screw the CRTC

screw the CRTC

Andrew Coyne's article I want my HBO has been getting lots of debate in his comment section. The debate goes well beyond whether the CRTC has outlived its usefulness, and on into whether the government should be subsidizing arts at all.

Here's my take on it:

If an artist cannot produce something that people want to have, then he obviously has failed as an artist. After all, art is about communication of ideas - and if nobody is listening/watching/reading/whatever your art, then, in the words of the warden in Cool Hand Luke, "what we have here is a failure to communicate".

Government subsidy of shoddy art that is observed by nobody promotes mediocrity in art, and worse.

Not many people read my blog. That's fine - I'm not getting a government subsidy to blog anything. I'm not using the government to steal by proxy for me. It's a hobby, nothing more.

So how is it that artists can steal from taxpayers, using the government as a proxy? If they are truly professional artists, then people will willingly pay for their work. If people are unwilling to pay for their work, then the "artist" cannot make a living at it, and art is nothing more than a hobby for them, any more than blogging is for me.