Petey and, to a degree, Al, is a much better implementer of that shtick. You come across as a pedantic but ignorant fuckstick.
June 27th, 2009 at 4:45 am
Related to the bands with lying names: Beirut is from the US, not Lebanon, Architecture in Helsinki is from Australia, not Finland, Calexico is from the US, not Mexico (although one band member lived directly across the border from Calexico, mex. IIRC) and Forward, Russia is from the UK, not Russia.
What, no mention of Scotland’s finest, the Bay City [MI] Rollers?
June 27th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
Sweden’s authors don’t do quite as well, Matt.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:56 am
Besides that as many already pointed out, his money and freedom did neither society nor Jackson any good, theres also this old boring aspect of specialisation.
By the way: What all those sucesfull music countries including Sweden have in common is a population that speaks English.
June 28th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Cuba produces a fair amount of good popular music, don’t they? And if we move on to other forms of art, the superlative painting and sculpture of the Italian Renaissance, which the combined labors of all the expressionists, impressionists, pointillists, cubists, absurdists, surrealists, abstractionists, mannerists, modernists, postmodernists, transgressivists, and every other flavor-of-the-month Georgetown-cocktail-party school of art since then have yet not equalled, were produced on demand from a central authority (i.e. the Church of Rome). If church funding could produce the Pieta of Michaelangelo, then I fail to see just why state funding could not produce things equally funding (as long as the state is a sensible state, not in the thrall of postmodernist ideas about art).
The plain truth is that it isn’t state funding that is bad for art, it’s Modernism and its associated ideological fads, and in general the overly soft, bourgeoisified lifestyle of the modern West.
As for Michael Jackson, if Swedish social democracy will produce fewer Neverland Ranches then that’s a very strong argument for Swedish model. Time was that socialists would point to Michael Jackson as a perfect example of the fundamental decadence of bourgeois society. It is quite true that Sweden would not have produced a Michael Jackson. Simply put, Michael Jackson exemplifies the American worship of freedom, pleasure, and wealth, and the Swedes are much too sensible to produce a fellow like him.
June 28th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
As we have, and have always had to some extent a mixed economy (see: the Homestead Act, army procurement, government interference in labour’s ability to come here from abroad, high tariffs as we were coming up), it is always possible for proponents of pure capitalism or socialism to credit the parts of our society they like to the part of the nature of our economy they like, and the obvious opposite.
Jackson is an interesting case, as he evidently didn’t even receive much public schooling, so I guess both his success and some of his weirdness could be described as pure market productions; more generally, I think it’s harder to conscientiously ascribe in the way described above…I think Mr Yglesias’ methodology used here is a decent start though: if more or less Gummint Interference can produce great pop success, it can’t be an absolutely determinative factor…similarly (and to deal with an error _I_ might make) the fact that relatively homogeneous societies also have lots of absurd drugs laws, so it’s not racism alone that produces such.
June 29th, 2009 at 7:50 am
It should be noted that Quincy Jones approached Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus from ABBA to write some songs for MJ’s Thriller album. They were too busy with their musical chess, so couldn’t do it. But in any case, dissing ABBA does not make you look cool.
June 29th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
the “capitalism” of the music industry is what MJ fought to escape and led to the brilliance of “Thriller.” There is no way the capitalists in the recording industry would have let him release that if he had not been allowed his freedoms. and to say there is no stunning creativity in socialistic societies seems to ignore the brilliance of soviet ballet and gymnastics. Sure, they all made more money outside those systems (that’s why so many defected) but would they have been so great if it were not for the intense scouting, development, training and performances that were part of their live in the Soviet Union. And no one will ever see such a spectacle as the 2008 Olympics Opening from any country other than China.
June 29th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Can we all at least agree that art that depends on child abuse is a bad thing?