[POLICY IDEA] Arts and sports subsidies. Your thoughts?

I’m thinking of adding a policy to the public services section where the government subsidies art. maybe also another one for sport. here’s what I’m thinking:

The arts subsidy will please liberals. It will slightly upset capitalists, as its a subsidy and against their principles. Maybe it will upset the poor and socialists, who feel there are better uses for government money? In the UK, most arts subsidies are spent on the opera, and are thus popular with the wealthy. Is this normal?
If we assume arts subsidies include film, this could be a way of promoting national culture. should this be good for international relations? Should arts subsidies stimulate a film industry and have a long term positive effect on GDP?

A sports subsidy will please parents slightly, as it means better sports facilities for the kids. it will also improve lifespan slightly by encouraging healthy kids. It will have a slight negative effect on capitalists because of the whole subsidy thing. Will a sports subsidy reduce crime slightly by getting kids off the streets?

What do you think?

I’m assuming there’s no way to code the responses of identical groups in differing nations, individually. Because that way, you could duplicate the queasiness of conservatives over public arts support in the US, and their strong support for it in Germany.

That aside, if as a Democracy 2 political leader you require your government to support “the arts,” I think the player should define what that means through sliders controlling pie slices. Logically, the results of:

Fine arts direct subsidies: 10%
Federal arts grants: 10%
School arts programs: 20%
Regional arts councils: 60%

…should not offend capitalists at all, since it would bring more money in to be spent on local economies. It could even receive a small boost from them. School arts programs would please “liberals,” but especially parents, while socialists and bureaucrats might prefer federal arts grants. Direct subsidies are something that works very well in some countries, such as your own, where BBC’s Radio 4 is funded (as you know) through a direct tax. But how could one define the groups that would favor or oppose direct subsidies? Perhaps as socialist and liberal, while disliked by conservatives?

I think:

  • Large sport subsidies will increase nation’s competitiveness worldwide: more popularity with patriots, slightly less with socialists. May be attract tourists?
  • I suspect sport subsidies could negatively affect religious people.
  • Sport subsidies could raise the possibility of country hosting a major sporting event, thus increasing employment in building, tourism etc.
  • Art subsidies should increase literacy. And may be please conservatives.
  • May be art subsidies could result in slight decrease in productivity & stuff (some old buildings can’t be demolished due to their architectural value).

Hmmm. its a fairly complex issue when we start to break it down isn’t it? I’m looking for some extra policies to add to the game, but I think arts subsidies may be a bit too complicated.

Maybe then one policy “Cultural Subsidies” or something like that with a classical none, minimal, medium, maximum? About sports there could be a dilemma: I remember a few years ago in my country when there were discussions about hosting the Olympics (together with the Netherlands) of 20?? There was quite a discussion going on about it. So you could have somekind of sport event that the nation could host.

well, in Italy we have a number of different subsidies for arts, ranging from support for indipendent film-making to state pensions for retired great artists. In an abstract way, a “art&culture subsidiary policy” would increasy literacy a bit, upset the poor as it is “luxury” spending of their taxes, please the wealthy as they are the principal customers of operas, art galleries and first-class theatres, please the liberal (who represent also intellectuals, to an extent), upset a bit the capitalists for the reason you mentioned. Also increase tourism, if it is possibile. Perhaps, more free art means more attacks on tradition, therefore a problem with conservatorism. I don’t think there must be a decrease in productivity, as productivity is a very large issue and art sudsidies have a small impact on the average worker. It’s not a too complex policy, and would be a nice one.

Well you could break it into two separate policies for arts. Like one could be ‘fine arts’ like opera, and fancy rich people paintings. Then another subsidy could be for ‘common arts’ like people who paint in their free time and stuff.

A report on the arts and public perceptions

http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/33870/06_entire_overview.pdf