HW #5 Econ 108

A.
 Bastiat's piece called Theaters and Fine Arts has mixed reviews on whether a government should support arts by subsidizing them. He says that arts are important because they poetize the soul of our nation. An interesting point that he made was that the theaters that prosper are the ones that do everything on their own and get their own profit. Bastiat argues that luxury industries like theatre only get hurt by taxes. He then says that if the state doesn't subsidize artists, that the public will see economists as barbarians that see the arts as being useless. I was shocked to see that they would look at the arts any differently than a normal business when it comes to the aid and taxes that they charge them. Especially since the main point of owning a theatre is to make profit. Bastiat feels that the theater and fine arts industry should develop naturally without disorder and tyranny.

People against Bastiat's ideas thought that something that is not subsidized or regulated should be abolished. They thought that nothing would survive in the industry that taxes do not keep alive. Bastiat saw that their fate was in mankind not the legislator.

Bastiat thought that if the state gives actors money, than the people who supply the taxpayers needs lose earnings.  Pretty much that he is saying that by subsidizing one profession, you are lowering the wages of another one. I thought that this was a very interesting point that I never thought about before. He argues that public spending keeps the working class alive.  Public spending replaces private spending. This may replace one worker for another but does nothing for the working class as a whole. This is Bastiat's argument against his advocates. He also thinks that by subsidizing art, you take away from the creativity and freedom from it since the art would be regulated by the state. I agree with Bastiat's point of view on this topic.


B.
If a theatre is failing financially, should the state then help them out financially, or would this be thought of as a broken window fallacy since the service that that theatre is providing is not valued by the public?

Why do people think that economists want art to be abolished even when economists claim that art should not be supported by the government financially.

C.

The main point of the article is whether or not the state should support and subsidize the arts. Bastiat feels that art should not be financed by the government because it will take away from the creativity of the industry. He feels that artists should be motivated by the art itself rather than the money they are getting from the state.

Bastiat claims that some people think that if economists are not for subsidizing art, then they are against the arts altogether. Bastiat goes on to say how this is wrong and how he does not want to subsidize are for the good of the art. He wants to protect the free minded creativity and expression of art by not subsidizing and regulating artists.

Another one of Bastiat's arguments is that if you give artists money from the state, than other jobs would not get as much money from the state and their wages would go down. This would hurt these other industries which might be just as if not more important than the art industry.