The arts (TV, movies, music, and related fields such as tourism, architecture, design, advertising) are massive industries in the United States. Then of course there are the soft power benefits of having much of the world grow up staring at America at the movies, singing along to American music, wearing blue jeans, etc. Same goes for many other developed economies.

I admit I am someone who appreciates art for its own sake, but after years spent eroding the post-WW2 edge in science and manufacturing, creative endeavors are part of what sustains us materially as well as the intangible ways.

You need a bunch of artists for one Breaking Bad, the same way you need many startups for one Facebook or many scientists for one Einstein.

The fact that a relatively small percentage of worldwide artists have a large chunk of the worldwide audience only furthers my point: mass arts are by definition based on popularity, so we can only have so many artists.

But my point still stands: How many of these artists got art degrees? Rihanna didn't, Kanye dropped out early, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift didn't go to college. Michael Jackson didn't go to college. They do have support staff and some of them may have gone to art school, but there are plenty more folks with art degrees who are struggling.

There are better ways to support the arts than to fund arts degrees. UBI is one example.

Not that I’m arguing against you, but it is interesting to point out that a lot of the music performed by Rihanna and the likes is written composed and produced by people from Sweden, which has a great music education system

This is a viewpoint centered around seeing art as a commodity. To me that's like saying we only need so many scientists. Is perceived value the best metric?

There's a lot of art out there in the world. A whole, whole lot.

If you want to make something artistically creative for people to watch, listen to, or read, you are competing with Mozart, the Beatles, Edgar Allen Poe, Tolkien, and countless other prodigies. Artistic creations made by individuals are a winner-takes-all market where a small fraction of the creators enjoy the majority of the revenue. Artistic creations made by large groups are somewhat fairer (but still often on the low end) in their compensation, if you manage to out compete other job applicants and get the job.

Regardless of whether you as an individual treat art as a commodity, you have to square your viewpoint as a artist with the fact that you have to put bread on the table. Society will very likely reward you very poorly for your artistic contributions.

There is a near-infinite amount of value to be provided by science. Art is inherently zero-sum.

UBI will probably do more to promote the creation of more and better art than subsidizing loans for high tuition degrees.

>orchestra/symphony, opera/musicals

You've chosen the arts which require massive organisation and expense. What about painters, singer-songwriters, writers, poets, etc.?

What about being a painter, singer, writer or poet requires a four year degree? In some cases (in particular, the visual arts) conventional wisdom seems to be that going to school for such a thing narrows artistic vision and creativity into a box.

Actually organizing events requires an entirely different skill set- while having an appreciation for the arts absolutely can help pull off a successful event, it is by no means a requirement.

In visual arts, deep knowledge of what other artists have done, of history, of literature, of geometry, of techniques, of composition, colour theory, etc., etc., generally at least some of these things are crucially important for a visual artist, such as a painter, a print-maker, or a sculptor. Random local artists off the top of my head, Bill Hammond, Tony de Lautour, and Neil Dawson all draw very heavily from at least a few of these things.

> The mass arts that the masses can afford to consume (TV, streaming music, and movies) are by definition based on popularity, so we can only have so many artists.

I'm unreasonably picky and I can never find find enough books / games / tv shows / etc that I actually like. They exist for sure, but I burn through them too quickly, and then I'm left without anything to read/play/watch for a while.

So if we could have ten times as many TV shows to pick from, that would be great as far as I'm concerned. Whether the economics exist to support that is another question of course, and likely the more relevant one.

> The mass arts that the masses can afford to consume (TV, streaming music, and movies) are by definition based on popularity, so we can only have so many artists.

maybe it's a bit los in translation for me, but I wouldn't consider those things really art. For profit gigantic corporations don't produce art. I would say that most art is inherently not able to be a mass-product and therefore every city etc. needs its own art-scene.

Every small town has a church with a choir, that's as much arts as a downtown orchestra.

Most have a theatre nearby too.

How much do we fund arts degrees, compared to, say, engineering, business, and clinical fields? It would be interesting to see the breakdown.

We fund it through Hollywood and Netflix.