'Game of funds: return of the culture wars?'

In this essay on The Conversation, Gretchen Coombs and Justin O'Connor discuss the relationship between arts and culture, and the economy, in Australia. Examining our current political situation and the cuts to arts funding, they suggest a need to widen our currently limited conception of the "value" of art and culture.

Coombs and O'Connor argue:

"…that the value of the arts cannot be captured by economic impact or those quasi-economic models which “do-gooder” economists constantly foist on arts and culture in an attempt to get them to sharpen their act….

Try saying that culture and economics may be increasingly intertwined, but that this has brought some highly toxic consequences for culture. It is not so much that this or that cultural activity has been put out of business or subjected to relentless commercialisation (though this is clearly the case), it is more that the very possibility of arts and culture to articulate values apart from the economic has been severely diminished."

Gretchen Coombs and Justin O'Connor, The Conversation, 'Game of funds: return of the culture wars?' 3 August 2012