Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano are now legendary, as much because of NEA support of their work as for the work itself. This is one example of what can happen when politics meets culture, and it provides an appropriate snapshot of the issues explored in this book. As in other policy areas, cultural policies develop within a particular political context, evolve as a consequence of government action or inattention, and affect a variety of publics and interests. In this volume, the contributors explore the inescapable politics accompanying public culture. Surveying the philosophical, economic, legal, and political underpinnings of cultural assistance, they articulate not only governments role in the support of the arts, but also basic questions for future cultural policy. Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano are now legendary, as much because of NEA support of their work as for the work itself. This is one example of what can happen when politics meets culture, and it provides an appropriate snapshot of the issues explored in this book. As in other policy areas, cultural policies develop within a particular political context, evolve as a consequence of government action or inattention, and affect a variety of publics and interests.Americas Commitment to Culture discusses government support of culture as a public policy area. The book focuses on the rationales underlying public support for the arts and examines the development and practice of government as an arts patron. The contributors explore the inescapable politics accompanying public culture. Surveying the philosophical, economic, legal, and political underpinnings of cultural assistance, they articulate not only governments role in the support of the arts, but also basic questions for future cultural policy.

The subject of government and the arts has been a major point of political controversy in the 1990s. This book gives perspective to this debate by tracing the full history of the topic in all the times and circumstances when it arose in U.S. history. This is the only book that studies the history of the debate over the concept, looking at the arguments over initiatives which gained government support as well as over those which did not.

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.

State government spending on the arts is minimal-and may be losing ground relative to other state expenditures. The authors examine efforts made by state arts agencies, or SAAs, to address a changing political and fiscal environment and present their findings on the risks and rewards of bringing the arts and political worlds closer together.

The 2001 second edition of this survey of the economics of - and public policy towards - the fine arts and performing arts covers arts at federal, state, and local levels in the United States as well as the international arts sector. The work will interest academic readers in the field and scholars of the sociology of the arts, as well as general readers seeking a systematic analysis of the arts. Theoretical concepts are developed from scratch so that readers with no background in economics can follow the argument. The authors look at the arts' historical growth and then examine consumption and production of the live performing arts and the fine arts, the functioning of arts markets, the financial problems of performing arts companies and museums, and the key role of public policy. A final chapter speculates about the future of art and culture in the United States.

This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.