Clarification: No Artist Deserves to be Paid. Not Even You.
The Arts, Milton Friedman (Tragically Wrong), Adam Smith (Still Right), and Why
Maybe I’m not being clear.
The nonprofit arts industry — art as a charitable act, if you will — continues to act in crisis mode; as though it and it alone is suffering the losses from the pandemic and bad management.
News flash:
Artists are starving more than usual. Just like workers in other industries.
There is even less work than usual. Just like other industries, except for the tech sector.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already threatening to reduce the number of professional artists necessary for a given project — just like professionals in other industries.
If you read Ashley Lee’s column the Los Angeles Times on March 24, you might have seen this warning from Carson Elrod, co-founder of Arts Workers United:
“The theater is not a cause or a charity or sort of feel-good peripheral thing. We’re an integral, dynamic cornerstone to economies all over this country; we’re one of the nation’s biggest exports. And if we’re not doing what we do because we end up doing other jobs, the greater American economy will suffer.”
Unhelpful, hyperbolic blatherskite in its full, italicized glory.
The arts, artists, and nonprofit arts organizations are 3 completely different things.
The arts. Support the arts that move you to support them. There are a number of reasons to do so, but the case for supporting the arts is pretty clear. The arts have the capacity to engender new ideas, calm the body, and inspire action — and that’s reason enough to support them.
[Note: Never say that the arts “nurture the soul.” It’s hackneyed, lazy, and unprovable.]
Artists do not deserve financial support just for being artists. The barrier to entry to create art is so low as to not exist at all. Anyone can create art; ask your local preschooler. Selling one’s art is a different story altogether and requires at least 2 parties to be in agreement. Artists are no more deserving of financial support than any other worker, thinker, or creator.
Arts organizations (either commercial or nonprofit) do not deserve financial support just for presenting art, whether that art be performance-based or visual in nature. Again, the barrier to entry is miniscule — anyone can create a company to present/produce an art piece. And many might be able produce or present art that is of excellent quality, but we’ll never know, because excellence is a subjective — and useless — term for the sector.
Supporting a nonprofit arts organization that has no palpable, quantifiable impact on its community is a fool’s errand — which is why funding has dried up since the pandemic forced funders to infer that arts organizations were not “essential businesses.”
Outside of a very few, no one cares if a nonprofit arts organization closes except its current staff, leaders, board members, artists, and its core audience. Politicking folks may experience temporary wringing of hands, but only for show.
Besides, with a barrier so low, another arts organization could (and often does) take its place immediately.
Milton Friedman
In 1970, infamously misguided greed merchant Milton Friedman opined that every business should benefit the owners thereof. By owners, he meant shareholders.
“In his capacity as a corporate executive, the manager is the agent of the individuals who own the corporation … and his primary responsibility is to them.”
Milton Friedman is the Godfather of the 1%. Owners look for a short-term bottom line, which is why hundreds of CEOs purged thousands (millions?) of jobs to lower expenses. They closed down plants in America and offshored them to cheap labor countries. At its core, Friedman’s philosophy is hatred of government as a social force that can help people, believing instead that our uber-wealthy overlords, upon taking a moment from flying themselves off into space, will take care of little old us.
Milton Friedman was totally, dangerously wrong, and his theory in action is a major cause of ever-widening fiscal disparity.
Adam Smith
Adam Smith, an 18th century Scottish economist and philosopher, had it right:
“Consumption is the whole end and purpose of all production. And the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.”
The consumer is king, not the owner. If consumers want your product, profits follow.
In a nonprofit arts organization — like any nonprofit organization — the consumer is the community. Profits are measured in impact, not in money. Every nonprofit’s value comes from the ability to use its donations and resources to provide a measurable public good.
Sadly, even in the still-burning wildfire embers of the pandemic, nonprofit arts organizations across America (and beyond, one frets) have chosen to mirror their counterparts in the for-profit world. In a for-profit arts project, the consumer is the ticket-buyer. It’s a straight transactional relationship — money for ticket, ticket for experience. Show’s over? End of contract. No public good intended or given. And no further action — donations or otherwise — need occur.
To put it another way: does the cooking of food help to mitigate hunger? The presenting of food? Even if the food is of excellent quality?
No. The cooking and presenting excellent food only helps to mitigate the absence of cooked, presented food.
The consumption of food mitigates hunger, regardless of a chef’s depiction of excellence. And if starving people don’t want your food, they’ll die.
Does the creation of art help to mitigate a desperate need of your community? The presenting of art? Even if the art is of excellent quality?
No. The creation and presentation of excellent art only helps to mitigates the absence of created, presented art.
A desperate community needs tangible help. If your art can serve as a tool to provide that kind of help, you will succeed. Otherwise, it’s irrelevant, no matter how excellent.
And why in the hell would you choose irrelevance? (Is that clear enough for you?)
Still no answers from the quiz two weeks ago, so we’ll just let it sit. Maybe quizzes aren’t your thing. Good to remember.
Based in Kirkland, Washington, Alan Harrison is a writer and speaker specializing in nonprofit organizations, strategy, and life politics. His columns appear regularly in major publications. Contact him directly at alan@501c3.guru. Alan would be delighted to engage with your board or staff.
Alan is always looking for good opportunities to write and consult for nonprofits that need a hand. And, of course, that elusive Perfect Opportunity™.
And hey, if you’re feeling generous, feel free to click on the photo and buy Alan a cup of coffee. Not mandatory at all, but gosh, it’d be nice.
