1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910821286203321

Autore

Cowen Tyler

Titolo

Good & plenty : the creative successes of American arts funding / / Tyler Cowen

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Princeton, N.J. : , : Princeton University Press, , 2006

©2006

ISBN

1-282-08736-3

9786612087363

1-4008-2700-0

Edizione

[Course Book]

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (206 pages)

Disciplina

700.79/73

Soggetti

Art and state - United States

Federal aid to the arts - United States

Aesthetics - Economic aspects

Culture - Economic aspects

United States Cultural policy

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references (p. 169-188) and index.

Nota di contenuto

Warring perspectives -- Indirect subsidies: the genius of the American system -- Direct subsidies: are they too conservative? -- Copyright and the future of decentralized incentives -- Toward a beautiful and liberal future.

Sommario/riassunto

Americans agree about government arts funding in the way the women in the old joke agree about the food at the wedding: it's terrible--and such small portions! Americans typically either want to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts, or they believe that public arts funding should be dramatically increased because the arts cannot survive in the free market. It would take a lover of the arts who is also a libertarian economist to bridge such a gap. Enter Tyler Cowen. In this book he argues why the U.S. way of funding the arts, while largely indirect, results not in the terrible and the small but in Good and Plenty--and how it could result in even more and better. Few would deny that America produces and consumes art of a quantity and quality comparable to that of any country. But is this despite or because of



America's meager direct funding of the arts relative to European countries? Overturning the conventional wisdom of this question, Cowen argues that American art thrives through an ingenious combination of small direct subsidies and immense indirect subsidies such as copyright law and tax policies that encourage nonprofits and charitable giving. This decentralized and even somewhat accidental--but decidedly not laissez-faire--system results in arts that are arguably more creative, diverse, abundant, and politically unencumbered than that of Europe. Bringing serious attention to the neglected issue of the American way of funding the arts, Good and Plenty is essential reading for anyone concerned about the arts or their funding.