Re: GG: Kunst ist tot?

[Alun Severn <alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk>]

(Let me preface these remarks by assuring List members that this will
(almost) certainly be my first, last and only political rant on this
otherwise refined List!)

Alun Severn said:

>> If it don't sell, it don't get stocked. However, this isn't necessarily
>the same thing as the death of
>> culture (or classical music or whatever). It's just capitalism
>illustrating
>> its ruthless drive for markets
>
Harry Collier replied:

>Some strange logic here ! Presumably, if it doesn't sell, it suggests that
>no one really wants it. ........

====No! Just that not *enough* people want it for it to provide the
required level of profit. That's why most civilised countries subsidise the
arts and culture (as indeed many recordings are subsidised by the Arts
Councils or whatever -- though not to the end customer, of course: that
might harm corporate profit).

>And if no one really wants it, what's the point of
>keeping it on the market? But if plenty of people want it, capitalism will
>make sure it's on the market!
>
>What would you substitute? A committee of experts that decides what people
>are, and are not, to be offered?


AS further said:

I'd have any system that recognised other values and imperatives beyond
those of corporate profit; that wasn't prepared to lay waste culture,
heritage, jobs, natural resources, developing countries, whatever, in the
pursuit of profit.

- Alun

===============================================================
Alun Severn    snailmail:     1 Chestnut Rd  Oldbury
                              West Midlands  B68 0AX   England
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                email:        alun@ukiah.demon.co.uk
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"...[it is] my sober conviction that no piano need feel
    duty-bound to always sound like a piano."   - Glenn Gould
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