Underestimating the Value of Culture

In the middle of July, just as the nation’s elected representatives packed their bags for their extremely lengthy summer hols, the tiny elite group of fiscal conservatives widely known as An Bord Snip Nua produced their review of Government spending. While the ranks of Tuscany could scarce forebear to cheer, the ranks of everywhere else were less chuffed.

The great and good have cut and thrust at the report, and at each other, over the analysis and recommendations. Like many others, the Hog has opinions about much of the document — but that’s not the target of this column.
One can rumble back and forth over the detail, but that’s to be drawn into the game on the other’s terms. It is far more interesting to look at the underlying assumptions and ideologies that inhere.
While the authors have not been shy about using their elbows where it suited, in general they have stuck to the narrow objective of looking at spending only. The prospect that particular cuts might lead to even greater inefficiencies, or subsequent increases in expenditure, is just too bad. And the report seems to ignore the fact that in many enterprises, wages are actually increasing.
The authors can argue that they had to stick to their parameters, and that’s probably fair enough. Also, the current high tide of old-school economics isn’t necessarily a bad thing, given firstly the profusion of often overlapping public services established by Government (not by the public service itself, though you’d not know that if you were to heed the anti-public service ranter commentariat) and secondly the excesses of bankers and builders. But its value set is too narrow to prepare Ireland for the next leap forward.
By way of example, the text of the review indicates that there should be cuts in the arts area, since this is a low priority for spending in the current very straitened circumstances.
If you are simply bookkeeping, maybe so. Or perhaps the Bord are of the view that arts and culture are hoity-toity elite pursuits and what we need is to spend more time swallyin’ pints an’ singin’ ballads an’ makin’ recitations…
Either way, the huge contribution the arts make to the economy as well as Irish society and culture is dismissed out of hand.
But people are employed in the arts. As Garry Hynes of Druid pointed out, they may not be well paid but they’re not on the dole and they pay their taxes. Any subventions should surely be benchmarked against grants and supports for industry.
And then there’s tourism. I know, Real Madrid came for the cool weather training, but honestly, very few people come here for the weather. The scenery? Maybe, but more and more say that it’s been catastrophically compromised by building activity in the last fifteen years. Which leaves culture and this is an increasingly significant draw, and moreover one that doesn’t require the services of the IDA.
So why is it a low priority?
Had a broader view been taken, the Bord would have taken into consideration how the arts contribute to Irish society and culture and to the skills and knowledge we will require in the smart economy that is to come.
Societies that place a premium on creativity and thinking skills have more successful economies than those who don’t. Creativity permeates Finnish society: it’s seen to be the fuel that powers their industrial and commercial machine, not just within companies but also across the economy.
Shouldn’t we also think like this?
Finally, like sports, the arts help us feel good about ourselves. And in these deeply depressing times, that’s worth a percentage point or two on productivity.
But it seems this is not understood. The dismissal of the arts suggests that the Bord knows the cost of everything but the value of nothing.
As to how it will all pan out from here, who knows? Probably many Government backbenchers hope that the forthcoming review of taxation will yield a magic bullet that will stabilise public finances. It might, of course, but I doubt it. In which case, we might as well enjoy the last weeks of the rainy season, because the winter will be dog rough.