Arts & the Economy

Here is an interesting article about the rates of job loss in various sectors of the economy since the 2007 start of the depression/recession, as measured by jobs listing agrregator Monster.com.

It shows that of all areas, the worst rate of loss was in arts & recreation. Notice that rates of job loss in utilities, manufacturing, and especially mining were much lower. This shows that Maslow's hierarchy of needs is indeed true: man's attentions and efforts go first to his most basic physiological needs such as breathing, eating and drinking; once those needs are met he is free to attend to a need for clothing and shelter, and so on up the hierarchy of needs to wider values of safety and security, friendship, and at the highest level, in the most successful society, he is free to meet psychological needs such as the need for self-esteem and art.

And when economic conditions become more dire, we see an opposite progression. Men have no recourse but to retreat down and attend to more evolutionarily primitive and more pressing and dire needs. They no longer have the resources to support that which is uniquely human, that which is creative as well as idealistic. Men are forced to concern themselves primarily with physical requirements and abandon, out of unfortunate necessity, the pursuit of spiritual values.

I would mention however, that there is the phenomenon of "escapism"--according to which people want to (for instance) go to a film or the theater to enter a world that is brighter and lighter than the one they face in daily life. That is certainly true, and it is not just as an anecdotal matter. This relates to the very purpose of art which is to sustain and nurture man's psychological health and his positive view of the world. Perhaps people still meet their need of art, but with minimal expenditure--through borrowed books or through various free offerings of music and public domain material on the internet.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that investment in the arts comes to a radical halt when economic conditions become dire. I think that there is a connection between freedom and economic prosperity. Let's hope, for all our sakes, that the increase of government power we have seen is reversed soon in favor of a renewed respect for individual liberty as the founding father's intended. Then men will be free to prosper and once again turn their resources toward not only the basic necessities, but also to man's higher potentialities.