Artists and Socialism

[Martin Hash]

Socialism can mean anything from a benign dictator to Communism but its overriding principle is authoritarian public elites telling the unwashed masses what to do. Socialism is popular among those who abhor personal responsibility, would benefit from forced sharing, and whose careers are held in lower esteem than they think they deserve. One group that fits all those motivations is artists: since art has no real productivity benefit, there isn’t a lot of demand for it in a market-driven society, so the vast majority of so-called “artists” garner neither money nor respect, and they are notorious for bad personal life choices.

Though artist are not held in as high regard, they desperately want to be, and in socialist society can override market pressures by making themselves important through democracy: state-recognized esteem that also provides money, and absorbs personal responsibility. In fact, artists benefit most from the equality end of socialism: if you want to know who the egalitarians are, start with artists. Like most proponents of equality, artists don’t actually want equality because they think they’re superior: just ask one, they call themselves “creatives;” and since art is in the eye of the beholder, with socialism at their backs, artists can vote others into treating them with the dignity they deserve.