The Changing Economics of High Art

There are some fascinating economics at play in the structure of the modern literary world, which is coming under attack as a result of the drastic reduction in transmission costs created by the Web. In a former life, I was an aspiring poet while studying for my chemistry degree. My parents, having a better understanding of economics than I did, made it explicit that while they were paying for my education I was studying something that I could use to earn a living.

Before looking at the Economics of poetry, in specific, and art in general, you first have to define its purpose. The question to ask is, what are the motivations of the artist? I see two answers to this question: The artist creates to communicate or the artist creates for the sake of creating. Personally, I see the second as both self-defeating and self-delusional. This formed the basis of an argument I had with my instructor, William Logan, at the time Head of the Creative Writing Department at the University of Florida. He contended that art could exist for its own sake and not be intended for communication. I disagreed saying that for art to exist implies a desire to communicate with someone, even a later, older version of yourself, otherwise you would not spend time creating it. The essence of Mr. Logan’s assertion is that the creation of this art has no purpose at all, that the action is purposeless. The extension of this argument, of course, is that the purity of one’s art exists at the point where you can destroy it immediately after producing it. Even if this were true, once produced the memory of the creative process will communicate itself to you through time, thereby polluting your original intent.

For me this seems self-referential and, to be blunt, stupid.

Art is the by-product of human action and therefore can be treated as an economic commodity, regardless of your intention. Art is, hopefully, born of a passion for a particular moment, event, thing, person, etc. The artist will then tend to seek out both the form(s) (poetry, prose, film, clay, beer!) that best suits his talents and ways to improve his ability to express those talents. This is his contribution to the Division of Labor. In addition, like physicists or engineers or architects (all arguably artists, by the way), the size of the audience with which you can converse knowledgably is inversely proportional to the level of expertise of the artist. This is especially true of poets, whose potential audience beyond pop music lyrics and greeting cards decreases sharply, as does the commercial viability of the poetry. Because these are the boundaries of the market into which they have devoted themselves and, as stated above, their work is born of a passion for both the form itself and the subjects of their work, it is easy to see why elitism born of resentment for the consumer happens. This reaction is akin to the guy who opens up a pork barbecue restaurant in the middle of a Jewish neighborhood and blames his customers for not appreciating his food.

The natural refuge for the serious aspiring poet is then, of course, academia. By the early 20th century in America most, if not all, of the major poets that we still read today were academics, the notable exception being Wallace Stevens who worked as an insurance adjustor. Historically, the patronage system was a direct link between performance and funding. If one did not entertain the Duke who was footing the bill, one was kicked out. In America, before heavy governmental subsidization of university level education became the norm, campuses served as a proxy for the patronage system that preceded it. There was, at some functional level, a direct link between the performance of the artists in a college’s employ and the funding it received. Once tax dollars were used to fund English departments the link between the funding and the product being produced was broken, and whatever lethargy or inefficiency evident in the system previously was now free to flourish. The socialist problem of inadequate pricing information for poetry was the norm rather than the exception.

All of this is in service of an art form with limited appeal and commercial viability.

There are few outlets for work to be published. Very few, if any, poetry magazines exist which are not outgrowths of university presses. There are notable exceptions like Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker or New Republic. Even they only publish a few pieces amidst the rest of their content. The very people who stock the English departments of universities also double as the editors of these journals as well as being the instructors of aspiring poets attending said universities. The entire situation is very insular and self-referential.

The end result is predictable with these established poets acting like the gatekeepers of the True Art, a classic economic barrier-to-entry problem. They decide what is and what is not acceptable. The students must fit that mold if they want to become part of the club. Court politics and currying personal favor is given far more weight than the quality of the work. Students waste energy vying for place in the pack order as opposed to studying their craft. Individuality is paid lip service, as are concepts like u2018finding your unique voice' and u2018carving out your own niche,' but all within certain arbitrary parameters. The student who wants to become a poet must submit to this system or fail. This is not to say that there is necessarily malicious intent at work. Quite the contrary, the people who are in power more often than not think they are upholding the standards of the form through their passion for it.

The net effect to this inadvertent monopoly created by government appropriation of capital is to produce fewer poets of ever decreasing quality and relevance to the society of which their work is supposed to be commenting on. Taking a step back, they themselves become a piece of performance art showcasing the massive economic miscalculation born of misguided good intentions.

Now, that's all the bad news I can come up with. The good news is that this is changing rapidly. Much of this system as described above is an outgrowth of the cost of publishing the work. This is perfectly analogous to the recording and film industries. All of these business models are based on staggering production and distribution costs being the prime determiner of profitability. Today, with the tools available to animators, filmmakers, novelists, poets, musicians, etc., those costs have dropped to nearly zero, or will within the next five years. If you want to be a poet and have someone read your work then start a blog, syndicate it, promote it, advertise it and (most importantly) populate it with your best material. The same thing goes for being a talk-show host, disk jockey, pundit, comedian, comic strip writer, what have you.

Nothing will ever be a substitute for quality. The first rule of blogging is, "Be interesting or Be ignored," or, at least be prolific. While I've been prolific in my blog, I'm unsure as to whether I've been all that interesting considering that my traffic counter works less than most State Employees. The proof of your quality shows up everyday in our Inboxes.

Being a good poet (which I am not) is not born of inspiration alone. There is craft, and it is a learned craft. Writers should read each other's work, comment on it and critique it. Removing the ossified gatekeepers from the situation not only removes them from the equation it stops the setting of aspiring writers against one another in internecine squabbles for the instructor's favor.

Creative Writing Departments are rapidly being replaced by internet writers' groups. I have a friend who started out writing sci-fi fan pornography who is now seriously working towards completing her first novel. She has a group of like-minded friends who she trusts to give her constructive criticism and who have invested themselves in nurturing her raw writing talent (which she has) to its current potential and she does the same for them in return. Her goal is the completion of the novel itself, not the monetary reward thereof. While she apprentices herself in this way she is building a fan-base by publishing her other work. Eventually, she may or may not feel comfortable with charging money for it. The choice is hers. Her readers may decide to reward her with a little hint of immortality.

It is not hard to see a time when it will be the norm that we will stop by a budding artist's blog and see five songs he's written and recorded on his computer offered up with a simple, "Hey, I hope you like what I've done here."

Ta.

March 23, 2005