Where are benefits of arts subsidies?

MARY Hanafin assured voters present at the opening of Cork Film Festival recently that she understood the necessity of subsidising the arts.

She emphasised the ‘benefits’ to the economy that such subsidisation brings. There are many who argue that subsidising the arts brings non-economic benefits to the country, though it’s hard to see how freeing artists from the need to satisfy customers improves anything. Citing economic benefits, however, is just nonsense.

If an industry needs to be subsidised to survive, then it is necessarily loss-making and destroys more resources than it creates.