Art HeavenThe economist Tyler Cowen thinks we live in a cultural paradise. Do we?

On the whole, however, Cowen marshals his catholic taste effectively. To him, cultural variety is the essence of cultural vitality. And he is persuasive in arguing that capitalism fosters the vast panoply of forms and expressions he enjoys. In 1947, there were 85,000 books in print in the United States. In 1996, the number was 1.3 million. In the same span, 357 publishers have turned into an incredible 49,000, many of which exist to make arty and noncommercial literature available. Elsewhere, Cowen notes that CDs of works by even obscure contemporary classical composers can be found for sale in suburban shopping malls. Contra the cultural pessimists, Cowen believes that great and enduring art is being created all over the place--even if it will only become clear with the passage of time what it is.

Yet the larger picture of cultural health offered here is seriously flawed. The problem begins with Cowen's praise for the United States as a country in which the arts are privately supported, as opposed to Western European countries, where culture is subsidized and protected. Cowen is right about the National Endowment for the Arts debate--it's foolish to believe the fate of American civilization hinges on the tiny amount the federal government spends on direct arts subsidies. But he fails to appreciate the extent to which the arts in this country are funded with indirect government subsidies, mainly tax deductibility of charitable contributions. Cowen may feel that this is preferable to the European system of direct support because it is less meddlesome. But he can't pretend that it's not a public contribution of several billion dollars a year, which keeps a vast number of otherwise nonviable cultural institutions in business and supplements the market's production of pop culture with more esoteric art of the kind he responds to.

So opposed is Cowen to the idea of government support for the arts that he tries to extend his argument against it back in time. One of his weirder themes is that aristocratic patronage--the ancestor of public arts subsidies--has always been bad for art, while commercial patronage--rich people buying works from artists--is always good. This is pretty silly; whether a patron pays an artist in advance or on delivery is a minor distinction. A less doctrinaire view would acknowledge that there are certain kinds of art--grand opera, monumental sculpture, highbrow filmmaking, poetry--that can seldom sustain themselves in a commercial environment. If we want them, we have to find a way to help them. Support that is interventionist and heavy-handed, whether from the government or rich individuals, can corrupt and enervate artistic creation. Enlightened support needn't do so.

Cowen's own logic doesn't necessarily lead to his conclusion. If the point is to have the widest possible range of cultural choice, a variety of economic systems might be preferable. Feudalism in its death throes produced great 19^th century Russian literature as well as blues music, which Cowen is very fond of. Communism shaped the writing of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Joseph Brodsky, and Milan Kundera as well as the most interesting films of the 1980s. In Eastern Europe, especially, political and economic freedom appear to be failing to produce the equal of what emerged under Communism. This isn't an argument for oppression. But it is an answer to Cowen's theory that capitalism automatically produces the greatest art. In reality, art is unpredictable and may flourish under the most unlikely conditions.

But the larger way Cowen is mistaken is in his flawed presumption that cultural vitality is synonymous with variety. If you hold the position that the healthiest civilization is the biggest supermarket of cultural products, then all you need is an Amazon.com for consumer capitalism to triumph. But there are more aspects to a nation's cultural life than this quantitative view encompasses. Cowen's approach gives you no sense, for example, of whether and how much art matters to most Americans. Though probably more a cultural optimist than pessimist, I would argue that there is too little overlap between what's great and what's popular. High culture in the United States is a relatively successful niche product. What we lack is a flourishing common or national culture. Contemporary classical music goes unperformed, foreign films have no audience, and hardly anyone reads contemporary poetry. Meanwhile, pap abounds. Even Cowen doesn't get around to defending our true "commercial culture"--television, video games, and Hollywood movies. In terms an economist might understand, the supply side of our cultural life looks pretty good. It's demand that ought to give one pause.