Capitalism Doesn't Produce Great Art | (Ep. 174)
Stories Are Soul Food
Canon Press
4.8 • 787 Ratings
🗓️ 21 January 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As a conservative artist who's been working in the mainstream since 2007, Nate has an artistic opinion that's going to get conservative folks angry: Capitalism doesn't produce great art. Lest you join this commenter who said "this take is so dumb it got me to engage, brilliant", if you care about this topic, you need to listen to the whole episode. Nate's argument is that the incentives of capitalism reward the MOST entertainment, for the MOST people, for the MOST money. But actual greatness of art? That's not a problem that capitalism is solving for. Capitalism is a Delta stewardess serving cheese cubes to the Delta Sky Club Diamond members. It'll get you the most cheese cubes at the lowest price, but it's not not gonna get a steak. Instead, Nate argues for a return of patronage. Cathedrals, requiems, masses, paintings, statuary -- it's all been the result of patronage. Brian objects. Nate qualifies. The truth is that when streaming is king, an uncompromising demand for excellence and improvement only eats into your profit, because a creator's profit is capped by the streaming service. How do you resist the allure of cold hard cash if you're a creator? Better make sure you have principles you can hold on to beyond the desire for money.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Met a ghost of a king on the road when I first fell. |
| 0:04.2 | Fire burning to my knees to my knees. |
| 0:06.7 | I fell. |
| 0:07.3 | Made a ghost of a king on a row. |
| 0:09.5 | That's a great question. |
| 0:10.5 | Nate said recently, very recently. |
| 0:14.3 | Right before we actually started the show, which was like, oh, oh, we have to talk about that now. |
| 0:18.1 | I said something along the lines of capitalism capitalism never produces great art. Yeah, the greatest art. You can qualify that. |
| 0:26.9 | Any of those words a tiny bit, but really, the nugget of truth. Why qualify? The nugget |
| 0:31.4 | of truth remains that the great art isn't from capitalism. It's from patronage. |
| 0:37.0 | Often, but it's really, it's from artists who basically are motivated by different rewards |
| 0:45.0 | and different incentives. |
| 0:46.8 | Okay, because you said your question that kind of kicked off that was, who's trying to make |
| 0:51.3 | the 300-year cathedral right now? |
| 0:53.3 | Yeah. |
| 0:54.4 | And those guys, I guess, were not motivated by patronage. |
| 0:58.3 | Yeah, well, the architects and the people who are trying to do that, |
| 1:01.6 | the people who tried to achieve really great, let's say, transcendent art. |
| 1:07.2 | And even using the word transcendent art, like powerful, powerful, moving transcendent art, |
| 1:14.6 | we use that word trying to describe it. Why? It's like, well, because it transcends what? What is |
| 1:21.8 | it transcending? It's transcending time, generations, place. |
| 1:32.2 | When people really, really find something magnificent and achieve something magnificent, it transcends trend |
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