Music and Markets

Lord knows the Union-Leader editorializes smartly and correctly. Most of the time. Today's editorial about the New Hampshire Symphony thinks too much in market terms, and attempts to commodify culture and the Western heritage of classical music. It reads in part: the number of performances or musicians may have to be cut for falling financial support. However, with continually dwindling resources, there could come a day when the orchestra doesn't have the fan base to stay alive ... The solution? Some will say government funding. But forcing people who don't want to listen to symphonies to pay for them anyway is not the answer. The only options are to increase the number of people who will pay to hear that kind of music, and to increase the amount of money contributed from existing fans. This is the orchestra's challenge. It is a difficult one, but not impossible.

I know budgets are tight and times are hard, but if states follow this market logic and aim cultural investment at those events popular with the public, Janet Jackson will soon be "performing" at a stage near you. A dim majority will opt for boobs over Mozart. Does that mean their choice is a good one? I trust the majority in a grocery store to pick out the best bread, pay for it, and thus use their cash (an economic vote) to set prices and demand. I do not trust the majority to make cultural choices for the whole community, because much like they will fill their bellies with bread that tastes the best, they will fill their minds with culture that tastes the best. That is seldom classical music. Does that mean, because of low demand, classical music has no worth? Because more people watch American Idol does this mean it has more value than PBS' Brideshead Revisited? Marketizing classical music places it in the same category with bread, just another commodity fighting it out in the global marketplace for market share. Yet market value and cultural value, an enduring, thoroughly un-democratic concept that connects communities with their cultural history, are far different things.

Cultural democracy and market logic are an awful way to shape cultural policy (and yes, there should be such a thing). There are certain historical and cultural resources, deep within the Western tradition, that have value apart from the opinions of the multitude, apart from the shifting demands of the market. The Swiss economist and advocate for the Humane Economy (an economy of markets and enduring cultural traditions) Wilhelm Ropke explained it thusly: This tradition has, in the eyes of our mass epoch, two things against itself: the fact that it is 'tradition' and that, necessarily, it is not within everybody's reach, or better, that it presupposes an intellectual hierarchy of people who are able and willing to make a determined effort to acquire it, develop it, and partake of it.

Yet, given proper oversight, why shouldn't a "state" (loosely defined) promote the arts and privilege those with historical roots (and hence evidence of its enduring value and greatness) deep in the Western tradition. So what if a minority or even (heaven forbid) an elite enjoy its blessings. Instead a state should rejoice over the cultural preferences of this remnant, that some within its borders are connected with its historical and cultural traditions. You are not privileging the few; you are privileging the best of what has been thought and written.

It pains me to disagree with the Union-Leader, but they have let their love for the free market conquer all. Sometimes a consumer does not know best.