Art and the Marketplace

http://distributism.blogspot.com/2010/01/art-and-marketplace.html

A recent post for another blog that I write for, The American Catholic, on the role that music played in my conversion from atheistic communism to traditional Catholicism has prompted some criticism. In that post, I questioned and criticized the argument of Ludwig von Mises regarding the effects of 'capitalism' upon culture. This in turn sparked a debate over the role that markets have played in developing truly great art.

So it was suggested to me that I listen to a lecture by Paul Cantor of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, "The Economics of Classical Music: Patronage vs. the Market", presumably, so that I may see the benefits of commerce on music. In this post I will explain what I think the Austrian attitude towards commerce and culture is, why it fails (in Cantor's case, in a rather ironic fashion) to translate into convincing arguments, and on which points I actually do agree with them.

I am certainly not claiming to present here a comprehensive overview of the Austrian school's attitude towards art and culture. So consider this the Austrian view as I have been exposed to it thus far: an afore named lecture by Eric Cantor, a chapter of Mises' book The Anti-Capitalist Mentality, and selections from a book by another Austrian writer, Tyler Cowen, In Praise of Commercial Culture. There are two "big" arguments that I wish to address separately.

The first argument, which runs through Cantor's lecture and Cowen's book, is that the development of commercial culture in Europe was, on the whole, beneficial for the arts. Commercial culture enabled the wealth necessary for the performance and development of more complex forms of music to come about. Now, for books that purport to challenge a supposedly dominant "Marxist" view, this is a rather uncontroversial argument. Frederich Engels castigated Eugene Duhring in his famous polemic, Anti-Duhring, for his moral dismissal of ancient cultures that were based upon slavery. Engels was emphatic; without the class divisions inherent in the ancient societies, science and the arts would have been impossible. That is to say, Marx and Engels were certainly not retroactive socialists, even if they sympathized with the "progressive" and more egalitarian movements of each epoch. The class divisions of the past were recognized as ultimately necessary for the development of human society. Insofar as they made possible the development of culture, of arts and sciences, they were even justifiable - so Engels informs Duhring. As far as the nuts-and-bolts relationship between art and commerce is concerned, Marx, Engels, Cantor and Cowen would probably find much to agree upon.

And I agree as well, with the caveat that I do not necessarily believe that what was taking place as Renaissance polyphony was developing, when the Baroque masters were composing, or even when the classical and early Romantic geniuses were at work, was "capitalism." As so often happens, it is very easy for opponents to talk past and over one another. An Austrian might find reason to dismiss this distinction, but it is one I find rather significant - the dividing line between industrial, and pre-industrial "capitalism." The mere existence of trade and commerce, which has gone on since the beginning of human civilization, does not in my mind instantly qualify as "capitalism." And even if I were to concede that it did, the Industrial Revolution would still stand out as a pivotal event in human civilization, pushing forwardqualitative historical changes not only in economics, politics, science, and similar fields, but all of the arts as well.

So, to establish this first point: my aim was never to object to commerce as such. Modern "commercialism" or consumerism, based on industry and mass media, upon psychological manipulation and scientific social research, cannot be compared to whatever embryonic, barely-existent forms it took before the 20th century. The commercial development that Cantor spoke of still took place within the context of Christendom, albeit an increasingly fragmented Christendom. Standards of art and beauty that were derived from the Medieval reappraisals of Plato and Aristotle were still the cultural norms; a fiddle player could not insist that his latest diddy be performed in the cathedral at Chartres as a matter of free expression, finding liturgical music that "speaks to my experiences", or some other nonsense. The consensus, if you will, was that music could be objectively judged and assigned a specific purpose depending on its form and content.

Even Cantor understands this. He stated repeatedly in his lecture that Bach was the greatest composer of all time. And yet, as he also admits, Bach's music was not the product of a predominantly commercial culture, but of patronage - of aristocrats and churches. What is true for Bach was especially true of all of his predecessors, from the early masters of Renaissance polyphony such as Josquin des Prez, to its summit in Palestrina and Monteverdi, and later the development of Baroque culminating in Gabrieli, Vivaldi, and several others.

At every turn it was the Catholic Church that promoted the development of this glorious, timeless, sacred music. Commerce played a secondary role at best. The aim of the Church, and of the composers, was to glorify God. Of course the great artists wanted to earn a living as well; no one denies this. But it would be even more absurd to deny, upon actually hearing and absorbing their creations, that their primary aim - in Bach's case, stated explicitly - was to give glory to God.

What happens in the classical era doesn't sound much better for the market either. I quote Cantor as admitting that the market, perhaps, "deserves 50% of the credit" for the flowering of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, et. al. 50%? That's it?

But that isn't the problem. Of course new technologies made the composition of increasingly sophisticated music possible. For this, I will heartily thank commerce. But as Cantor simply cannot deny, aristocratic and especially religious patronage is what provided the true backbone for the development of what I believe, and what apparently he believes, are the greatest musical achievements of Western civilization. And if the role of commerce in the rise of the classical masters was only 50%, what was it for Bach? 30%? Palestrina? 10%?

So how much commerce do we need, if our aim is the facilitation of glorious, uplifting, timeless works of art? We clearly need some. But do we need a culture in which "commercialism" has become the dominant tendency? Can anyone survey the modern musical landscape and answer in the affirmative?

But apparently the Austrians are not of one mind. For while Cantor, the actual student of music, declares repeatedly that there is a best composer and that his name was Johann Sebastian Bach (and does so while making the distinction between the best and his favorite, Brahms), the originator of the Austrian School, Ludwig von Mises, states bluntly and boldly in his book, The Anti-Capitalist Mentality:

The judgment about the merits of a work of art is entirely subjective. Some people praise what others disdain. There is no yardstick to measure the aesthetic worth of a poem or of a building.

Stop the presses! Entirely subjective? Within the same school, we see how differently the artist and the economist, the lover of beauty and the lover of utility, approach the same subject. And I know that there are some sharp Catholic minds within the modern Austrian school that couldn't possibly agree with Mises on this point, because it is obviously wrong, it is comically wrong, and especially from the perspective of Catholicism. But then, Mises was no Catholic. Contrast what one of the most brilliant Catholic minds of the 20th century, Pope Pius XI wrote about the average person's capacity to appreciate the highest manifestations of beauty, and what Mises wrote. Here is Pius XI, in Quadragesimo Anno:

Truly the mind shudders... when we reflect upon the universal weakening of that truly Christian sense through which even rude and unlettered men were wont to value higher things...

And here is Mises:

Only people who are endowed with a spark of the artistic mentality are fit to appreciate and to enjoy the work of an artist.

The Church did not commission the creation of music and other works of art for the edification of one class, but of all men. I don't believe Pius is misreading history when he notes a weakening of that which was once strong, a universal recognition of objective beauty, and its distinction from all things vulgar. And here is Mises, rationalizing the corrosive effect of the relentless commodification of music by degrading man as such. It is even more absurd when he follows this statement with this:

Among those who make pretense to the appellation of educated men there is much hypocrisy.

I agree. But can we not say the same of people who have a self-appointed "spark of the artistic mentality"? No, we should not allow the lettered snobs to dictate to us what is good and what is not. If they did, my favorite composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff, would be consigned to the dustbin of musical history. He was an example of a composer whose work was accessible and popular on the one hand, and transcendent and timeless in its beauty on the other. The critics did not like Rachmaninoff. Not only was he popular, he was popular precisely because he was "backward looking." What was Sergei looking back upon? Some will say Tchaikovsky or Chopin, and this is partially true. But to listen to his religious compositions, of which every sympathetic review has said are the pinnacle of Russian Orthodox sacred music, he is clearly looking back to the same time and place that Pius XI was, when men knew the difference between good and bad. He was looking back at a Russia destroyed by the Bolsheviks, who replaced art with bombastic propaganda.

Mises goes on to list a number of 19th century composers, writers, etc. as examples of the flaws of the cultural decline argument. But I would still maintain that the full ramifications of industrial capitalism had yet to take control of Western culture. At that point there was no Hollywood, there were no record companies, there was no MTV. And if Cantor is to be believed, commerce didn't play that great of a role. What great music that continued to be produced throughout the early decades of capitalist development, in my view, probably owed more to the residuals of pre-industrialism than industrial capitalism itself.

The rest of Mises arguments are barely worth addressing. He goes on for a bit about how the art of the past was only accessible to the rich - after he declared it off limits to anyone lacking an artistic spark in any case. Mises sees in the construction of glorious cathedrals and palaces nothing but indulgences in luxury - spoken like a true Puritan. The same Church that built the cathedrals and made possible the greatest music in the history of Western civilization, was also the primary source of support for the poor and the sick. The ridiculous myth that the Church watched people starve while commissioning vainglorious works of art is belied by a thousand years of actual history. And it was the proto-capitalists, the robber barons, who turned places such as medieval England upside down in the pursuit of commercial profit, and then ransacked the Church, the only organization left that could take care of displaced, jobless peasants.

The Austrian approach to the history of art and music is fragmented and contradictory, utterly conventional when it is right, and insulting when it is wrong. It is a rationalization for what many people recognize as an unwelcome side-effect of modern capitalism. For my part, I certainly don't oppose industrialization, or even capitalism for that matter. But I do oppose cultural relativism, which is the inevitable consequence of unchecked market activity and unchecked market thinking. A commercial culture guided by the influence of the Catholic Church is something I would welcome.

A commercial culture guided by relativists such as Mises has given us a cultural wasteland, has destroyed objective standards of beauty and perfection, has utterly corrupted the sacred liturgy and detached millions of Christians from an indescribably rich spiritual heritage in music, and has allowed society to degenerate through the proliferation of music that speaks only to raw emotion, to irrational passion and lust. This music is the background noise to the cultural revolution which has threatened the integrity of the family, shattered the bonds of marriage, made it acceptable to murder unborn children, and elevated crude self-interest high above social obligation and humility before God. Mises was, as far as I know, an atheist. Catholics ought to know better